The FE Reference Handbook, during the exam

Nearly every equation you are allowed to use is handed to you. That sounds generous until you are 90 seconds into a question trying to find one. The handbook is not a revision aid you memorise — it is a document you have to navigate under a clock.

You do not bring it — it is on the screen

The handbook is supplied inside the exam software as a searchable PDF, alongside the question. You cannot bring a printed copy, your own annotated copy, or notes of any kind into the test centre. Everyone sits the same exam with the same document open.

The exam chrome, replicated: timer, flags, navigator and the one-way section submit. On exam day the handbook is a searchable PDF on the same screen as the question, so the real constraint is screen space and search time, not recall. Our mock does not embed the handbook — NCEES licenses it for personal use — so keep your own copy open beside it.

What is in it, and what is not

The handbook is a reference, not a textbook. The distinction decides how you should practise with it.

  • Included: the governing equations for every knowledge area on your exam
  • Included: property tables, charts and unit conversions
  • Included: physical constants and standard material values
  • Not included: worked examples showing how a formula is applied
  • Not included: derivations, or any explanation of where an equation comes from
  • Not included: anything you wrote yourself — no annotations carry into the exam

Finding the page is the skill

Knowing that an equation exists is not the same as reaching it in time. The candidates who struggle are rarely the ones who forgot the physics; they are the ones who spent two minutes searching a term the handbook files under a different name.

Which makes this a practisable skill rather than a matter of luck. Practising with the same document open, under the same clock, is the only way to find out which terms you reach for that the handbook does not use.

Which edition you will be given

NCEES issues a new handbook roughly every year, and you get whichever edition is effective on your test date — not the one that was current when you started studying. Practising against a superseded edition means learning page locations that have moved. Every question on this site is built against edition 10.6.

Where do you get the FE Reference Handbook 10.6 PDF?

From NCEES, free. The copy you download is the same edition that appears on screen during the exam, so studying with it is how you learn where things are before the clock starts.

  1. Sign in to MyNCEESThe account you register for the exam with. Creating one costs nothing.
  2. Open Reference handbooksNCEES lists the handbook for every exam it writes.
  3. Download the FE handbookCheck that the cover reads version 10.6 before you study from it.
NCEES reference handbooks

Where to go next

Practise for it

A full-length FE Civil mock on the real exam's clock, free once every 30 days, or eight questions in a few minutes to see where you are thin.

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