Administered by National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES)
The Professional Engineer (PE) Civil Construction exam has 80 questions and 8 hours of exam time within a 9-hour appointment. It is computer-based, year-round at NCEES-approved Pearson VUE test centers.
The national licensing exam for civil engineers who build the works rather than size them, and one of five discipline options under the Professional Engineer (PE) Civil exam.
Required for a California civil engineering license, together with the two California exams.
The California civil engineering license path
California engineer-in-training certification requires passing the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam plus three years of postsecondary engineering education, engineering experience, or a combination of the two.
Six years of qualifying engineering experience in the branch applied for.
An approved (ABET-accredited) engineering degree is credited as four years; an approved postgraduate engineering degree can be credited up to five.
Pass the NCEES FE and PE Civil exams before applying for licensure.
After the application is approved in technical review, pass the two California exams, Civil Seismic Principles and Civil Engineering Surveying, offered in quarterly windows.
Designed for engineers with at least four years of post-college work experience in the discipline.
NCEES has posted new PE Civil exam specifications effective beginning April 2027; exams before then use the current specifications.
PE Civil Construction exam format
Format: computer-based, year-round at NCEES-approved Pearson VUE test centers
Questions: 80
Appointment: 9 hours: 2-minute nondisclosure agreement, 8-minute tutorial, 8 hours of exam time, 50-minute scheduled break
Item types: multiple choice plus alternative item types
Reference material: NCEES supplies an electronic reference handbook and the specified design standards
Fees: see the certifying body's own page; this site does not print them
PE Civil Construction sample question
Earthwork: haul quantities · an original practice item written only from publicly available sources, not a real exam question
A contractor must haul 1,000 bank cubic yards of wet clay that swells 20% when excavated and weighs 3,600 lb per loose cubic yard. Each truck carries 12 loose cubic yards heaped but has a legal payload of 20 tons. How many truckloads are needed?
84
90
100
108
Answer and working
D. 108
Loose volume = 1,000 × 1.20 = 1,200 loose cubic yards. The payload limit allows 40,000 lb ÷ 3,600 lb = 11.1 loose cubic yards per truck, less than the 12 heaped, so weight governs. Loads = 1,200 ÷ 11.1 = 108. 100 lets volume govern (1,200 ÷ 12), 90 applies the weight limit but forgets the swell (1,000 ÷ 11.1), and 84 does neither (1,000 ÷ 12, rounded up).
PE Civil Construction questions answered
What is the format of the PE Civil Construction exam?
80 questions, computer-based, year-round at NCEES-approved Pearson VUE test centers, multiple choice plus alternative item types. The appointment is 9 hours: 2-minute nondisclosure agreement, 8-minute tutorial, 8 hours of exam time, 50-minute scheduled break. NCEES supplies an electronic reference handbook and the specified design standards.
How does the PE Civil Construction exam fit the path to a California civil engineering license?
Required for a California civil engineering license, together with the two California exams. Six years of qualifying engineering experience in the branch applied for. An approved (ABET-accredited) engineering degree is credited as four years; an approved postgraduate engineering degree can be credited up to five. Pass the NCEES FE and PE Civil exams before applying for licensure. After the application is approved in technical review, pass the two California exams, Civil Seismic Principles and Civil Engineering Surveying, offered in quarterly windows.
Are the PE Civil Construction exam specifications changing?
NCEES has posted new PE Civil exam specifications effective beginning April 2027; exams before then use the current specifications.
What this exam covers
Soil Mechanics
Site Layout & Development
Material Properties
Estimating Quantities & Costs
Project Planning & Scheduling
Quality Control
Structural Mechanics
Hydraulics & Hydrology
Construction Operations & Methods
Support of Construction Loads
Health & Safety
How to study for it here
Practice quizzes — filter to any topic above and work through it with explanations.
Flashcards — spaced repetition over terms, formulas and regulations.
Mock exam — a timed run at this grade.
Official formula sheet — a link to the sheet the certifying body publishes for this exam, where it publishes one, so you study from the real thing.
Free, no account, and progress stays in your browser.
Applying for Civil Engineer licensure, California Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists (BPELSG) (live page, read 2026-09-26)
Topic coverage follows PE Civil — Construction CBT Exam Specifications, effective April 2024 (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying).
Practice questions are written only from publicly available sources
(that outline and the regulations and references it cites); they are
not real exam questions, which are confidential.
Check current application requirements, fees and exam dates on the
certifying body's own page: official certification page.
Questions, flashcards, and explanations are AI-written from publicly available sources only: the exam content outlines and candidate materials each certifying body publishes without restriction, and the regulations and technical references they cite. No confidential material is used, including actual exam questions, recollections of any exam sat by the author, or any handbook or document released under a confidentiality agreement. Content is then put through repeated review — regulatory values checked against primary sources, every calculation recomputed, and errors corrected — plus spot checks by the author, who holds California water operator certifications and a California civil engineering licence. Those spot checks are sampling, not a professional review: nothing here is stamped, sealed, or offered as engineering advice, and not every item has been individually verified, so mistakes can still slip through.