This is an email from Skye Thomas of the Wallace Group, discussing his process of preparing and taking the LS Exams to become a Licensed Land Surveyor in California
Thanks and congratulations Skye PLS 9688
I took and passed the CA exam in April this year. I recently moved back to the central coast after being in the Northwest for ~ 10 years and was not aware of the Central Coast Chapter study page while I was preparing. So, I cannot really speak to the material there in depth, but I have reviewed the study page for this email and all the pertinent topics seem to be listed. I did join the online LS review course offered from the SD chapter: 2022 Land Surveyor Exam Review (FREE*) — San Diego CLSA (sd-surveyors.org)
The course covered all the topics and helped me build materials for my binder. In general, I was still sharp with respect to studying and general subject matter as I passed exams and became licensed in Oregon and Washington in recent years. So, for me, I was not really starting from scratch. The SD course really helped with state specific focus and allowed me to refresh on some items like construction and photogrammetry. But more importantly, it kept me honest with committing time each week. Like all of us, I’m busy with work and family so having a set class time to attend made it easier. The format of discussing each topic at a higher level, focusing on fundamentals, and getting pointers of what is realistic to be tested on was the most helpful.
As expected, being very organized was critical. Having tabs on the PLS Act and Map Act was big as many questions were direct look ups.
The exam was 70 questions in 4 hours, so having an average time of ~3.4 minutes/question helped keep perspective of knowing you cannot get many in depth questions. As expected, being very organized was critical. Having tabs on the PLS Act and Map Act was big as many questions were direct look ups. My other primary study materials were the BLM manual, Wattles, Definitions of Surveying and Associated Terms, and my binder which was made up of overview/presentation notes of each topic and example problems. I organized my binder by topic and tried to do practice exams (SD chapter had one and did other basic things online) just to go through the motions and get familiar with where everything was in my material that can with me.
Overall, I thought the exam was straight forward and did not have too many surprises. My methodology for exams is to go through all the problems on the first pass, answering those that I know how to handle right away and skipping the ones that take more thought and effort. Then make a 2nd pass, and a 3rd with the same idea until I have a couple that need more calculation or research or, I just didn’t know. I had enough time at the end to work through these tougher questions and ended on time feeling good about most questions and/or having a solid guess on the ones I did not know.