NCEES PS TEST AND PRACTICE EXAM and NEGLIGENCE?
I was recently reviewing the FS and PS practice exam published by NCEES. I have not taken these exams, but just looking at them, many of the questions are vague, misguided and/or disturbing. I’ve been a PS since 1982 and have done thousands of surveys.
Here is the NCEES Question No. 15 from the PS practice exam
As a surveyor crew party chief, you have been instructed to go to a large construction site located 140 miles from your office. Once at the site, you are to immediately take ground elevations over a 3-acre site to be used for stockpiling sand. These elevations will be the base from which stockpile volumes will be calculated. When you arrive at the site, the contractor has four earthmovers ready to stockpile sand. Your crew now discovers that they did not put the total station or level in the truck. The contractor has a 1935 dumpy level to lend you. As the surveyor in charge, you should:
A. Tell the contractor that it will be three hours before the sand can be stockpiled
B. Call the office and have the instruments brought to you
C. Tell the contractor that you will have to do a peg test
D. Tell the contractor that to do this job right you must have your total station and will need to return to your office to get it.
According to the the solution in the test exam, the correct answer is C.
This question is unacceptable in my opinion. Thinking through the question, several things are at stake here for a professional land surveyor, and they are common in my opinion.
- It is my firmest opinion that catastrophic results can happen if a contractor rushes a party chief. I can imagine that doing a peg test might work perfectly, but might not catch a loose reticle or loose lens or even a bad bubble mount. For a person who has not done this regularly, and who is under time pressure with big machines idling and antsy, this is too risky. Plus, we do not know how rough the terrain is. Being pushed for action is the single-most important risk factor in flying airplanes.
- With machines idling and party chief under pressure with an unfamiliar instrument, unnecessary risk occurs. The base of the pile might be used for years for future volume measurements. Huge litigation could occur with an error even though the material is just sand.
- The instrument man should slow down and get his equipment using B or D in my opinion.
- If I sent a crew to a site to do this job, and they returned having done it with a 1935 level that they pegged, and surveyed probably without redundancy checks with a contractor pushing them, I’d be worried about it, and I would not be happy.
- For a survey crew to do their job right they should use their familiar techniques, their own equipment, and not let anyone rush them–ever. This job has “rush” written all over it.
If the NCEES wanted to know if the surveyor knows what a peg test is they should just ask it.
This is one of many questions I have seen on the PS and FS practice exams that are not good. I think of the person taking these tests who desperately needs to pass them in order to support his family, and a few questions like this could cause failure. I ran this questions by three experienced PLSs and all told me that a peg test on a 1935 level without checking for loose reticle, etc and under pressure can be disastrous. And if an error was made, imagine yourself on the stand under cross examination after your competition found out you had an error on the base of the pile after about 4 years of using the pile measurements for selling millions of dollars worth of sand…..”Mr. Willis are you telling the court that you showed up without your instruments? Are you that disorganized? Do you have ADD? And with machines running and time pressure, you used a level that is 85 years old? Did you check your work with redundant measurements? Don’t ya’ll send instruments to shops for calibration? How many have you calibrated under pressure in the field? Reticle? Loose lens? Your honor, I’m filing a motion for Daubert and declaratory judgment.”
My firmest opinion is that B is what I’d try first and D would be second.
I am a horrible multiple choice test taker, but questions like this just seem to be bad questions. This question is found in the Practices exam (PS) and not the FS exam. We all know what pegging an instrument is. The practice they assign is erroneous in my opinion.
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