Hi,

I am curious if anyone has studied for the CSE with only "primary source" material (no third party stuff, like Enchilada)? I am very interested in this approach, and want to know how others have gone about doing it in an efficient and systematic way. Recommendations for what to focus on?

I would recommend that you study the test plan really well and understand what everything means. I find it to be a really good guideline to the general knowledge expected from the test. For example, the Test Plan mentions certain agencies, go to those agencies website and read about what they do, what kind of projects would they be involved in, what code and regulations they follow. Understand what the overarching goal of each regulation and code is. Also, having work experience on projects from start to finish really helps a lot. Otherwise, it is probably worth taking a course to go over a condense version of the study materials.

Pvp wrote:Hi,

I am curious if anyone has studied for the CSE with only "primary source" material (no third party stuff, like Enchilada)? I am very interested in this approach, and want to know how others have gone about doing it in an efficient and systematic way. Recommendations for what to focus on?

You can certainly only use the "primary source" material, but it's a loooooooooot of material to cover and it may take you forever.

The benefit of the third party sources is that they condense down the information (or the information they "think" is important). Even with TWE, David still suggests that you visit all the websites and read the CBC., Handbook...etc. The thing about reading the big books is that you may end up being caught up in a lot of minutia and lose sight the big picture. Know what I mean?

It's good to go through one of the study guides and if there are parts that you're unclear on, you're more than welcome to crack open the original source and dive in.