Earthwork quantities on the FE Civil exam are usually a volume calculation wrapped in a unit conversion, and the conversion is where the points are lost. Excavation is measured in cubic yards, dimensions are often given in feet, haul capacity comes in cubic yards per truck, and metric units appear in the same problem set. The single most common error is forgetting that a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, not 3. Beyond arithmetic, the exam expects you to know that the same soil occupies different volumes in three states. Bank volume is the material in place before excavation. Loose volume is the same material after excavation, larger by the swell factor. Compacted volume is the material after placement and compaction, smaller than bank by the shrinkage factor. Truck haul is counted in loose cubic yards because that is what fits in the bed; embankment quantities are specified in compacted cubic yards because that is what the design requires. Converting between the two without passing through bank volume is the mistake that produces a plausible but wrong truck count. Read carefully which state each given number is in, convert everything to bank volume first, then out to the state the answer needs.
Commit to an answer before opening the solution. Each problem shows the governing model, every substitution, a unit check, and why each wrong choice is wrong.
Original question written by FE Exam AI Prep from the public FE Civil exam specification. Before release, a solver model re-derived the answer twice from the question alone, without its answer key, and a critic model checked the result. No licensed engineer reviews these questions. It is not an NCEES question and does not come from any NCEES practice exam. FE Exam AI Prep is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NCEES.
FE Exam AI Prep is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NCEES. All practice questions are original and generated for study purposes based on publicly available exam specifications.