PE Construction Exam Reference Standards Decoded: ACI 347, ASCE 37, AISC, MUTCD & OSHA

The PE Civil Construction exam is closed book with one enormous exception: NCEES puts nine references on the screen in front of you. Those nine — and only those nine — are your library for all 80 questions. You can't bring your office copy of anything, the search works one chapter at a time, and NCEES states plainly that solutions referencing standards or editions outside the published list will not receive credit. The exam isn't just testing whether you know construction engineering; it's testing whether you can work fluently inside this specific bookshelf.

That makes the bundle itself a study topic. Candidates who know that formwork coefficients live in ACI 347R Chapter 4, that trench soil types live in OSHA Subpart P's Appendix A, and that earned-value formulas live in the Handbook's Construction chapter answer reference questions in ninety seconds. Candidates who learn the content but not the bookshelf burn their six-minute-per-question budget scrolling. This guide decodes each bundled standard: what it covers, which questions pull from it, and the fastest way through it on exam day.

The ground rules

Per the NCEES Civil–Construction specification: the references are supplied as searchable electronic PDFs with navigation links, the design standards open as individual chapters — only one chapter at a time can be open and searched — and the handbook and standards are available for the entire exam. Editions are fixed by the published list (AISC 15th edition, for example, even if your office shelf holds the 16th), and answers are scored against those editions. Equally important is what's not there: ACI 318, ASCE 7, the IBC, and the NDS are bundled for the Structural exam, not Construction. Any prep material training you to navigate those for this exam is preparing you for the wrong test day.

NCEES PE Civil Reference Handbook — the spine

The Handbook is the only reference that touches every question. For this exam, its Construction chapter (Chapter 2) is the core: §2.1 earthwork volumes, swell/shrinkage, and mass diagrams; §2.2 estimating classifications and cost indexes; §2.3 crane diagrams, equipment production, and pile-driving formulas; §2.4 CPM and earned value; §2.5 concrete testing acceptance criteria and maturity; §2.6 incidence rates and noise exposure. The general-civil questions draw on its geotechnical, structural, and water-resources chapters. Fastest path: download it free from your MyNCEES account and learn Chapter 2's section layout cold — most quantitative Construction questions resolve to a formula printed there. Our guide to the NCEES PE Civil Reference Handbook covers its overall organization.

ACI 347R — Guide to Formwork for Concrete

The signature standard of this exam. Chapter 4 (Design) carries the heaviest question load on the entire bundle: the lateral-pressure equations for columns and walls with their applicability table, the chemistry and unit-weight coefficient tables, the 600·C_w floor and wh ceiling, vertical design-load minimums, the 100-lb/ft bracing rule, and the accessory safety-factor table. Chapter 5 (Construction) covers shoring, reshoring, and form-removal practice. Question types: compute the design pressure, size a form tie, pick the governing equation, sequence a reshoring operation. Fastest path: live in Chapter 4 — specifically the equation-selection table and the two coefficient tables — and know Chapter 5 exists for practice questions. The full domain walkthrough is in our guide to formwork, shoring, and falsework on the PE exam.

ACI SP-4 — Formwork for Concrete

The companion textbook to 347R: where the guide states criteria, SP-4 shows the worked design procedure — sheathing, studs, wales, ties, and shores designed member by member, plus shoring and reshoring application detail. Question types: design-procedure and component questions that go a step past 347R's criteria. Fastest path: treat it as the backup — start formwork lookups in 347R Chapter 4, and move to SP-4 only when the question asks how a component is actually proportioned or installed. Knowing which of the two holds what saves a full wrong-book detour.

AISC Steel Construction Manual (15th edition)

On the Construction exam, the AISC Manual is a lookup book, not a design course: bolted- and welded-connection available strengths and member capacity tables, applied to temporary steel — erection bracing, formwork hardware connections, temporary supports. Question types: read a bolt or weld capacity, check a temporary member against a table value. Fastest path: learn the Manual's part structure well enough to jump straight to the connection tables, and remember the exam's edition is the 15th (2017) — table values and layouts from the 16th on your office shelf are not what's on screen, and per NCEES's scoring rule, not what's credited.

ASCE 37 — Design Loads on Structures During Construction

The load side of temporary-works design: construction live loads by class, material and equipment loads, environmental loads during construction (including wind on temporary states), and load combinations for partially completed structures. ACI 347R refers to it for live-load reductions and wind. Question types: select the construction live load for a scenario, combine loads on a partially erected structure, justify a formwork design load. Fastest path: know it's organized like a slim ASCE 7 for the construction phase — loads by type, then combinations — and that it's where you go when the stem says "during erection."

PCA EB001 — Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures

The concrete encyclopedia (17th edition): mix design and proportioning, aggregates, chemical and mineral admixtures, hot- and cold-weather concreting, curing, and nondestructive test methods. Question types: admixture selection, water–cementitious ratio practice, curing and weather precautions, matching an NDT method to a property. Fastest path: its chapter titles map almost one-to-one to topics — read the table of contents once and most lookups become a single jump. Pairs with the Handbook's §2.5, which reprints the acceptance criteria and maturity method most testing questions actually need.

MUTCD Part 6 — Temporary Traffic Control

Work-zone safety from the public's side of the barricades: the four component areas of a temporary traffic control zone (advance warning, transition, activity, termination), taper criteria, channelizing device spacing, flagger procedures, and the Typical Application (TA) diagrams — pre-drawn setups for standard work configurations. Question types: identify the required zone component or device, read a taper or buffer requirement, match a scenario to its typical application. Fastest path: the TA diagram index — many MUTCD questions are answered by finding the one diagram that matches the stem's roadway and work type.

OSHA 29 CFR 1926 — with Subparts L and P doing the work

The whole construction safety regulation is bundled, but two subparts carry nearly all the questions. Subpart P (Excavations): the 5-ft protection threshold, soil classification in Appendix A, maximum allowable slopes in Appendix B's Table B-1, protective-system options, and the over-20-ft Registered Professional Engineer requirement. Subpart L (Scaffolds): the 4× capacity rule, platform construction, and scaffold fall protection. Subpart M supplies the general 6-ft fall-protection trigger. The bundle also includes 29 CFR 1903 (inspections, citations, and proposed penalties) for the occasional enforcement-process question. Fastest path: navigate by subpart letter, and know the two appendices of Subpart P by sight — the soil-type definitions and the slope table answer most excavation questions directly. Our full breakdown of OSHA safety on the PE Construction exam drills the thresholds.

CMWB — the one you'll barely open

The Standard Practice for Bracing Masonry Walls Under Construction (2012) rounds out the bundle: temporary bracing requirements for masonry walls, including limited-access zones and bracing heights against wind. Question volume is low, but it's the only bundled source for masonry-bracing scenarios — knowing it exists is most of the value.

The bundle at a glance

Standard	Core topics	Typical question types
NCEES Handbook	Every domain — earthwork, estimating, CPM/EV, equipment, materials, safety stats	Most calculations on the exam
ACI 347R (2014)	Formwork pressures, loads, bracing, safety factors, reshoring	Pressure calcs, tie sizing, removal practice
ACI SP-4 (8th ed.)	Worked formwork design procedure, components	Design-detail and component questions
AISC Manual (15th ed.)	Bolt/weld and member capacity tables	Temporary-steel connection lookups
ASCE 37-14	Construction live/material/equipment/wind loads, combinations	"During erection" load selection
PCA EB001 (17th ed.)	Mix design, admixtures, curing, hot/cold weather, NDT	Concrete practice and materials selection
MUTCD Part 6	Work-zone components, tapers, typical applications	Zone setup and device questions
OSHA 29 CFR 1926 + 1903	Subpart P excavations, Subpart L scaffolds, fall protection; citations	Thresholds, slopes, protective systems
CMWB (2012)	Masonry wall bracing during construction	Occasional bracing scenarios

How to train reference speed

Three habits convert this bookshelf from obstacle to advantage. First, answer-then-verify: on practice questions, commit to an answer from recall, then confirm it in the reference — that's the exam-day rhythm, and it halves lookup time. Second, one-chapter discipline: practice with single chapters open, never the full PDF set, so the CBT constraint feels normal. Third, map before you search: for every practice question, name the standard and chapter before opening anything; two weeks of that and the bookshelf is in your head, where the exam can't slow you down. This is also where simulator practice earns its keep — the PEwise Construction course attaches 14 reference PDFs to its timed practice exams precisely so the one-chapter lookup rhythm is automatic before you sit. For how reference skills fit the overall domain weighting and study sequence, start from the complete PE Civil Construction exam guide.

Final thoughts

Every candidate gets the same nine references; the score difference comes from who treats them as terrain to be mapped versus luggage to be opened on arrival. Learn what each standard owns, drill the handful of tables that answer most questions — ACI 347R's Chapter 4, Subpart P's appendices, the Handbook's Chapter 2 — and respect the edition list, because NCEES does. On an exam where six minutes is the whole budget per question, the candidate who never opens the wrong book has already banked the margin the pass rate says most people need.