Surveying Principles for Civil Engineers

If you actually work through this Surveying Principles for Civil Engineers material enough to figure things out (as I did to help an engineer preparing for the PE exam), you'll learn lots of good stuff. The content usually seems right on target, and the practice questions are often very relevant.

However, some sections of the book do not create the appearance that the author (or editor or proofreader) really understood the material. There are also many forward references, i.e. use of terms defined later in the text.

For example, chapter 12 is particularly sloppy - besides containing several serious errors even in simpler material, the more complex examples do not contain enough information to solve without (unstated) outside references. The chapter introduces lots of stuff it fails to cover adequately, and then only the simpler stuff is actually representative of the California PE. In addition, an out-of context section on map reading is randomly inserted into different material. Some other content is duplicated, suggesting a chapter built by committee and without adequate final editing.

All criticism aside, this is still a good, concise preparatory tool for the surveying exam