PE Structural Depth Buildings: Did the Extra Hour Really Increase the Pass Rate?

The latest NCEES results for the PE Structural Depth Buildings exams raise a very interesting question:

Did the additional hour of examination time significantly improve candidates' chances of passing?

Beginning with the April 2026 administration, NCEES added 60 minutes to the PE Structural Depth exams. The actual examination time increased from 5 hours to 6 hours.

What makes the comparison particularly interesting is that, between October 2025 and April 2026, NCEES did not introduce a fundamental change to the Depth exam itself. The number of questions remained 60, the CBT system remained in place, and the Depth sections continued to use the same general format.

Therefore, comparing these two administrations provides an interesting opportunity to examine whether the additional hour may have had a significant effect on pass rates.

October 2025 vs. April 2026

The difference in pass rates is striking:

Exam

October 2025 – First Time

April 2026 – First Time

Change

October 2025 – Repeat

April 2026 – Repeat

Change

Lateral Depth – Buildings

16%

63%

+47 pp

73%

+65 pp

Vertical Depth – Buildings

15%

54%

+39 pp

31%

68%

+37 pp

The increase is extraordinary.

For Lateral Buildings, the first-time pass rate increased from 16% to 63%.

For Vertical Buildings, it increased from 15% to 54%.

The improvement was even more dramatic among repeat candidates, with Lateral Buildings increasing from 8% to 73% and Vertical Buildings from 31% to 68%.

This raises an obvious question:

Can a single additional hour explain such a large increase in pass rates?

The answer is not necessarily straightforward.

The Additional Hour

Before April 2026, candidates had 5 hours to complete the Depth examination.

Beginning in April 2026, they received 6 hours.

That represents a 20% increase in actual examination time.

NCEES explicitly identified examinee speededness—the possibility that candidates were being constrained by time—as one of the concerns associated with the PE Structural CBT exam. In its 2025 Engineering Forum presentation, NCEES stated that 60 additional minutes would be added beginning in April 2026.

The official NCEES exam information confirms that the April 2026 Depth exam contains 60 questions, with 40 scored questions and 20 pretest questions, and provides 6 hours of examination time.

So there is a strong temporal relationship:

October 2025 → 5 hours → very low pass rates

April 2026 → 6 hours → dramatically higher pass rates

But this does not prove that the additional hour was the only cause.

The Early CBT Learning Curve

Another possible explanation is the learning curve associated with the transition from the traditional P&P examination to CBT.

The PE Structural exam moved to computer-based testing in April 2024.

Candidates who had previously prepared for the pencil-and-paper format suddenly had to adapt to a completely different testing environment.

They had to become comfortable with:

Electronic reference materials
Searching digital codes and standards
Navigating the computer interface
Scenario-based questions
Alternative Item Types
Working on a single computer screen
Managing multiple references electronically
A different overall examination strategy

NCEES itself acknowledged several concerns raised by examinees, including the limitations of the testing interface, the ability to open only one reference at a time, and speededness.

Therefore, the extremely low pass rates in the early CBT administrations may not necessarily represent the long-term difficulty of the examination.

Candidates were learning how to take a new type of exam.

Lack of CBT-Specific Preparation Materials

Another factor may have been the availability of preparation resources.

When the CBT Structural exam was first introduced, the market had been built around the previous P&P examination.

There was initially a limited supply of books, courses, practice exams, and other preparation materials specifically designed around the new CBT format.

Over time, however, preparation providers had the opportunity to develop:

CBT-specific practice exams
Scenario-based questions
AIT practice
Digital-code navigation strategies
CBT-specific courses
More realistic simulations

Candidates also accumulated experience from previous administrations.

Therefore, by October 2025 and especially April 2026, examinees were no longer entering an entirely unfamiliar testing environment.

This could have contributed to the increase in pass rates independently of the additional hour.

Code Navigation and Candidate Feedback

Another important issue was the use of electronic references.

Candidates coming from the P&P system were accustomed to physical books, tabs, indexes, and familiar page locations.

The CBT environment required candidates to search and navigate electronic versions of the codes much more efficiently.

There were also concerns raised by examinees regarding the indexing and navigation of the electronic codes, as well as questions that some candidates considered ambiguous, unclear, or potentially incorrect.

It is important to distinguish between candidate perception and verified exam problems. Publicly available information does not allow us to conclude that particular questions were actually incorrect or that these concerns directly affected scoring.

Nevertheless, these issues may have contributed to the difficulty candidates experienced during the early CBT administrations.

Did NCEES Change the Passing Standard?

This is perhaps the most important unanswered question.

Did NCEES change the passing standard between October 2025 and April 2026?

NCEES does not publish the actual passing score for the PE Structural exam.

However, NCEES has explained that the passing standard is established through a standard-setting process and that equating is used to maintain the same standard when forms change. In its 2025 presentation, NCEES stated that pass rates are expected to remain stable until a new standard of competence is established.

Therefore, the dramatic increase in pass rates does not, by itself, demonstrate that NCEES lowered the passing standard.

At the same time, because the actual cut score is not publicly available, an outside observer cannot independently verify whether the effective difficulty of passing was identical between the two administrations.

This leaves an important question open:

Was the increase entirely the result of candidates performing better, or did anything about the standard-setting/equating process also contribute?

Based on the public information available, we simply cannot know.

What About the Number and Composition of Candidates?

The number of candidates is another important variable.

A pass rate is not only a measure of exam difficulty. It is also a measure of the performance of the population taking the exam.

If the population of candidates changes significantly between two administrations, the pass rate can change even if the examination itself remains unchanged.

This is especially relevant when dealing with relatively small candidate populations such as the PE Structural Depth exams.

Therefore, when comparing October 2025 with April 2026, we should examine not only:

“What percentage passed?”

but also:

“Who took the exam?”

Were there fewer first-time candidates?

Were there more experienced repeat candidates?

Did candidates who were less prepared postpone taking the exam?

Did candidates become better prepared because they had more CBT-specific resources?

These questions could explain part of the increase.

Why the Repeat-Candidate Results Are Particularly Interesting

The repeat-candidate results are arguably even more interesting than the first-time results.

For Lateral Buildings, the repeat pass rate increased from:

8% → 73%

For Vertical Buildings:

31% → 68%

A repeat candidate has already experienced the CBT examination environment.

Therefore, the argument that candidates simply needed to become familiar with CBT may explain part of the improvement, but it does not necessarily explain the entire increase.

The additional hour may have had a particularly large impact on candidates who already possessed sufficient technical knowledge but were unable to demonstrate it within the previous five-hour constraint.

That is exactly what the concept of speededness would suggest.

So, Did the Extra Hour Cause the Increase?

We should be careful here.

The data shows a very strong correlation between the additional hour and the increase in pass rates.

But correlation is not proof of causation.

Several things changed over the same period:

Candidates became more experienced with CBT.
More CBT-specific preparation materials became available.
Candidates became more familiar with electronic code navigation.
The candidate population may have changed.
Candidates had an additional hour.
There may have been differences between individual exam forms.

Therefore, it would be too strong to say:

“The extra hour increased the pass rate from 16% to 63%.”

A more defensible conclusion is:

“The dramatic increase in pass rates occurred immediately after NCEES added one hour of examination time, suggesting that time constraints may have been a significant factor—but the available data cannot establish that the additional hour was the sole cause.”

That distinction is important.

What Happens in 2027?

The next major change will make this question even more interesting.

Beginning in April 2027, NCEES will change the Depth examination again.

The number of questions will decrease from 60 to 48, while the actual examination time will remain 6 hours. The exam will contain 40 scored questions and 8 pretest questions.

The 2027 Depth examination will also introduce a different mix of question types, including Alternative Item Types and multiple-choice, single-response questions. The number of scenarios will also change.

This means that candidates will have considerably more time per question.

In the 2026 format:

60 questions / 6 hours = 6 minutes per question

In the 2027 format:

48 questions / 6 hours = 7.5 minutes per question

That is another 25% increase in time per question.

Therefore, 2027 could provide another fascinating data point.

Will 2027 Pass Rates Remain This High?

There are several possibilities.

Scenario 1: Pass rates remain high

If the primary problem with the old exam was time pressure, and candidates have now adapted to CBT, the high 2026 pass rates could continue—or potentially increase further in 2027.

Scenario 2: Pass rates decline

The 2027 examination will use new specifications and a different question structure.

A reduction from 60 to 48 questions does not automatically mean that the exam will be easier.

The questions themselves could become more demanding, and the new specifications could introduce a different level of difficulty.

Scenario 3: Pass rates stabilize

Perhaps the most likely long-term outcome is that pass rates eventually settle at a level that is more representative of the intended standard of competence.

The exceptionally low early-CBT pass rates may have represented a transition period, while the very high 2026 results may represent the other side of that adjustment.

Only future administrations will tell.

The Bigger Picture

The PE Structural Depth exam has effectively gone through several distinct stages:

P&P Era

↓

Early CBT Era – 2024/2025

↓

Six-Hour CBT – 2026

↓

48-Question CBT – 2027

Each stage gives us another opportunity to understand what is actually driving candidate performance.

The October 2025 → April 2026 comparison is particularly valuable because the major announced change was the addition of 60 minutes of examination time, while the basic Depth examination structure remained unchanged. NCEES itself had identified speededness as an issue before making this change.

The results that followed were dramatic.

But whether the additional hour was responsible for most of that improvement—or merely one factor among several—remains an open question.

And perhaps the most interesting test is still ahead.

When the 48-question format arrives in April 2027, will we see pass rates remain at the 2026 level, increase even further, or move back toward the historical range?

The answer may tell us much more about whether the original problem was primarily exam difficulty, insufficient time, the CBT learning curve, or some combination of all three.