# Exam Tips and Tricks

3 Must Know Skills to Pass the California PLS Exam

by NLC Support | Dec 22, 2020

https://youtu.be/KJX_se5Rmzw

Welcome to three must know skills to pass the California Professional Land Surveyor exam. This is not about the FS or PS this is about the state specific exam that California requires every new and transfer surveyor to take. I took this exam myself and I passed but wow it was a tough exam! I remember thinking back at some of the questions, a few of them and I said I’m not even sure there’s a correct answer to this question but, it’s not about getting a perfect score it’s about getting a passing score.

When I think about the California exam it really breaks down into a couple of big categories and then the California board sprinkles in a lot of random questions, some of the things like a state plane conversion maybe a little bit of a scale factor for photogrammetry lots and lots of surveying topics so the number of categories in this exam is huge and the board tells you that. You look at the California blueprint and it has about thirty different categories. You have to start somewhere and I’m talking about a strong foundation for this exam based on three different topics

The first topic is going to be the subdivision mapping. Now there’s a lot of other statutory topics like conflicts of interest corner records, records of survey maybe some board make-up so you have to know all the statutes but the one statute the board loves and the one statute that the board asks several questions on is going to be the Subdivision Map Act so I’m going to make a new subdivision. This is a big topic because county and local regulation of local subdivision is so strict in California but the majority of law is at the state level and that’s in the subdivision map act. The best way to study this topic is having you and your friend make up hypothetical situations, for example “there’s a three lot subdivisions, it already has roads, what should I do or what is the minimum required that is number one”.

Number two is CO-GO, coordinate Geometry “beginning at point A go 100 feet at a degree of 97.5 degrees what is the coordinate of point 2,” but in California they’re going to give you a series of points point A, point B, point C, point D, point E and you have to go all the way around using CO-GO and come to the last point. So make sure you can inverse what is the bearing and distance between two points and also make sure you can stub beginning at a point going a bearing distance then knowing what that second points x and y’s coordinates are. It is relatively simple if you have a pre-programed HP-35 instead of wasting all that time doing all this sign/ co-sign math, type it in, type it in, get an answer, move on. I don’t think you are going to be so pressed for time during this exam but remember every minute counts!

We’ve gone over the statutory laws like subdivision map act, talked about coordinate geometry, the last one is my favorite and that is writing and interpreting legal descriptions. When you write and interpret a series of legal descriptions you really have to look at every single word by itself and how those words combine to make sentences and paragraphs because a “comma” is a completely different thing than a “semicolon”. I’ve seen millions of dollars in real estate litigated because of that difference, so in the legal description world you pick up a Gordon Waddles “writing legal descriptions”book, take a class from me, go to college enjoy a legal aspects course. It’s usually relatively simple, and I’m not going to say that the California board is tricky because it’s not it’s very fair, but they do give you some complex situations maybe you have some gaps, some overlaps, I’ve seen it where they, a question has been a section line, but there’s also a metes and bounds with around that section line, and it’s really cool because they give you graphics and you can choose what point number make up what points lot three a, c, d, and f or something like that so, just be prepared and have a 100% understanding that these legal descriptions are not going to be your simple you know. So the California board really expects you to be an expert at writing and interpreting legal descriptions.

The exams much more than this and you have to study for it you have to be a constant learner a scholar but if you study these three topics I’m convinced that it will lay a foundation for your further studying and if you can, not be an expert but, if you can understand these topics then you are well on your way to passing your to passing your California state specific professional land surveyor exam.