NJ Land Surveyor study guide
NJ Land Surveyor · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The New Jersey Professional Land Surveyor (PLS) credential is issued by the State Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, which regulates the practice, licensure, and certification of land surveyors, land surveyors-in-training, and firms offering surveying services in New Jersey to safeguard life, health, and property and promote the public welfare. Candidates generally follow the path described by NCEES: a bachelor’s degree from an ABET-accredited surveying program, four years of acceptable, progressive, and verifiable work experience, and passing the FS exam, the PS exam, and a state-specific exam. The New Jersey board no longer requires registration or approval before taking the FE and PE examinations; candidates register online with NCEES. Once an exam is passed, the candidate visits the board website for licensure application instructions. Topics on this exam: NCEES FS (Fundamentals of Surveying) exam and NCEES PS (Principles and Practice of Surveying) exam. The NJ Land Surveyor study guide has 2 sections and about 723 words.
01NCEES FS (Fundamentals of Surveying) Exam
The NCEES Fundamentals of Surveying exam measures entry-level competence: mathematics and statistics, measurement and error theory, leveling, distance and angle measurement, traversing, coordinate geometry, basic geodesy and mapping, and introductory boundary and construction applications. Items are numeric and unit-heavy, mostly US customary with occasional metric values, so dimensional bookkeeping matters as much as the formula. Systematic errors bias every observation in the same direction; random errors scatter. For repeated observations, s = √[Σv²/(n−1)] and the standard error of the mean is s/√n.
351 words, about 2 min02NCEES PS (Principles and Practice of Surveying) Exam
The PS exam targets professional-level judgment rather than routine computation: boundary and legal principles, control and geodetic surveying, mapping, GIS and photogrammetry, and professional practice. Many items are scenario-based, asking which evidence or standard governs when record data and field data conflict. Boundary evidence hierarchy. Natural monuments, then artificial monuments, then courses and distances, then area - unless a call is plainly erroneous or a senior right controls.
372 words, about 2 min