Heres my take on the FE exam.
I grew up outside Fort Knox and drove past the gold vault on a daily basis and the security at the test was only slightly less tight then that place. We had proctors check out ID?s twice before you could even get in the room and then your ID got checked 2 more times before they gave the instructions to start. The room was fairly warm but not hot and we got very comfortable chairs and individual 6 foot long tables to work at. Overall it was about the perfect environment to take a test in.
Before the test I was a nervous wreck, but once the books got handed out I managed to keep it together fairly well. I worked the morning session beginning to end without skipping around. I did skip a few problems but came back to them fairly quickly, I was more worried about filling in the wrong circles then anything so I didn?t want to leave any blank. I managed to work at a pretty good pace and finished with about 20 minutes to spare. Honestly there wasn?t anything that I had to go back and review. If I knew how to do something I did it and felt like I had gotten it and if I didn?t know it I guessed. The things I feel like I hit well was the math, calculus, thermo, ethics and fluids. Statics, dynamics and materials went OK, but I was hoping to do better because about 60% of my studying time was dedicated to those 3 subjects. Economics and statistics were a complete wash. I knew these areas were my weakness?s but I wasnt even close to getting some of these.
I took the general afternoon session and was surprised both good and bad. The math portion on the afternoon session was again my strong point. I managed to nail (I hope) most of the math and calculus. I actually managed to do better on the economics in the afternoon but I bombed the fluids part. Thermo was a toss up, but I did do very well in the heat transfer component. The materials and mechanics were the worst. There seemed to be so many of these problems and I very rarely knew how to do them.
Going in to the test I really felt under prepared, however now looking at it I can see my preparation was not as broad as at needed to be but the depth of how much I prepared was fine. Another thing I was surprised by was the qualitative problems, there were fewer then I had been told to expect. Some people were telling me to expect upwards of 25% of the morning session problems to not required calculations. I tried to keep a running total as I went but I found the percentage to be closer to 10 or 15%.
Walking in I expected a complete and total failure, but now Im cautiously optimistic. There is a decent chance I passed, but I still wouldn?t be surprised if I failed.