HornTootinEE
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How did it go for everybody?
How did it go?
- Thread starter HornTootinEE
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Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:
I think I did very well on the material that I studied from the Chelapati book, the PPI book, Power Analysis and Electrical Machinery book. But overall felt really bad coming out of the exam because I believe I was deceived into believing I was ready for the exam. It seems that the NCEES went through the reference material I used and on purposely picked topics that were not cover in my books… I hope not to offend anybody here but this is how I feel about them right now. :redface:
bingcrosbyb
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I'll repost from main forum for the EE's in the house.
EE - Power. "You sunk my battleship."
Preparation Time/Materials: 250 total hours. 5 textbooks, prep coursework notebook, 2 notebooks of graduate class material, calculators, snacks, rolling suitcase.
Money: ~$1,550.
General Observations: Arrived at my site 30 minutes prior to report time. Noticed that many others had literally libraries and libraries of books. Someone had a giant wagon with bungie cords holding all of the books together. Others just had a single piece of paper. Wild. I randomly started thinking of a national geographic special with narration by Morgan Freeman on PE test taking habits. I needed that laugh to clear my head.
AM Session: Felt the AM session was great. Only ended up with 6-7 that I didn't have a single solid answer or couldn't find it in my reference. I finished slightly early and checked only some of my work.
PM Session: Total unadulterated bloodbath. Couldn't seem to concentrate enough to find the equations I needed. Calculator was spitting out answers that were out of this world. Saw stuff that I barely covered in droves. About 2-3 hours into the afternoon, my brain felt like it had been through a dishwasher and I started hopping around from question to question. Not good. I will be lucky if I got a quarter to half right. I might as well have taken another discipline in the afternoon or gone to work. A monkey may have been able to do better.
Final Thoughts: As I left the exam area, I felt numb, dumb, and a little crushed. I felt like I blew the morning session out of the water. Then the PE got off a torpedo as I was heading to collect my stamp, promotion, and better life. I'm not very good at guessing and doing the math in my head all weekend I kept envisioning a percentage score in the upper 60s with an afternoon diagnostic that simply says "monkey". 6 months of neglecting my wife and family might be for nothing in the end except doing it all over again. I know the pass rate for repeaters is low, but what is the divorce rate?
Oh well. If I recall from a coworker, last years results were released in around 45-50 days following the exam. I think he got his in late May. We shall see. I guess the ultimate decision is now do I crack open another book....or another beer?
EE - Power. "You sunk my battleship."
Preparation Time/Materials: 250 total hours. 5 textbooks, prep coursework notebook, 2 notebooks of graduate class material, calculators, snacks, rolling suitcase.
Money: ~$1,550.
General Observations: Arrived at my site 30 minutes prior to report time. Noticed that many others had literally libraries and libraries of books. Someone had a giant wagon with bungie cords holding all of the books together. Others just had a single piece of paper. Wild. I randomly started thinking of a national geographic special with narration by Morgan Freeman on PE test taking habits. I needed that laugh to clear my head.
AM Session: Felt the AM session was great. Only ended up with 6-7 that I didn't have a single solid answer or couldn't find it in my reference. I finished slightly early and checked only some of my work.
PM Session: Total unadulterated bloodbath. Couldn't seem to concentrate enough to find the equations I needed. Calculator was spitting out answers that were out of this world. Saw stuff that I barely covered in droves. About 2-3 hours into the afternoon, my brain felt like it had been through a dishwasher and I started hopping around from question to question. Not good. I will be lucky if I got a quarter to half right. I might as well have taken another discipline in the afternoon or gone to work. A monkey may have been able to do better.
Final Thoughts: As I left the exam area, I felt numb, dumb, and a little crushed. I felt like I blew the morning session out of the water. Then the PE got off a torpedo as I was heading to collect my stamp, promotion, and better life. I'm not very good at guessing and doing the math in my head all weekend I kept envisioning a percentage score in the upper 60s with an afternoon diagnostic that simply says "monkey". 6 months of neglecting my wife and family might be for nothing in the end except doing it all over again. I know the pass rate for repeaters is low, but what is the divorce rate?
Oh well. If I recall from a coworker, last years results were released in around 45-50 days following the exam. I think he got his in late May. We shall see. I guess the ultimate decision is now do I crack open another book....or another beer?
snickerd3
Taking suggestions
i know several of the tests were new format this time through...environmental was one, maybe electrical was another?
Well, there were curveballs and a bunch of "WTF" questions. After resting all weekend and reviewing my working references in the office I realized that most of my "educated guess" were right on the spot. I still think I passed. Or at least I'm convinced of it unless proven otherwise.... hahaha. Why stress now if we are still 12 weeks away from finding out? I can drive myself :screwloose: by then.... LOL
I can say that the Electrical Power exam was challenging for me, some of questions were so easy but others definitely tough for me. In my opinion, AM was worser for me but i did the PM part much better. Overall, the exam creators did a great job and the exam was balanced. If I fail, I will study harder to improve some topics that I did prepare well on the exam but I hope that I will pass it 
arty-smiley-048:
Good luck for everyone.
MWB
arty-smiley-048:Good luck for everyone.
MWB
bingcrosbyb
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I agree......to a degree. Even though I put in over 250 hours of studying the widest range of topics imaginable, I still felt like there were many more fastballs, curveballs, and plain old WTF! questions than I was expecting. No amount of studying would have helped me get those problems right.I can say that the Electrical Power exam was challenging for me, some of questions were so easy but others definitely tough for me. In my opinion, AM was worser for me but i did the PM part much better. Overall, the exam creators did a great job and the exam was balanced. If I fail, I will study harder to improve some topics that I did prepare well on the exam but I hope that I will pass it
Good luck for everyone.
MWB
monsterbbb
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I only have about 22 sure answers for morning section, and had 4-5 very good guesses. So I guess that was bad.
the afternoon section at first caught me off guard. I was in panic mode the first hour; somehow I manage to calm down during 2nd hour and decide to do all the questions that I can actually understand what it asked for. Then go back to those questions once seem impossible to solve, and found out there were alot of questions are very easy actually. So I manage to have about 29 sure answers + 2-4 very good guesses.
my guess method is use my sure answer as reference, picked the least chosen one as my guess to avg back the answer distribution.
the afternoon section at first caught me off guard. I was in panic mode the first hour; somehow I manage to calm down during 2nd hour and decide to do all the questions that I can actually understand what it asked for. Then go back to those questions once seem impossible to solve, and found out there were alot of questions are very easy actually. So I manage to have about 29 sure answers + 2-4 very good guesses.
my guess method is use my sure answer as reference, picked the least chosen one as my guess to avg back the answer distribution.
papa j
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I took Power and that was my experience s well. The morning session kicked my butt some, but the afternoon seemed simple after that.I can say that the Electrical Power exam was challenging for me, some of questions were so easy but others definitely tough for me. In my opinion, AM was worser for me but i did the PM part much better. Overall, the exam creators did a great job and the exam was balanced. If I fail, I will study harder to improve some topics that I did prepare well on the exam but I hope that I will pass it
Good luck for everyone.
MWB
Overall feeling is good, assuming that I answered the question that they were asking. There were a few that the hardest part what was they were looking for, seemed like.
I felt that way also, the morning session kicked my behind. But it is possible it was just emotional for me, that first problem caught me completely off guard. I didn't want to believe that after 20 minutes I couldn't do the problem... LOL Eventually I skipped that problem and came back after I was done with all my morning problems to solve it. I noticed the most difficult problems were stacked towards the beggining of the morning and afternoon session. I wonder if it was done on purpose to mess with our psychological well being?.... LOL
Interesting. I took the power exam as well and felt the morning was much better for me. I felt I crushed it with only 1-2 questions I was unsure about. The afternoon session I was more shakey with probably 5-8 questions I was unsure about.
Overall I felt the test was tough, but fair. I was well prepared with the reference books I had.
papa j
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I noticed that as well. Fortunately, my standard test taking policy is to go through all the problems first. If I know the answer, circle it. If it's a computation, set it up but don't solve it. Otherwise, i just skipped it. Get through in 1/2 hour or so. Then I can take a deep breath and dive in with a little more confidence.
Having said that, the first two problems in the afternoon session I had no idea what to do and I was pretty sure none of my reference material had anything for it. My thought was "wow, this is gonna be fun :smileyballs:"
Exactly, the funny thing is that I have references in my office for both problems but I didn't take them... :brickwall:
monsterbbb
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the first question of AM and PM section are easy if we understand what they ask, it is a matter of solving math equations. But I felt the question was design poorly. Maybe it is design to confuse us purposely.
bingcrosbyb
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If you found a question to be poorly designed, you should use the comment form under your account on the NCEES.org website. You have up to 10 days following the exam to submit your comment. I also found some questions to be terribly worded and simply unorthodox practice in the field. I've submitted my comments.
Bing - thanks, I just submitted some comments as well. A lot of you felt pretty good for the afternoon it seems like. I'm the opposite, but the last time I felt better for the afternoon though, so we'll see. Overall though, not too great unfortunately. Good luck to all of you though!
