Review Materials, What is Available?

Other that the review material sold by NCEES, "the other board" and Kaplan what other publishers sell review material which can be purchased?

I did a pretty thourough search and here's my suggestions:

1) MGI's Electrical Enginnering Review ( MGI.com also known as SmartPros or NSPE). Sample exams per topic and instructor review.

2) IEEE Review Video CDs. $600 for the set of 4 or $220 each topic.

3) Dr. Blank's video (VHS) review courses. Pretty expensive.

4) EnSys online review. Very expensive.

There are a few others.

In addition if you are taking Power PM, take a NEC class or check out MikeHolt.com (or Lewellyn or American Trainco). For Power, you'll be glad you did.

Here is another on-line course from Florida U:

http://apex.eng.usf.edu/professional/professional.htm

Hopefully I passed and won't need it, but, if I take it again in October, I may try this.

Has anyone seen or tried: http://www.newcalc.com/nec-guide-for-pe.htm

A Resource for engineering exam calculation tools Study Guides for the Electrical PE Exam

REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE NATIONAL ELECTRICAL CODE FOR THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING (POWER) PE EXAM

This guide is a condensed reference to the sections of the NEC that are tested in the depth module of the Electrical Power PE Exam. The guide contains summaries of the NEC requirements applicable to typical question types and outlines solution procedures, including clear explanations of which tables and sections of the code to apply to each type of problem. This guide is a companion to the NEC and should be the primary reference for all code related questions. Many candidates do not understand which sections of the code are tested in the exam, and fail to prepare for code related questions. In addition, most of the exam publications available elsewhere do not cover the NEC in sufficient depth, and do not prepare the candidate for these questions. This guide is a 12-page document and references all of the NEC related information that is likely to be needed during the exam.

If I fail wondering if worth while.

I wouldn't bother with newcalc myself. I've used HP calculators for 20+ years having used the HP15C, HP28S, HP48SX and I think I'm even forgetting one.

I bought the HP33S and planned on using it for the exam. I HATED it. I also bought the Casio 115-MS as a back up and used that almost exclusively. I feel like such a traitor.

As for the "pre-programmed" HP33S with hundreds of formulas, another waste of money. You spend more time searching for the formula in the HP than doing the calc with the Casio (or TI).

As for the NEC "guide", phooey! Get the actual NEC version the exam uses for about $100, especially for Power. A "guide" couldn't possibly cover everything, not even close.

PS, If you want a barely used HP33S, let me know!!

I searched for a long time for review materials. There isn't much available. That book from "the other board" is, honestly, not much help at all. It doesn't really help you pass the exam at all.

Let me give you my background. My college degree was in Bioengineering, I only took one EE class. Fortunately, I'm a good test-taker and I recognize good study material when I see it. I've worked at Electrical Engineering for about 1 year now, and I passed the EE PE on my first shot, after studying for a little over a month. The secret for me was that my friend gave me a really useful, applicable book that is unfortunately discontinued for the past 15 years almost. It was from this guy, Chelpati. The book was good because the problems and discussions were tailored for the PE test (power) and not just EE in general, like most study material.

Also, the classes are not very useful either, I refused to take one. All the classes do is force you to study if you don't have the discipline. The instructors are usually not very good, and the material you get from the class is usually a waste (unless it's stuff like this Chelpati book). My coworker took a class, and he swears it helped him, but it didn't really. He's too unmotivated to study on his own and he needed the class to force him. Also, he already has an EE major, so the content was just review for him, he just needed to sit down and remember some stuff he had forgotten.

That "the other board" book is a waste. It goes into way too much detail about stuff you don't need to know for the PE. 70% of the PE questions cannot be answered using that book alone. It's a good reference, but that's it. Again, it's more of a help to people who already know the material and just need it to jog their memory. I found that the "the other board" book is overkill for the morning section, and not detailed enough for the afternoon section (power specifically).

The best thing to study with is a real-life past exam. Unfortunately, there is only one available from NCEES. There are other practice tests out there (Kaplan, 101 practice problems, 6-minute problems, etc.). These books aren't that great either. I mean, they'll help you learn stuff about electrical engineering, but they won't really help you pass the test.

That's the goal here. I hate to be cynical, but the goal is to pass the test, not to become a great engineer. So, most of the books out there, in an attempt to be comprehensive and not leave anything out, become a huge waste of time and non-productive.

Anyway, I'll stop now. I'm telling you this as a guy who has zero background in electrical engineering. I also had little background in mechanical engineering and I passed that on the first shot also. It's all about doing what it takes to pass the test and not wasting time on a bunch of stuff that won't help on the exam. Like I said, a lot of this material will help you become more knowledgeable as an engineer, but always keep in mind that you are trying to pass a test.

That being said, there isn't a lot of good material out there, there's almost none. So I don't know what advice to give you. This book by Chelapati is great if you can find it. The official NCEES practice test is good, but once you take it once, that's it for that. Those are the only 2 things that I thought were worthwhile. All the other books and stuff I came across were mediocre at best.

Hey, aren't you the same guy that also passed the Nuclear PE and the Fire Protection PE on the same day with a hangover with 2 hours left over?!?!

Supreme, not to be a doubter, but from all the researchI did, Chelapati is a Civil and Structural guy and only one small section that deals with basic circuit analysis and nothing dealing 3 phase or Power, even from years ago. And that stuff was for the FE, not the PE.

http://www.irvine-institute.org/pdf/workbooks.pdf

Are you sure you got the name right?

Techie_Junkie said:

Hey, aren't you the same guy that also passed the Nuclear PE and the Fire Protection PE on the same day with a hangover with 2 hours left over?!?!

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Very funny...Seriously though, I wasn't trying to be a showoff, I was just trying to emphasize how it helps to approach the PE exam with a bit of a cynical mindset, because there seems to be an "air" around the PE test that makes it harder than it should be. I really think that the PE is an easy test, but it's really hard to find good, efficient study sources whether it is classes, books, practice tests, etc. A bad study source will make the test much harder than it actually is because you have to filter through all the crap (which is a lot) to learn the information that will help you pass the test. 90% of the material out there is incorrectly intended to help you learn electrical engineering in general. But it just doesn't help on the test that much.

It's similar to how you use different muscles for different sports. Let's say you wanted to get in shape for a basketball league. You start running a couple of miles a day thinking it will help build up your endurance for the basketball court. You do this for a few months, then you play basketball and you get winded in 10 minutes? Why? It's a different kind of running in basketball...short little sprints, a little bit of jumping in between, changing directions, etc. Same thing with the PE exam, you want to study content that is going to be similar to the exam and actively ignore or filter out what doesn't apply, however useful it is to you in your electrical engineering career.

Supreme, not to be a doubter, but from all the researchI did, Chelapati is a Civil and Structural guy and only one small section that deals with basic circuit analysis and nothing dealing 3 phase or Power, even from years ago. And that stuff was for the FE, not the PE.
http://www.irvine-institute.org/pdf/workbooks.pdf

Are you sure you got the name right?

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My friend gave me his book from over 15 years ago. When I was studying, I called Chelapati asking about these books. One of his administrators told me that they stopped the electrical part of their program a long time ago because there were too few people enrolling in it to have it be profitable. The book is definitely a PE book, it's titled "PE (Electrical) License Review Manual". I've even done some modifications to it so it's easier to navigate quickly. I'm telling you, this book was the best. This one book alone can get you by 50% of the PE questions even if you have no background in electrical engineering (but a decent mathematical background). There's a second volume which I was never able to get which covers all the non-power questions you might encounter in the morning section (controls, transistors, electronics, etc.) and if it is as well-written as the Power volume that I have, you'd have that PE test in the bag for sure. Honestly, I probably blindly guessed on all of the non-power problems, and I still passed, so I can only imagine how confident I would have been had I had that second volume. I don't know what my score was, but I'm assuming I was pretty close to the cutoff for passing.

Bottom line is, you want good, applicable study materials...of which there is really none, besides one or two accurate study tests that I've come across. It's sad that the best study manual I found was from the early 90's. Yet, people keep getting the "the other board" book like it's the must-have book for this test. It's not.

Superme- good for you on your accomplishemnt. I have no problem believing that an intelligent person with an engineering background could pass the exam in several disciplines. As a matter of fact, my coworker is licensed in civil, mechanical, and metallurgical (a California license). However, I do think it is sort of unfortunate, no offense, that they would license a person with only one year experience in the field. I don't think they do that in my state. Because, I think they should rely as much on the references from PEs as the exam, which, as you stated is more of a test of how good you are at taking tests.

Well, technically speaking, I have 3 years of actual experience...but I meant one year with "electrical" being part of my title. I don't know if you were implying this, but I didn't lie with my references.

In any case, I don't think experience has anything to do with a test like this. Once tests become standardized, it just becomes a matter of test-taking skills. It's not a "shame" or anything, there's just nothing they can do about it. Is it a shame that the SAT is given the significance that it has?

superme said:

Well, technically speaking, I have 3 years of actual experience...but I meant one year with "electrical" being part of my title. I don't know if you were implying this, but I didn't lie with my references.
In any case, I don't think experience has anything to do with a test like this. Once tests become standardized, it just becomes a matter of test-taking skills. It's not a "shame" or anything, there's just nothing they can do about it. Is it a shame that the SAT is given the significance that it has?

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I will tell you and anyone else reading that most people do have to study more than a couple books, and more than a month. Apparently you are either very smart or very good at taking tests. I would hate for the majority of people to be misled, that's all.

I also didn't imply you were lying -but in my state I don't think your experience would cut it. You said you worked at electrical engineering for one year, not that it was in your title for a year. If you have actually worked at it for three years, purely electrical work for a total of three years, that's different. In my state, three years experience doing some electrical and some mechanical wouldn't be enough experience for two licenses, you couldn't overlap experience. That may not be the same everywhere, but I'm not lying either, or making something up - check the California requirements (unless I'm reading them completely wrong).

I don't know where you got the idea that I thought it was a "shame" that the test is significant. I do think it would be a shame if a person could get a license from only taking the test. A license gives a person rights to sign off on safety related infrastructure, they should have some experience. Similarly, I would think it was a "shame" if the SAT was the only thing that a college looked at.

I agree that experience doesn't have much to do with the exam, but it should have something to do with the actual license. I think people fresh out of school would generally do better on the exam. I was sort of agreeing with you - if you are actually going to allow people to design significant things based only on this exam that is frightening. I assumed that was why they carefully checked experience.

OK benbo, no offense taken.

Anyway, I just wanted to get back to this topic of review materials and what is available. Regardless of how good a test-taker you are or how acedmically proficient you are, I still truly believe that there is almost no good review material out there for the PE test specifically. There are dozens of good electrical engineering books, but they won't help you pass the test because they will throw a lot of non-applicable information at you and you won't even know it's not applicable until you take the test a time or two. I'll list the best review material out there:

--The NCEES practice exam.

This exam is just like the real thing. Unfortunately, it's only one exam, and once you take it, it's basically used up unless you have an extremely poor memory (and you have more problems to worry about if that's the case.

--Chelapati's PE Electrical License Review

This is an excellent book for studying the power portion. You will probably not find this anywhere, unfortunately. But if you study this book well, you will have a significant portion of the test covered (I say 50%).

--101 Practice Problems for the Electrical PE (by Princeton Review? I think)

This is not a very good book because the solutions have a lot (and I mean a lot) of errors, and they skip so many math steps in the solutions that it's very difficult to follow. The only good thing about this book is that the problems are vaguely similar to actual PE problems. I probably shouldn't recommend this book at all.

--National Electric Code

If you are not familiar with the NEC, it will be fairly difficult to use it for the test. This is one of those things, like benbo said, where experience really comes in handy. TO blindly flip through the NEC would waste a lot of time on the test. You sort of have to have an idea of what you're looking for. That being said, you can probably not study the NEC at all and still pass the test. Not saying that's a good thing, it's just a fact.

That's pretty much it! Your only other hope is to take all your electrical engineering books from school and familiarize yourself with them, so you can find any equation or concept quickly. That's what a lot of people do by bringing in loads of books to the exam. But you don't have to do this if you study with the right strategy.

This is what I've noticed about people who have a hard time passing the PE...

SOme don't take it seriously enough, and try to wing it. 'Nuff said.

Some people aren't good test takers. That's tough to overcome. Now, I'm not exactly sure what it means to not be a "good test taker" because it's kind of a vague term. Do you not know the material? Do you know the material and get nervous? Do you have ADD? I don't know. From my observations, people who claim not to be good test takers are experienced engineers who for all practical purposes should pass the test, but don't. This is because the test has little to do with the skills necessary to be a successful engineer. So, I think these people have great practical engineering skills, but not the knowledge necessary to pass the test. It's not that they're not good test-takers, it's that they think because they are good engineers, that skill should translate smoothly to the PE test. They're completely different. My father is a much, much better, more respected, and more experienced electrical engineer than I am, but I will have a much easier time passing a test on electricity than he will (probably!). They are different skills.

Other people don't have the time to put in studying for the test properly. They have families, they have great responsibilities at work, whatever. That's difficult. You need quality studying time. There's no way around it.

Then there's the group of people who simply haven't exercised their brains in a while. Sure, you're a veteran electrical engineer, but maybe you just coast by your job in a routine and don't encounter many challenges. This is very common. A lot of the work we do simply isn't all that complex academically speaking. Especially with computers and everything, what's the most math we use... a little algebra here and there? Well, if you've been this way for 10-15 years, chances are you're not used to studying or learning in a fairly intense manner anymore. It's hard to get back in the flow. You will need a lot of discipline and willpower.

Well, those are my thoughts on test preparation and review materials. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of helpful recommendations for what I think is a relatively easy test to pass. It's people's situations and the amount of poor study material that people rely on that makes the test seem difficult. If it were the SAT or the GRE, you would have tons of awesome material to study with, and better yet, loads of very realistic practice tests. You can't beat practice tests, they are the best study material. If you took 5 realistic PE practice tests, you would know exactly what you're weak points are, and just concentrate on those from then on. But there's only one.

superme said:

Let me give you my background. My college degree was in Bioengineering, I only took one EE class. Fortunately, I'm a good test-taker and I recognize good study material when I see it. I've worked at Electrical Engineering for about 1 year now, and I passed the EE PE on my first shot, after studying for a little over a month. The secret for me was that my friend gave me a really useful, applicable book that is unfortunately discontinued for the past 15 years almost. It was from this guy, Chelpati. The book was good because the problems and discussions were tailored for the PE test (power) and not just EE in general, like most study material.

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I found it and just ordered a copy ($90). Hope it is as good as you said it is.

http://www.cpeinst.com/pe_electcovers.htm

http://www.cpeinst.com/index.html

http://store.prostores.com/irvineinstituteoftechnology

http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/irvin...nuals%2C+2nd+Ed.

As I think I mentioned on another thread, I also had this book, and gave it to a colleague because I hate power. No, my colleague wasn't superme. My colleague used this book almost exclusively and passed the exam (the second time he took it). After you get it I would be interested in your impressions of it. I did not find this an easy book to understand, and believe a person would need a decent level of EE knowledge, or a rather high intellectual ability (beyond mine) to simply pick up this book, review it for a month, and pass the exam. That is why I would not recommend a typical exam taker to rely entirely on this book. I suspect superme is at least a bit above the average level in his ability to comprehend new concepts and apply them to exams.

One other thing, and correct me if I am wrong. I do not believe this book contained anything on control or communication theory, or any electronic devices such as digital devices, transistors or op amps. Therefore, if you are going to count entirely on this book you better either be almost perfect on power, know something about the other stuff from somewhere else, or be a really good guesser. You can get some of it from the NCEES practice exam, but not everything.

benbo said:

As I think I mentioned on another thread, I also had this book, and gave it to a colleague because I hate power. No, my colleague wasn't superme. My colleague used this book almost exclusively and passed the exam (the second time he took it). After you get it I would be interested in your impressions of it. I did not find this an easy book to understand, and believe a person would need a decent level of EE knowledge, or a rather high intellectual ability (beyond mine) to simply pick up this book, review it for a month, and pass the exam. That is why I would not recommend a typical exam taker to rely entirely on this book. I suspect superme is at least a bit above the average level in his ability to comprehend new concepts and apply them to exams.
One other thing, and correct me if I am wrong. I do not believe this book contained anything on control or communication theory, or any electronic devices such as digital devices, transistors or op amps. Therefore, if you are going to count entirely on this book you better either be almost perfect on power, know something about the other stuff from somewhere else, or be a really good guesser.

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Correct. I noticed this before ordering. The Table of Contents doesn't cover every topic on the exam. I'll try to remember to post my thoughts after I've had a couple of weeks to look at it.

http://www.cpeinst.com/pedptext/ee_manualv1.htm

I need a recommendation on two different Schaums' Outlines. I took my Electrical Power PE in April and failed. My biggest area of weeknesst was circuit analysis and transmission and distribution. I mainly studied from the EERM. I wanto work more problems in basic circuit analysis and I want to see if you guys recommend I purchase:

Schaum's Outline of Basic Circuit Analysis

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Basi...4758973-6484716

or

Schaum's Outline of Electric Circuits

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...4758973-6484716

I already purchase the Schaum's Outline of Electric Power Systems and the a Power book by Grainger.

What would you all recommend?

Thanks,

Nick

eta506 said:

I need a recommendation on two different Schaums' Outlines. I took my Electrical Power PE in April and failed. My biggest area of weeknesst was circuit analysis and transmission and distribution. I mainly studied from the EERM. I wanto work more problems in basic circuit analysis and I want to see if you guys recommend I purchase:
Schaum's Outline of Basic Circuit Analysis

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Basi...4758973-6484716

or

Schaum's Outline of Electric Circuits

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...4758973-6484716

I already purchase the Schaum's Outline of Electric Power Systems and the a Power book by Grainger.

What would you all recommend?

Thanks,

Nick

Click to expand...

Nick...We are in the same "boat"...I took the test last April (Power) and failed...I already posted the following:

I think that two excellent options (if you are a power guy like me) are (lots of problems):

Schaum's Outline of Electrical Power Systems

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...5677&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...5677&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...8685&sr=8-4

RC

rcurras said:

Nick...We are in the same "boat"...I took the test last April (Power) and failed...I already posted the following:
I think that two excellent options (if you are a power guy like me) are (lots of problems):

Schaum's Outline of Electrical Power Systems

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...5677&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...5677&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Elec...8685&sr=8-4

RC

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sorry: and Schaum's Outline of Electric Machines & Electromechanics (Paperback)

SteveR said:

Correct. I noticed this before ordering. The Table of Contents doesn't cover every topic on the exam. I'll try to remember to post my thoughts after I've had a couple of weeks to look at it.
http://www.cpeinst.com/pedptext/ee_manualv1.htm

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Hi guys,

Just FYI. PE Electrical Engineering License Review Manual edited by C.V. Chelapati come in 2 volumes. The 2nd volume covers the followings:

Electronics Circuits and Applications

Control System

Transmission Lines and Antennas

Yes. They are good review manual. Volume 1 is available. I haven't found Volume 2.