My opinion-Mechanical PE exam-October-2007

Hi all,

Mechanical PE exam october 26-2007 is very very hard on AM as well as PM (fluid & thermal) section.

too many HVAC questions they asked i do not know what NCEES want to prove them self if anyone from the Board will take this test, hardly anyone

can pass this PE exam.

I am totally disappointed looking all this questions they asking in PE exam.

All of us have to write to NCEES so they can listen to all of us and improve their standard of asking questions to us.

plase write your thaughts to NCEES.

good luck to all.

this is waste of money and time without our fault.

God Bless all of us.

I too was surprised at the sheer number of HVAC questions. Seeing how they were represented in the NCEES practice test (not many at all), I didn't focus on HVAC for heavy study. Luck of the draw, I guess. Maybe it'll be less like that next time.

Since I work in the HVAC industry, I took the HVAC depth during the PM. But I heard from others after the test complaining about how many HVAC problems were in the ' Thermal & Fluids ' depth.

To me that is not fair, as the people who take that depth do not encounter HVAC in their work fields.

Regarding the AM portion, I'm glad im not the only one who thought is was very hard. I did pretty bad in the AM and pretty good in the PM, so now I am not sure if I'll pass or not.

I think that the problem with the AM portion was the time. I spent 10 minutes on some of those AM problems because i knew they were easy ones and really wants to solve it, regardless of the time. When the proctor announced: "15 minutes left", oh my God (PANIC), i was in problem 30!!

PM portion was worked on time: 6 minutes per problem, so time was not an issue on the afternoon. Time is the factor why some of us conclude that AM was harder.

Guasabara said:

I think that the problem with the AM portion was the time. I spent 10 minutes on some of those AM problems because i knew they were easy ones and really wants to solve it, regardless of the time. When the proctor announced: "15 minutes left", oh my God (PANIC), i was in problem 30!!
PM portion was worked on time: 6 minutes per problem, so time was not an issue on the afternoon. Time is the factor why some of us conclude that AM was harder.

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Nice username....Guasabara...That means WAR!!!!....GUERRA!!!!....I still remember my third grade Social Studies class.

If NCEES has put HVAC problems on the Fluids portion, that is just plain wrong - & i'm sorry for you guys. The morning test was hard, I went through after 2 hours and had 17 left... Went back through those over the next 1.5 hrs, and had the last 30 minutes to do some engineered edjumicated guessing on the few remaining. Afternoon, I took HVAC it was tough in my opinion - although there were many questions that were VERY easy then again there were several that basically did not look like anything I had studied or practiced... Had 19 questions left after 2 hours, and did the same thing as before. Glad that I took all 4 ashrae's definately. Basically, I have no clue how i did, if I got 85-90% of the first pass and 45-50% of the second pass it's close to a 70, but no one know's the magic "cutscore"... Why can't NCEES publish the cutscore?! I mean no one can do anything about it. Are people going to do only the correct number and then just guess? I think not. And why in the world are we not allowed to put our watches on the freakin' table. I practiced for two months with my watch in a certain position just to simulate the test conditions, and then the proctor tells me that i can either put it on my arm or put it on the floor.

The thing that really bugs me is no where in real life (unless you're on a sinking nuclear sub), will most engineer's be faced with ONLY 6 minutes to solve a problem. I admit that I'm not a good test taker - but I can sit down and figure out a solution to a problem - It may take some time, but i can get to the correct answer. This will be the third (and hopefully) last time I have to take the dreaded thing. I know I was more prepared for this one 10x's more than the previous 2 combined, however I think it's still just a test against time and not a true representation of "practicing knoweldege"

Put another way - would you want to be walking or driving on a bridge than an engineer spent 6 minutes on the most important feature? I think not. Good luck to all of you, I hope we all passed.

NCST8ENGR said:

Why can't NCEES publish the cutscore?! I mean no one can do anything about it. Are people going to do only the correct number and then just guess? I think not.

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Yeah, but everyone would then complain that the mechanical's cut score is lower than the civil's or the cut score when you took the mechanical exam was lower than when I took the mechanical exam. That's not fair! You didn't have to know as much as I did!

And so forth and so on.........

^^ Very good point MIG.

If I may offer an opinion, (because I so rarely do so )

If NCEES would simply go to a third-party auditing agency like Pricewaterhouse Coopers to ensure and validate the integrity of the scoring system that would alleviate many of the concerns and gripes that examinees would have regarding the 'grading'. As it stands now, it appears to be conducted in a vacuum without any independent validity or verification on the controls or QA for the process. If the NCEES process is as robust as they claim - let it be held up to the scrutiny of independent auditors.

I feel that the NCEES serving as a contractor to states should be OBLIGATED to offer such a testimonial regarding the exam scoring process. But then again, that is one persons opinion

:2cents:

JR

It's nice hear that most everyone thought the morning session was more difficult than the afternoon; I answered the last question with less than 30 seconds left. At lunch I really started to question my knowledge after studying for 3 months.

It was nice to breeze through at least half the exam, it served as validation that my time was spent well by studying. I will definately focus more on the HVAC Q's if I have to go through this again. I studied them back August but primarily focused on the Machine Design for the past month-1/2.

I thought the PM was easier than the AM too. I do HVAC design. So, the HVAC questions made much more sense to me. Most of the fluid an machine design stuff I had not encountered since college.

So the PM was a nice brake from the AM IMHO.

Ellis said:

I thought the PM was easier than the AM too. I do HVAC design. So, the HVAC questions made much more sense to me. Most of the fluid an machine design stuff I had not encountered since college.
So the PM was a nice brake from the AM IMHO.

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I felt the opposite. I felt real good about ~34 of 40 in the AM/Mechanical, and only ~24 of 40 on the PM/Thermo module. I thought the HVAC was a bit heavy in the afternoon, but HVAC was my favorite class in college, so that helped. I didin't prepare enough for combustion turbine type problems, buy hey, I work at a coal fired power plant. The MERM helped out on several problems I didn't prepare for.

Texas Aggie '02

Texas Aggie said:

I felt the opposite. I felt real good about ~34 of 40 in the AM/Mechanical, and only ~24 of 40 on the PM/Thermo module. I thought the HVAC was a bit heavy in the afternoon, but HVAC was my favorite class in college, so that helped. I didin't prepare enough for combustion turbine type problems, buy hey, I work at a coal fired power plant. The MERM helped out on several problems I didn't prepare for.
Texas Aggie '02

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I'm with you Aggie...i felt good on about 35/40 morning, and about 30/40 or so afternoon...i was not extremely confident in the HVAC area, but also don't find those problems too difficult...either you did or didn't use your psychometric charts well....then its simple math...but i was never confident that i looked up thing correctly...or i should say i have a tendency to second guess myself.

To me all the fluids problems were energy equation...straight forward even though i don't regularly use...a few exceptions...overall, i thought it was a difficult, but well rounded test...a little more HVAC than i would have liked.