April 2014 - PM exam

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Golden Eagle PE

Mechanical Engineer
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I have not seen many Mechanicals comment on how the exam went for them. Just curious what everyone thought about it and which depth did you take?

I took the MD PM exam and it was tough. I barely finished on time. Some problems came out for me ok but others I struggled with since I could not get it to match any of their answers choices. I would like to think I got at least 50% correct but this was doing a quick scan near the end of the exam to check my answers. It might be enough to pass if I aced the morning portion (I sure felt good at lunchtime).

I calculated it over and over it my head what I think my "high" and "low" scores are. Somehow this makes me feel better. Especially if I can convince myself I got close to the cut score (cue cut score analysis thread).

Plus, since results don't come out for another 2 months, what else are we going to do except over analyze the exam?

 
I took the Mechanical Systems PM Depth Module. I found it to be easier than the morning session and the morning session was not bad either.

 
Morning session was a breeze. I was laughing at how stressed out I was.

I took the Thermal & Fluids depth. I stopped laughing.

 
Did the HVAC Depth

I found it pretty rough going - some tricky questions in there.

 
I have not seen many Mechanicals comment on how the exam went for them. Just curious what everyone thought about it and which depth did you take?

I took the MD PM exam and it was tough. I barely finished on time. Some problems came out for me ok but others I struggled with since I could not get it to match any of their answers choices. I would like to think I got at least 50% correct but this was doing a quick scan near the end of the exam to check my answers. It might be enough to pass if I aced the morning portion (I sure felt good at lunchtime).

I calculated it over and over it my head what I think my "high" and "low" scores are. Somehow this makes me feel better. Especially if I can convince myself I got close to the cut score (cue cut score analysis thread).

Plus, since results don't come out for another 2 months, what else are we going to do except over analyze the exam?


I took Mechanical MD in the afternoon. Morning was a breeze, i solved all 40 problems with in 3 hours and checked all my answers. i had lot of free time, i think, i aced the morning, if not, got atleast 38.

Afternoon was little disappointing. I solved almost 36 and had 30 mins. left to check. i guessed 2 or 3 because i could not solve. i am thinking atleast 30 correct questions.
 
I was Mechanical Design PM too. I finished the AM with about 30 minutes to spare. Went through about half the questions, checking math. Found 2 dumb mistakes and corrected.

PM was way harder. First pass through I skipped probably 2/3 of the problems but eventually did find a method to solve them all. Don't know if it was the "right" method but I ened up feeling decently. I got them all answered with about 10 minutes to spare.

If I don't pass, I DEFINITELY need to study more for the PM.

 
I took the mechanical systems and materials afternoon session.

I studied way too much for the diversity of AM subjects and not enough for the PM. I didn't have enough time for studying, so I took it for granted that I would remember certain topics from college classes from 8 years ago. The AM was pretty straight forward. I thought I'd be more crunched for time then I was and that caused me to panic at the beginning. I blame it on practicing problems that were unrealistically hard. Finished with 15 minutes to spare with all but 1-2 that I was confident in.

PM session was much harder since I over prepared for the morning. I had to leave a half hour early to pick my son up from daycare, but got a reasonable answer for all but 3-4 of them. More time would not really have helped. It would have just caused me to second guess myself.

Question for the esteemed crowd-

As part of my sanity checks, I looked at the 4 answers and looked for situations where one answer was different from another by a factor of 32. The logic being that a test writer trying to gauge comprehension of units and gravity would provide the right answer as well as the answer that was off by gc. I then assumed that the answer should be one of those 2 options.

Is that good logic? I never used it as the sole method for determining an answer, but it seemed to give me a warm fuzzy in a few cases.

 
I took the mechanical systems and materials afternoon session.

I studied way too much for the diversity of AM subjects and not enough for the PM. I didn't have enough time for studying, so I took it for granted that I would remember certain topics from college classes from 8 years ago. The AM was pretty straight forward. I thought I'd be more crunched for time then I was and that caused me to panic at the beginning. I blame it on practicing problems that were unrealistically hard. Finished with 15 minutes to spare with all but 1-2 that I was confident in.

PM session was much harder since I over prepared for the morning. I had to leave a half hour early to pick my son up from daycare, but got a reasonable answer for all but 3-4 of them. More time would not really have helped. It would have just caused me to second guess myself.

Question for the esteemed crowd-

As part of my sanity checks, I looked at the 4 answers and looked for situations where one answer was different from another by a factor of 32. The logic being that a test writer trying to gauge comprehension of units and gravity would provide the right answer as well as the answer that was off by gc. I then assumed that the answer should be one of those 2 options.

Is that good logic? I never used it as the sole method for determining an answer, but it seemed to give me a warm fuzzy in a few cases.


Unless there was another mistake entirely that you made on the question (like convert ft to in or something)

 
Question for the esteemed crowd-

As part of my sanity checks, I looked at the 4 answers and looked for situations where one answer was different from another by a factor of 32. The logic being that a test writer trying to gauge comprehension of units and gravity would provide the right answer as well as the answer that was off by gc. I then assumed that the answer should be one of those 2 options.

Is that good logic? I never used it as the sole method for determining an answer, but it seemed to give me a warm fuzzy in a few cases.


Haha, I did the same thing for a question (for initial guess, not sanity check)! Problem is, when I got home, i checked it and it was incorrect. It seems to me that They foresee people trying to outsmart Them, and put in a bogey answer. Having said that, it does seem a sensible way to sanity check once you've already worked out an answer.

 
I took the mechanical systems and materials afternoon session.

I studied way too much for the diversity of AM subjects and not enough for the PM. I didn't have enough time for studying, so I took it for granted that I would remember certain topics from college classes from 8 years ago. The AM was pretty straight forward. I thought I'd be more crunched for time then I was and that caused me to panic at the beginning. I blame it on practicing problems that were unrealistically hard. Finished with 15 minutes to spare with all but 1-2 that I was confident in.

PM session was much harder since I over prepared for the morning. I had to leave a half hour early to pick my son up from daycare, but got a reasonable answer for all but 3-4 of them. More time would not really have helped. It would have just caused me to second guess myself.

Question for the esteemed crowd-

As part of my sanity checks, I looked at the 4 answers and looked for situations where one answer was different from another by a factor of 32. The logic being that a test writer trying to gauge comprehension of units and gravity would provide the right answer as well as the answer that was off by gc. I then assumed that the answer should be one of those 2 options.

Is that good logic? I never used it as the sole method for determining an answer, but it seemed to give me a warm fuzzy in a few cases.
Also, if that gc term was somehow inside of a square, then that would screw up your process as well. I know there were a few where I calculated it as close as I could and picked one of those answers.

 
More importantly I guess- being religious about writing out the equations and units really helped every step of the step of the way. Whether it was false security or not, I was happy if I could look at the different answers and say "oh, I would have gotten this wrong answer if I forgot to convert to ft" and have it be supported by clearly shown work. In fact, I wish they would have left more space in between problems to be more organized and thorough with solutions.

However, I never counted on trying to outsmart the writers and their answer choices. If I used the wrong equation, no unit conversions would have helped.

 
I took the HVAC Depth.

Same story as many. Morning seemed to go great, until the afternoon.

Just not sure how anybody could have studied for some of those questions.

 
I'm surprised at how many people here took the Mechanical Systems depth. Nobody else who did Thermal & Fluids wants to comment? Seriously, I got my ass kicked in the afternoon and I would feel fantastic if someone could share my misery.

Hearing someone say they took MD depth and "solved almost 36 and still had 30 minutes to check" is making me **** a brick. That was NOT my experience with T&F depth.

 
I'm surprised at how many people here took the Mechanical Systems depth. Nobody else who did Thermal & Fluids wants to comment? Seriously, I got my ass kicked in the afternoon and I would feel fantastic if someone could share my misery.

Hearing someone say they took MD depth and "solved almost 36 and still had 30 minutes to check" is making me **** a brick. That was NOT my experience with T&F depth.
bosco, the guy that commented about the 36 problems and finishing early must have been a genius or just way smarter than me. I thought the MD PM exam was tough even though I made it through. Don't worry, most people probably suffered. Sounds like it was not exactly a breeze for Smott either.

 
To follow that, I think the PM depth is supposed to be tough. But I applaud anyone who can take it can get 90% correct. Good for them. I studied my butt off and I still do not feel super confident about the PM exam.

Maybe results will come out super early....

 
Any further input for the Thermal / Fluids depth would be greatly appreciated. For example, was NCEES / SMS good preparation? What would you have done differently to prepare? Any references you didn't take that you wish you had?

 
I took the T&F depth. After my first pass through all 40 questions, I was freaking out. I counted them up and only had about 20 answered. Once I calmed down and went through on the second pass, I gained back confidence because I was able to solve the other 20. Every question I solved I had an available answer choice to select. I do know that the most common and clever wrong answers are also listed, but it still helps me sleep at night knowing I didn't have to flat out guess on any of them.

Some nights I have nightmares that I didn't bubble in the answer sheet correctly. I'm serious. It really is a terrifying thought..

 
Any further input for the Thermal / Fluids depth would be greatly appreciated. For example, was NCEES / SMS good preparation? What would you have done differently to prepare? Any references you didn't take that you wish you had?


I feel like the SMS was a good addition to my studying. I went ahead and used all three SMS books obviously focusing the most on T+F. and the morning questions of the others. I know that a lot of people hate them because of the errors, but I didn't mind that because it takes just 15 minutes to go get the errata and fix it yourself. No big thing.

 
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