Review of review material

OK as someone who was out of school for a while (14 years to undergrad) I picked up a fair amount of review material and thought I'd help the next engineer with my reviews of what was helpful (and what wasn't) - please add your own comments below to help those taking the test next time.

Books:

NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering Supplied-Reference Handbook - buy a copy so you can use it for solving all your study questions with. This will help you learn where everything is, which will save time on the actual exam.

Fundamentals of Engineering Review Manual (aka FERM by Lindeburg): Overall good B+/A-, I spent most of my time reviewing topics from the book, it was very useful to have. Though what would be useful is when he pulls something out of the reference handbook that comes from one of the later chapters (i.e. Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering) it would be nice if he didn't just color it green in his book (which means you can find it in the reference handbook), but let you know it wasn't with the rest of the general information in the front half of the book. Some examples - speed of sound is in the Mechanical section, Poisson distribution is in the Industrial Engineering section, k factors for column bucking are in the Civil section etc.

1001 Solved Engineering Fundamentals Problems: B, it was nice to have for some topics where I wanted to do more problems, but I probably could have done without it, I didn't get through the whole book.

999 Nonquantitative Problems for FE Examination Review: B, I got through about 1/3 of the book. I cut the binding, scanned it into a pdf and made it so I could review it on my iphone, in that format it was more useful since I could review it while waiting for meetings, in line etc.

FE/EIT Sample Examinations: A, this was very useful - starting 3 weeks before the exam I started taking a timed practice test. This book has two full 8 hour tests to take, I found them very useful to get used to both the timing, the exam format, trying out strategies for what order to answer questions in, and in general get into the frame of mind needed to take the FE exam. I was a little annoyed at a few things however - 1st Lindeburg seems to think that the computer section should be mostly or all controls, this isn't what the NCEES uses for their description of the type of computer questions, and Lindeburg had little or no questions that were representative of the computer questions you'll probably see on a real exam. Second there were errors on the exam (1 I found on the first which is in the errata, and 4 on the second #30,31,32 and 59 are incorrect the errata is now on the ppi website). Oh and Lindeburg likes to be tricky and put in probability questions using the poisson distribution - which isn't in the front section of the reference handbook, but it IS in the back of the book in the Industrial Engineering section.

FE Other Disciplines Sample Questions and Solutions Book: A-, While I wish this had a 4 hour morning / 4 hour afternoon instead of the half exam (2hours for morning / 2hours for afternoon), it was very useful to get a sense of the question difficulty to expect on the exam. I found the AM problems to be similar in nature to the actual test. On the PM test, many or most of the questions were a similar level of difficulty I thought a few of the questions on the actual exam were harder than what was on this practice exam.

DVDs (and other videos):

Fundamentals of Engineering DVD Review by PPI: C+, this video series has very little production values, it basically reads the FERM book to you. I picked up a copy on ebay watched some of the discs, but not all, and resold it back on ebay. It had some information, but I found it to be too slow, a better use of my time was spent reviewing other material.

Texas A&M online review videos for the FE exam: A+++, http://engineeringregistration.tamu.edu/tapedreviews/ Prof. Lee Lowery and other professors at Texas A&M give a great set of lectures for the FE exam, and they're FREE (they were made in 1998, but I felt they held up very well). It's really a wonderful resource - great to watch on a PC with the PDF notes open along with the video and you can follow along even though the video resolution is a little low. You can stream the videos (they're realmedia or rm files) or download them - I couldn't get them to play on my iPhone so I downloaded and converted them using ffmpeg and was able to bring them with me.

iPhone applications:

Fundamentals of Engineering in a Flash: Rapid Review of Key Topics for the FE/EIT Exam D, this was a total waste of my money, there was very little information there, and what was there I didn't find very helpful.

Flashcards Deluxe (http://orangeorapple.com/Flashcards/) iPhone flashcard application: A, this was VERY useful - I created some flashcards for thermo that helped me relearn all the terms and special cases, I also imported flashcard decks into the application straight from quizlet on fluids, thermo, materials etc.

Calculator

Casio FX-115 ES A+, I love this calculator - it was VERY useful for the exam. The online manual is here: http://support.casio.com/pdf/004/fx-115ES_991ES_Eng.pdf and there is a great PDF summary on using the calculator put together by Testmasters here: http://www.testmasters.com/assets/files/CASIOFX.pdf I wish I'd found that before I spent the time going through the giant map sized casio manual that came with the calculator to find out what functions would be useful to know for the FE exam. But you should know how to do vectors, matrix, stats (std deviation and regression), probability, combinatorics, binomial equations, solving simultaneous linear equations, etc. etc. on the calculator.

Websites:

>http://www.eitexam.com B+, Its relatively cheap and provides you with quizzes and tests you can take. It was good when I wanted something different to study, or to simulate a quick morning session quiz while at work during lunch. I did feel the quality of the problems varies, sometimes quite a bit, but all in all it was useful.

EIT Experts, I won't grade them since I only bought two pre-recored lectures from them (which is different that the interactive course so keep that in mind with my review). I found the first lecture useful, but it was longer then I had time for - it was 6+ hours for one lecture, and I could go through the material much faster than that on my own (so I never ended up watching the second lecture that I paid for). For me it was somewhat useful, but the A&M videos review the material in less time.

Practice Test Difficulty A more through breakdown (I was hunting for info on this before the exam and couldn't find too much) - for those taking the practice tests by PPI and NCEES: I thought the AM was about the same level of question as the NCEES sample exam, and similar to the level of the morning test at the end of FERM, a little easier than the PPI sample practice tests AM sections. I had time to do all the problems, and review the handful I needed more time on. I found out during the practice tests that I could just go straight through the exam and answer the questions in order. If I came to a problem that was taking too long I marked it and moved on and came back to it after completing all the other questions. I was also able to do that in the actual exam, for me this was easier then some test taking strategies that involve pre-screening all the questions (but then I studied all the sections of the test except for biology - the FERM I felt had too much content on bio and it represented too little of the actual exam to worry about).

The afternoon - some of the questions on the general seemed MUCH more difficult than the NCEES sample questions, closer to the PPI sample test questions, but in general there were enough simple questions that I was able to finish in 3 hours (including a 40 minute review).

As for timing references: The NCEES sample exam took me 1:50 for the morning and 1:40 for the afternoon - looking back at that sample exam the thermo questions were very easy in this practice test.

I was able to do both AM and PM sample Lindeburg (PPI) tests in the FE/EIT Sample Examinations with some time to spare (about 20 minutes extra time for both).

And for those who have been out of school for a while, I started studying January 1st and tried to did about 20 - 25 hours a week. I studies almost all the sections of the FERM, but skipped bio and controls completely and don't regret it.

Finally I know I'm writing all this before I know if I passed, but in case I need to take it again and need to remember what was useful and/or to help the next person I thought this information could help - like I said a lot of this stuff I tried to find and couldn't so hopefully it's useful.

Well written. I agree with most of your reviews. As a current student who just took EIT on last weekend, i reviewed only 3 hours on a night before the exam day. I reviewed NCEES Sample exams of 60am and 30pm of civil, which turned out to be very helpful for AM section. I could answer 100% of math problems with most AM section with only 3 hours reviewing.

However, after Civil section is harder than NCEES sample questions. I'd say focus on morning section since they are a lot easier than afternoon. If you are planning to take civil afternoon, make sure you study concepts of each subjects since there are 15-20% of the questions are conceptual. If you know concepts, you can answer them in 10 seconds.

Thanks ayanhein, for adding the CE perspective, it looks like I forgot to mention that I took the General PM section.

Also what I believe worked for me (if I passed) was to look at the breakdown of the question percentages and keep them in mind while studying - this is for the general exam:



So for the general knowing the math, probability and statistics along with engineering economics gives you almost 30% of the test. I felt they were the real low hanging fruit, with a little review the problems are straight forward (the econ problems are all basically plug and chug).

The percentages also helped me keep track of what was important to review (hence the skipping of all the chapters on bio in the Lindeburg FERM).

Also I agree with ayanhein, there was a good percentage of questions that involved just knowing the basic concepts, and if you know them you quickly get a right answer and extra time to use on the rest of the test.

Just in case the graphic above doesn't show up here's the pm breakdown in good old poorly formatted ascii:

Great post! I think the link from Texas A&M will be especially helpful. It's one thing to read it in a book, but for some people (like me) actually seeing a problem worked out makes it much easier to understand.

After reading some of the questions on other threads about the FE, I thought the links below would give some of the answers.

Questions about specifications and passing rates answered here http://www.ncees.org/Exams/FE_exam.php

The exam specifications are given by the ncees in downloadable PDFs for each version of the exam. It will tell you the topics and percentages for the morning and afternoon sections. This is what I used to make the spreadsheet giving the overall percentages for the general exam, which can help guide the study process - this was an idea from the Texas A&M video session on strategy for the FE. They mention the pass rate being near 50% so by estimating the number of questions you can can right on each section and multiplying that by the percentage of the section on the test and adding it all up you can check to see if you're knowledge areas are large enough to pass without having to study more sections.

Also they list the passing rates (NOT THE CUT OFF SCORE) for first time and repeat test takers there (you'll have to scroll down a little to see that).

Finally there are a lot of questions about the scoring, they provide some answers about the process here: http://www.ncees.org/Exams/Pages/Scoring.php

rob0, your write-up is the most comprehensive review of exam materials I have read so far.

Beacause I graduated so many years before I wrote the FE, I actually used all the materials (and more) you listed. I agree with your review and recommendations. Your write-up is very timely for folks who graduated many years ago. These materials are costly in total but anyone who reads through your write-up should be able to focus on the very useful ones.

I passed using these materials, so I am confident you will PASS.

city said:

rob0, your write-up is the most comprehensive review of exam materials I have read so far.
Beacause I graduated so many years before I wrote the FE, I actually used all the materials (and more) you listed. I agree with your review and recommendations. Your write-up is very timely for folks who graduated many years ago. These materials are costly in total but anyone who reads through your write-up should be able to focus on the very useful ones.

I passed using these materials, so I am confident you will PASS.

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Thanks city - yeah I'm hoping to help the next person out (saving them both time and money).

You mentioned you looked at some other material, do you recall it well enough to add some reviews? One thing I am missing is review of the FERM competition (Barron's etc.) since I didn't look at them.

That’s great idea to share information to help other person. However, I believe that it depends on each person’s background to choose study method. You did great job Rob0. One of the best things is "time management” which allows you study in less time but more effectively, "Study Smart, not Hard."

PS. Barron’s book B+, video calculator eitexperts A+.

Great

Thank you very much for the post. Very helpful. I am studying Barron's preparation book. Did anybody find it helpful and how?

BAHO said:

Thank you very much for the post. Very helpful. I am studying Barron's preparation book. Did anybody find it helpful and how?

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When I took the exam in October I used the barrons book in addition to a bunch of sites. I found that the barrons book was good, the only problem was I haven't touched some of the topics in 12 years. In my opinion barrons is not the best place to start, it is great book if the material is fresh.

For me my weakness was actually thermo, the last time I sat in a thermo class was atleast 12-13 years ago. I did a quick google search and found that there were a few companies. EITExperts, EITExam, and PPI. EITExam was a great source for problems but they don't have a review option. EITExperts and PPI actually had review material. Comparing the two companies I found that EITExperts simplified the topics, thereby cutting my studying time in half. The way they explained thermo made it so simple, I should have gone to EITExperts to begin with. PPI's review material is ok, but they didn't help me.

Scores:

Barrons ( B )

EITExperts (A++++++++++++++++)

EITExam (A)

PPI (D-)

RobO-

Thank you for the comprehensive info.

This will be very helpful as I start to prepare for FE Exam in October, 2011.

As a follow up I received my results today and did pass the FE. So for at least an N of 1, this material works for doing a 3 month review of material for someone who's been away from school for many years.

A few more thoughts looking back on the test. I never had a class on probability/statistics or engineering econ, and I've seen many say they didn't study them because of that - however those two areas aren't that hard to learn (at least I found them much easier to pick up than recalling fluids and thermo) and together account for almost 20% of the exam. Throw in the math section and you're at 30% of the general exam. This may not work for everyone but my time spent on those 3 sections I'm sure gave me more points per hour studied than any other.

For thermo, fluids and circuits at least know the general concepts - there are many questions just about the basic concepts, so it's worth it to study them briefly even if they're not your core competency.

I don't regret at all skipping the many chapters on Bio and Controls in FERM.

Taking the full length practice exams helped a lot in terms of determining a strategy for answering the questions (for me it worked best just to answer them all in order, because in the practice tests I found I didn't run out of time that way - for others they might find it better to rank questions first), and for gaining confidence. [You can see my first post about my impressions as to how the exams match in difficulty - now that it's been 6 weeks it's a little harder for me to recall as well.]

FERM, Texas A&M videos, and doing the timed practice tests to give you a sense of speed/confidence helped me pass the exam.

Good luck, hope my comments help the next person.

I passed on the first time taking the exam this spring after being out of school over 10 years. When I started the material looked familiar but as I got into detail I was lost. The result from my first Lindberg practice exam was around 35%. I purchased the Lindberg FERM and the PPI calculus refresher to brush up on DiffEQ. I freaked out because I needed to pass this exam to advance in my career so I followed the 6 month review schedule recommended by Lindberg FERM. I diligently studied even when I didn't feel like it. It took discipline as my ability to focus grew. I supplemented my FERM review with the video courses by EITexperts.com. When I was tired of the FERM and videos I used the PPI exam cafe. I felt Exam Cafe was tougher than the exam but it was way to get more questions in and prepared me for the worst. I took the Exam Cafe, FERM, and PPI FE morning sample exams at least once a month to get a feel for my timing and speed. If I had a break at work I googled FE practice exam and there are a few free sites with limited questions and supplemental reading that helped. The during the last 3 months I began to focus on the afternoon environmental section by working NCEES and PPI problems. I also took a couple full 8 hour exams under similar conditions to the testing center to get a feel for the stamina needed. All this resulted in total familiarization/saturation with the material and the confidence I needed to work these problems in my sleep. I say work as hard as you feel you need to based on your practice exam results.

In the end it was sheer discipline, hard work, and a "failure is not an option" attitude. I ended up studying 2-6 hours a day with breaks here and there to refresh my spirit. I needed this amount of study to get up to speed and feel comfortable because it meant so much to me to pass. There are very few who are brilliant enough to pass without studying. The rest of us (especially those out of school for a while) need to study . When I felt weak in an area I focused on it intently until I understood the general concepts. I think EITexperts helped clarify some of those general concepts for me but I think to get the most out of it I would purchase the class notes to follow along as it was fairly fast paced. NCEES practice exams seemed the most realistic but don't rely on the practice exam to cover the entire range of questions. Similarly with FERM and Exam Cafe tests. I think understanding the entire range of concepts found in the exam is key to breaking a problem down to something you can solve is only done with practice. I sacrificed my social life to some degree but true friends will be there after you reach your goal. Short term sacrifice results in long term gain.

On to the PE!

This is an incredibly good list of study materials! I like how you even listed your calculator because many people underestimate the importance of understanding the full functionality of the approved calculators. I would assume that the more self-motivated individuals would benefit more from online and book form study guides while others may benefit more from a local course that they have to physically drive to.

It is the same theory as only having a gym membership versus hiring a personal trainer. Just because I paid for a personal trainer and scheduled a time with them, I have the motivation needed to drive to the gym and work out. When I didn't have a trainer, it was too easy for me to talk myself into not going. Too tired. Not feeling well. Traffic was bad. I'll go later.

I digress. This is a good list of resources to study. The NCEES provided reference handbook and the calculator seem to be the two most overlooked items.

rob0 said:

OK as someone who was out of school for a while (14 years to undergrad) I picked up a fair amount of review material and thought I'd help the next engineer with my reviews of what was helpful (and what wasn't) - please add your own comments below to help those taking the test next time.
Books:

NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering Supplied-Reference Handbook - buy a copy so you can use it for solving all your study questions with. This will help you learn where everything is, which will save time on the actual exam.

Fundamentals of Engineering Review Manual (aka FERM by Lindeburg): Overall good B+/A-, I spent most of my time reviewing topics from the book, it was very useful to have. Though what would be useful is when he pulls something out of the reference handbook that comes from one of the later chapters (i.e. Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering) it would be nice if he didn't just color it green in his book (which means you can find it in the reference handbook), but let you know it wasn't with the rest of the general information in the front half of the book. Some examples - speed of sound is in the Mechanical section, Poisson distribution is in the Industrial Engineering section, k factors for column bucking are in the Civil section etc.

1001 Solved Engineering Fundamentals Problems: B, it was nice to have for some topics where I wanted to do more problems, but I probably could have done without it, I didn't get through the whole book.

999 Nonquantitative Problems for FE Examination Review: B, I got through about 1/3 of the book. I cut the binding, scanned it into a pdf and made it so I could review it on my iphone, in that format it was more useful since I could review it while waiting for meetings, in line etc.

FE/EIT Sample Examinations: A, this was very useful - starting 3 weeks before the exam I started taking a timed practice test. This book has two full 8 hour tests to take, I found them very useful to get used to both the timing, the exam format, trying out strategies for what order to answer questions in, and in general get into the frame of mind needed to take the FE exam. I was a little annoyed at a few things however - 1st Lindeburg seems to think that the computer section should be mostly or all controls, this isn't what the NCEES uses for their description of the type of computer questions, and Lindeburg had little or no questions that were representative of the computer questions you'll probably see on a real exam. Second there were errors on the exam (1 I found on the first which is in the errata, and 4 on the second #30,31,32 and 59 are incorrect the errata is now on the ppi website). Oh and Lindeburg likes to be tricky and put in probability questions using the poisson distribution - which isn't in the front section of the reference handbook, but it IS in the back of the book in the Industrial Engineering section.

FE Other Disciplines Sample Questions and Solutions Book: A-, While I wish this had a 4 hour morning / 4 hour afternoon instead of the half exam (2hours for morning / 2hours for afternoon), it was very useful to get a sense of the question difficulty to expect on the exam. I found the AM problems to be similar in nature to the actual test. On the PM test, many or most of the questions were a similar level of difficulty I thought a few of the questions on the actual exam were harder than what was on this practice exam.

DVDs (and other videos):

Fundamentals of Engineering DVD Review by PPI: C+, this video series has very little production values, it basically reads the FERM book to you. I picked up a copy on ebay watched some of the discs, but not all, and resold it back on ebay. It had some information, but I found it to be too slow, a better use of my time was spent reviewing other material.

Texas A&M online review videos for the FE exam: A+++, http://engineeringregistration.tamu.edu/tapedreviews/ Prof. Lee Lowery and other professors at Texas A&M give a great set of lectures for the FE exam, and they're FREE (they were made in 1998, but I felt they held up very well). It's really a wonderful resource - great to watch on a PC with the PDF notes open along with the video and you can follow along even though the video resolution is a little low. You can stream the videos (they're realmedia or rm files) or download them - I couldn't get them to play on my iPhone so I downloaded and converted them using ffmpeg and was able to bring them with me.

iPhone applications:

Fundamentals of Engineering in a Flash: Rapid Review of Key Topics for the FE/EIT Exam D, this was a total waste of my money, there was very little information there, and what was there I didn't find very helpful.

Flashcards Deluxe (http://orangeorapple.com/Flashcards/) iPhone flashcard application: A, this was VERY useful - I created some flashcards for thermo that helped me relearn all the terms and special cases, I also imported flashcard decks into the application straight from quizlet on fluids, thermo, materials etc.

Calculator

Casio FX-115 ES A+, I love this calculator - it was VERY useful for the exam. The online manual is here: http://support.casio.com/pdf/004/fx-115ES_991ES_Eng.pdf and there is a great PDF summary on using the calculator put together by Testmasters here: http://www.testmasters.com/assets/files/CASIOFX.pdf I wish I'd found that before I spent the time going through the giant map sized casio manual that came with the calculator to find out what functions would be useful to know for the FE exam. But you should know how to do vectors, matrix, stats (std deviation and regression), probability, combinatorics, binomial equations, solving simultaneous linear equations, etc. etc. on the calculator.

Websites:

>http://www.eitexam.com B+, Its relatively cheap and provides you with quizzes and tests you can take. It was good when I wanted something different to study, or to simulate a quick morning session quiz while at work during lunch. I did feel the quality of the problems varies, sometimes quite a bit, but all in all it was useful.

EIT Experts, I won't grade them since I only bought two pre-recored lectures from them (which is different that the interactive course so keep that in mind with my review). I found the first lecture useful, but it was longer then I had time for - it was 6+ hours for one lecture, and I could go through the material much faster than that on my own (so I never ended up watching the second lecture that I paid for). For me it was somewhat useful, but the A&M videos review the material in less time.

Practice Test Difficulty A more through breakdown (I was hunting for info on this before the exam and couldn't find too much) - for those taking the practice tests by PPI and NCEES: I thought the AM was about the same level of question as the NCEES sample exam, and similar to the level of the morning test at the end of FERM, a little easier than the PPI sample practice tests AM sections. I had time to do all the problems, and review the handful I needed more time on. I found out during the practice tests that I could just go straight through the exam and answer the questions in order. If I came to a problem that was taking too long I marked it and moved on and came back to it after completing all the other questions. I was also able to do that in the actual exam, for me this was easier then some test taking strategies that involve pre-screening all the questions (but then I studied all the sections of the test except for biology - the FERM I felt had too much content on bio and it represented too little of the actual exam to worry about).

The afternoon - some of the questions on the general seemed MUCH more difficult than the NCEES sample questions, closer to the PPI sample test questions, but in general there were enough simple questions that I was able to finish in 3 hours (including a 40 minute review).

As for timing references: The NCEES sample exam took me 1:50 for the morning and 1:40 for the afternoon - looking back at that sample exam the thermo questions were very easy in this practice test.

I was able to do both AM and PM sample Lindeburg (PPI) tests in the FE/EIT Sample Examinations with some time to spare (about 20 minutes extra time for both).

And for those who have been out of school for a while, I started studying January 1st and tried to did about 20 - 25 hours a week. I studies almost all the sections of the FERM, but skipped bio and controls completely and don't regret it.

Finally I know I'm writing all this before I know if I passed, but in case I need to take it again and need to remember what was useful and/or to help the next person I thought this information could help - like I said a lot of this stuff I tried to find and couldn't so hopefully it's useful.

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You have written thoroughly.

Your information will be heatedly appreciated.

Eventhough I do not have that much time for October 2011 test, I will try to use some of the resources that you have written.