In Texas (Mechanical TFS) for references I used a coworker (electrical PE), an old college professor (Mechanical PE), and a coworkers sister (Structural PE). I have not done extensive work under or with any of them.
Relevant to 1&2: The syllabus is extremely accurate. If it says there will be 'cooling/heating load' problems then it will be on the test guaranteed. My best advice is to study exactly what is on the syllabus with no exception (even non-core TFS problems like heating loads / bolts, welds...
I took it.
1. I never took the old exam so can't really compare but I think overall it will decrease studying time due to the narrower range of topics. You just have to really understand the material (can't plug-n-chug need to understand).
2. Yes. I was extremely particular about using the...
Those books are fine. I just passed TFS on the April exam with the new specs. What worked for me was doing all of the MERM companion problems related to the NCEES exam syllabus. Look at the exam specs and hit all problems that are on that list (including the ones mentioned that aren't core-TFS...
NCEES is pretty explicit that all questions are weighted the same. The other option is that they threw out a question. See below with results out of 79 instead of 80.
58/79 = 73.4% which rounds to 73%.
57/79=72.1% which rounds to 72%.
I passed TFS. References used:
-MERM
-Cameron Hydraulic Data
- Lindberg Units Conversion book (used a ton)
- Printed out steam tables in metric and us that were more detailed (less interpolation needed).
I studied 5months with maybe 2-8 hrs per week. Total I believe I put in 100ish hours...
I took mechanical Thermal Fluid Systems and felt very good about it after leaving -- although I had paranoid thoughts after that I had misbubbled or something.
Currently vacationing in Mexico so 98 tequilas para mi!
Also strategically if they release it at the end of the day they don't have to field all the post results call deluge until tomorrow. (Source: I am also a lazy office worker)
The other reason it might be longer is that certain tests (Mechanical) are no longer a breadth/depth format as of April 2017. I imagine it might take the psychometricians more time/pondering/black-magic to equate results due to such a radical difference in the test this time around.
I felt pretty good about passing TFS but feel it was a lot harder than practice exam. I finished the morning in 2 hrs and was able to go back and check each problem - I found 4 errors mostly stupid math or units related -lots of traps. The afternoon I finished in 3hr and checked some of the hard...
I started this exam last weekend and stopped about 3/4 the way through. There are a lot of errors and some strange problems, some of which are quite time consuming. Ultimately I decided my last few days of studying are more effectively spent on more realistic exam type questions and so I stopped...