April 2017 Exam

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Haha yup, but unfortunately I knew I'd struggle with conceptual questions in the morning and those gimmies that I know the answer for certain now, I know I didn't answer on the exam. But yeah, I'm feeling pretty confident as well on what I need to do to be better prepared if I have to take it in October. 

 
October 2017, holy cow batman we've got a time traveler on our hands!
lol, 

In comparison to the October 2017, I felt the April 2017 was more straight forward in both the breath and depth (WRE) portions of the test.  It could have been that I felt I was better prepared and understood the overall concepts better.  I agree that there seemed to be a few additional structural questions than the October 2016 test.  Last October during the lunch break I remember that I hoped that the afternoon session would be easier than the morning session.  The difficulty level was about the same.  I think that I was better prepared for the April test, than the October test so I believe that the test was easier for me.   However, if I don't pass, I am not going to give up.  Never, Never, Never.  I will keep pressing forward until I have received the prize.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”   Theodore Roosevelt
When I'm asked what I plan to do if I fail again, I answer, "I set out to meet the boards expectations as a structural engineer. I plan to do just that." It is what it is. I don't believe anyone passes because they are lucky. 

 
+1 for the morning being heavy on structural!

Structural is definitely my weakest area, so the morning wasn't very fun.  There were also a couple of oddball questions that had difficult wording.  The afternoon (WRE) went well though, so hopefully that makes up for my morning score.  Or I just think it went well, and actually failed miserably.  One of those two options...

 
Hey everyone!  I put together a survey for the Electrical Power and Mechanical exams.  My hope is that the survey results could be given to the next set of test takers.  These test takers would have knowledge on what references people found helpful, how many hours they studied and their confident/least confident topics.  If anyone wants to make similar surveys for the Civil exams, please feel free to use the format.

Survey Links

Electrical Power:  https://goo.gl/forms/7Gf8KShmaFQqjnGF3

Machine Design & Materials:  https://goo.gl/forms/yrfjMD3EznbL7QcG2

HVAC & Refrigeration:  https://goo.gl/forms/4zuYXveCzswI70d93

Thermal & Fluids:  https://goo.gl/forms/zaEMML2Dy0IN9p9Y2

Congratulations everyone on being done with the exam!  

 
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I thought the morning had a lot more construction methods based questions that I wasn't used to seeing.

Also in general I thought both morning and especially Transpo PM completely skipped over a few questions/topics I thought would be on there and was prepared to do very well with and instead replaced them with things I hadn't seen at all or much of so instead of leaving fairly confident I now think I will be plus or minus 2 from the cut line. 

I also agree with someone above that mentioned there were more "find it in the book or just know it" type of questions and with poor indexes in some books and not having every little possible subject tabbed it wasn't possible to find in just a few minutes.

 
I thought the morning had a lot more construction methods based questions that I wasn't used to seeing.

Also in general I thought both morning and especially Transpo PM completely skipped over a few questions/topics I thought would be on there and was prepared to do very well with and instead replaced them with things I hadn't seen at all or much of so instead of leaving fairly confident I now think I will be plus or minus 2 from the cut line. 

I also agree with someone above that mentioned there were more "find it in the book or just know it" type of questions and with poor indexes in some books and not having every little possible subject tabbed it wasn't possible to find in just a few minutes.
Agree, I thought I didn't use the calculator much for both AM and PM. 

 
I think it has to do with focusing on the question and then completely forgetting it and moving on to the next.
If i had to sit down and really think about what questions were on it, I don't think I could list off too many as it was all in short term memory and has long been written over.

It would be interesting to hear how this version compared to last October and the upcoming October to see how much they vary back to back, but that would involving taking the test multiple times lol.

 
To be fair, when I took it, I walked out of there thinking "what happened? I blacked out."
LOL When I finished I just wanted to go have a steak!! A Friday without a steak just sucks! 

I think it has to do with focusing on the question and then completely forgetting it and moving on to the next.
If i had to sit down and really think about what questions were on it, I don't think I could list off too many as it was all in short term memory and has long been written over.

It would be interesting to hear how this version compared to last October and the upcoming October to see how much they vary back to back, but that would involving taking the test multiple times lol.
The exams are different. While the essence is very similar obviously, there is no way you can just study for the previous questions for the next exam and be ok. You either know the core of the specification or skip it. This is MY opinion. I remember about 5 questions, and no numbers, just the questions. And these are the ones that I beat myself over the head about.

 
I thought the morning had a lot more construction methods based questions that I wasn't used to seeing.

Also in general I thought both morning and especially Transpo PM completely skipped over a few questions/topics I thought would be on there and was prepared to do very well with and instead replaced them with things I hadn't seen at all or much of so instead of leaving fairly confident I now think I will be plus or minus 2 from the cut line. 

I also agree with someone above that mentioned there were more "find it in the book or just know it" type of questions and with poor indexes in some books and not having every little possible subject tabbed it wasn't possible to find in just a few minutes.
My morning was a lot of construction methods and geotech.  There were no geotech problems like ones I did in my many practice exams which all had similar problems.   I also remember thinking that there were not the number of structural questions I expected.  (sad, as I am structural)

 
I didn't think the exam was too bad and I am glad I took the EET review class for both sessions.  I did worse in the morning and feel good about 30-32/40 but I think I did great in the afternoon.  I am confident about 36/40 for depth.  I think EET was spot on with the depth review. I barely watched any of the videos but simply having the depth binder was a tremendous help.  Can't wait until the results come out.  

 
I didn't think the exam was too bad and I am glad I took the EET review class for both sessions.  I did worse in the morning and feel good about 30-32/40 but I think I did great in the afternoon.  I am confident about 36/40 for depth.  I think EET was spot on with the depth review. I barely watched any of the videos but simply having the depth binder was a tremendous help.  Can't wait until the results come out.  
forgot to mention that I took transportation depth.  

 
For those who took the Construction afternoon exam, were you able to solve the economics question (please do not give specifics on how to solve it)?  I felt like I wasted too much time on this question and still didn't solve it due to the poor wording. Or maybe it was really much simpler and had a lot of extra information as distractors that we didn't need.  Since the exam is new every year, I wish there was a way for NCEES to release to solutions so people know exactly what they got wrong and where they messed up (wrong approach/ equations vs. basic math error).
Yep - I struggled with this one and skipped it and ended up guessing. I submitted it to NCEES as I felt like it was not a good engineering economics question. 

 
For those who took the Construction afternoon exam, were you able to solve the economics question (please do not give specifics on how to solve it)?  I felt like I wasted too much time on this question and still didn't solve it due to the poor wording. Or maybe it was really much simpler and had a lot of extra information as distractors that we didn't need.  Since the exam is new every year, I wish there was a way for NCEES to release to solutions so people know exactly what they got wrong and where they messed up (wrong approach/ equations vs. basic math error).
I took the construction exam and also thought the economics question was horribly worded.  That was actually the only problem that I thought had some sort of flaw.  I studied hundreds of different econ problems and felt extremely strong in that area, so to have trouble on that one was very surprising/disappointing.

 
How do we submit questions to ncees?
Log in to MyNCEES

Click on "submit a support request"

Click on "send a message"

I submitted 2 problems, one from the AM and one from the PM. They responded quickly and said that they would look into it and since it was regarding the exam problems I would not get a response from them.

 
I took the construction exam and also thought the economics question was horribly worded.  That was actually the only problem that I thought had some sort of flaw.  I studied plenty of different econ problems and felt extremely strong in that area, so to have trouble on that one was very surprising/disappointing.

 
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