October 2019 P.E. ELECTRICAL POWER

[Sparky Bill PE]

I feel like these go hand in hand. I know of countless questions during practice exams and even on the actual exam where I was rushing and got an answer that matches an answer choice so I bubbled it and moved on. But then I realized later that I fell for a trap question and didn't multiply by sqrt 3 or used line voltages instead of phase. The other correct answer choice is right there staring you in the face but you're in such a hurry that you pick the wrong one and move on. If circuits was a major problem but you were thinking you had right choices, I'd say you may have fallen for these trap answers.

As bad as it sounds, at least you're getting an answer. It's the wrong answer and rushed, but some people are making a blind guess. 

Even more sad, that you got 95% right but forgot 1 factor and got it wrong, and they blind guessed and got it right. 

I wish I could pay 4x the amount for the test, but to have it "hand graded". I can't stand the idea of putting in 500+ hours for a test and possible years of dedication to know others can have a "lucky day" and hit a streak of 10-15 correctly guessed answers. 

Oh well, can't change it, so play with the cards we are dealt. 

 

[Orchid PE]

The baited answers are a very real thing.  The best advice I have heard is to always look to see if you need to take your solution one or two steps further.  Look for factors in each solution and determine based on the information given if you need to take those into consideration.  It is certainly much easier said than done, but always be keen to look for nuanced questions to test the fundamental underlying principles of electrical engineering.  There are a lot of questions that are masked to be something that they are not.

This  post needs more likes. I'll piggy-back:

One thing is to make a note of what the question is asking. For example, I worked multiple power factor correction sample problems. Some asked for the kVAR needed and some asked for the uF needed.

On the real exam if they asked for uF, they would still list the kVAR as an answer knowing that people will pick it. Don't immediately assume that you have the right answer just because you ended up with a number that matches one of the answers. 

Always try to understand exactly what the question is asking you to find before starting the problem.

 

[Orchid PE]

Always try to understand exactly what the question is asking you to find before starting the problem.

This is also very important, because as we all know they will sometimes give you way more information than is needed just to weed out the people who don't understand the question.

 

[Orchid PE]

Has anyone ever, or ever heard, of anyone contacting the NCEES to ask if they can audit/review their own exam?  I took the weekend to think about it, and I'm still blown away that I only got 50% of these questions correct.  I might be able to understand on the second part of the exam if I was a bad guesser and I could see where I might have gotten 50% on that afternoon part, but NOT the first half.  I'm just dumbfounded and I really want to know, especially on circuits since I did so bad but felt I understood it much better than that.  I even helped other's on here with their questions concerning some of those problems.  

So if anyone has experience contacting NCEES to be able to look at their own exam, let me know.

You could always request that your exam be hand-graded by NCEES.

https://ncees.org/exams/scores/manual-scoring/

 

[DilutedAr18_PE]

You could always request that your exam be hand-graded by NCEES.

https://ncees.org/exams/scores/manual-scoring/

That is only verifying that the bubbles you filled in were properly transferred from the scantron machine to their system. That is it. 

 

[Orchid PE]

That is only verifying that the bubbles you filled in were properly transferred from the scantron machine to their system. That is it. 

Yep. That's all that can be done at this point. 

 

[a4u2fear]

Has anyone ever, or ever heard, of anyone contacting the NCEES to ask if they can audit/review their own exam?  I took the weekend to think about it, and I'm still blown away that I only got 50% of these questions correct.  I might be able to understand on the second part of the exam if I was a bad guesser and I could see where I might have gotten 50% on that afternoon part, but NOT the first half.  I'm just dumbfounded and I really want to know, especially on circuits since I did so bad but felt I understood it much better than that.  I even helped other's on here with their questions concerning some of those problems.  

So if anyone has experience contacting NCEES to be able to look at their own exam, let me know.

As I say this, remember I'm just trying to help.  If you've gone two tests and achieved below, say 44 both times, I think something is fundamentally wrong in your approach or studying.  You are not realistically close to passing until you are near the 47+ range.  The lowest failing score is usually 49 and that's after a curve (even if they don't say it).  So your 40-43 is likely lower that was curved up to that number.  It's hard to think of, but even a significant improvement (20%) in your score brings to the questionable range of passing.  That's hard to figure to improve that or close to it.  I know you took a year off so maybe that didn't help

If you've scored less than 80% of the NEC questions you really need to focus on those because there are so many and the answer is 100% in front you, whether you can find it or not.  You should expect and strive to hit 90-100% of those questions.

 

[Orchid PE]

Just so everyone knows, the scores aren't graded on a curve.

This is all that happens:

• All questions are weighted the same when calculating your exam score.
  
• Each question is weighted differently when calculating the passing score.
  

Take 5 questions for example:


Question


Weight


Your answer


1


1


1


2


0.25


1


3


0.5


0


4


0.75


0


5


0.25


1

For these 5 questions, the cut-score would be 2.75, and your score would be 3. Your overall score (in this example, 3) is not adjusted based on a curve.

Does not apply for Texas results.

 

[eeMark PE]

As bad as it sounds, at least you're getting an answer. It's the wrong answer and rushed, but some people are making a blind guess. 

Even more sad, that you got 95% right but forgot 1 factor and got it wrong, and they blind guessed and got it right. 

I wish I could pay 4x the amount for the test, but to have it "hand graded". I can't stand the idea of putting in 500+ hours for a test and possible years of dedication to know others can have a "lucky day" and hit a streak of 10-15 correctly guessed answers. 

Oh well, can't change it, so play with the cards we are dealt. 

I know a lot of people who studied really hard and passed.  I know a few people who are just really fantastically intelligent and didn't study really hard and passed.  I know several people who studied their asses off and didn't quite pass.  I can't think of a single person I know that passed that felt like they shouldn't have and thinks that they got lucky.

If we think the cutoff score is 50 and you guess on all 80 problems, there is approximately 1 in 10^10 odds you will pass.  Now let's say you can get 35 out of 50 questions that you "try" on correct and blindly guess on the other 30.  You still only have 1 in 342 odds of passing.  A tiny number of people might actually pass because of getting "lucky" 10-15 times.  Hoping to be one of those people is a bad idea.