Please suggest review courses

[MechEngineer]

Hi, I am from Tennessee and planning to take PE in Oct 2010 with Fluids & Thermal in the afternoon.

Can you please suggest me the good review courses (in class) for PE Mechanical in Tennessee (Knoxville and/or surrounding areas)? Thanks a lot in advance.

I am searching for these, but no luck yet.

 

[John_NY]

I cannot suggest a review course.

I can tell you I prepared for the test and did not take a class.

I believe I was properly prepared for the test, by self studying the MERM.

 

[Kephart P.E.]

Take a look at all the engineering schools nearby.

Usually someone offers one during the Winter term.

 

[randy]

The University of Delaware offers a video course by mail. It is a good starting point.

Reading through MERM and working the Practice Problems are gets you much further.

 

[ecoli946]

I took a review course the first time I took the exam.

I can honestly say that self-studying, 400+ hours, is way better than review courses. You get to be your own teacher and you make your own notes. You stick with MERM and go from there.

 

[MechGuy]

I took Testmasters the first attempt and didn't like it. I also didn't pass. After that I just put in the hours by myself studying and passed.

 

[Kephart P.E.]

I agree and disagree, if you don't self study you aren't going to pass.

But self study along with a good review class was very helpful to me. The class I took helped me most with the subjects I knew the least about like Mech. Design.

If you think you can just take the class and do very little else you are wrong, but I don't think they are worthless. However some of them are very expensive. I paid about $400, for a 10 week course that met once a week for 4 hours. They gave us a 3 ring binder with all the questions and a copy of Lindeberg's Sample Exam (worthless by the way) . So I thought it was a pretty good deal

I took a review course the first time I took the exam.
I can honestly say that self-studying, 400+ hours, is way better than review courses. You get to be your own teacher and you make your own notes. You stick with MERM and go from there.

 

[Shaggy]

I agree with Kephart. The review course I took identified areas in MERM that had a little liklihood of being on the test. Therefore no need to spend much time on it. Granted the instructor was a seasoned PE Review instructor. A less seasoned instructor might just guide you through MERM and be there to answer questions. If that is the case... not much value over self study.

 

[Kephart P.E.]

The course I took had several different instructors contributing their specialty and 1 instructor sort of running the show and the Three Ring binder they gave us had all their own review questions to work on and lecture notes to review.

I liked the questions because many of them showed quick ways to do some typical types of problems that I had not thought of.

 

[heath014]

I used the PPI review DVD's and found them VERY helpful. They gave tips and tricks to save time on problems, like refigeration.

 

[John_NY]

I took April 2010 MD and passed.

I will post my review strategy for the benefit of this thread and other future test takers.

I graduated > 20 years ago, so all of the textbook learning was done a very long time ago for me.

1. I went through MERM (relevant chapters after the Math and before the Control Systems chapters). I skimmed the words and attempted all the problems in the Problem book. This took me from Oct - Mid Dec

2. I then took out Shigley and did the homework problems in Shigley for about 1 month

3. I then did the 60 MS book for MD

4. I then went thru the entire MERM again just doing problems and skipped the 1 hour problems

5. I then did the Linderberg practice exam untimed since it was so hard.

6. I then did the NCEES depth of Thermal Fludis and HVAC problems (the area I was not taking for Depth on the test)

7. I then did 60 MS for MD again.

8. I then "sat" for the NCEES 2008 practice exam about 1 month before the actual test and graded myself. I did well enough that I thought I would pass the test.

9. Made a list of my weaknesses and focus areas and used each day to go through it and cross it off.

10. Tune up of NCEES practice exam done again about one week before the test.

In summary, I followed the advice of many on this board and focused on problems, problems and more problems. All told, I put in about 350 - 400 hours of study. I took no classes becuase I could not find a good one near me and i did not want to be tied to specfic times of attendance due to my personal obligations.

Regarding all of the material, the NCEES sample is most representative, but the actual test was harder than the sample.