PEGILL
Active member
April exam candidate disqualified
after posting item on Internet
The Internet is not always an ideal place to vent one’s frustration—or preserve one’s anonymity, for that matter. One Civil PE exam candidate recently learned this lesson the hard way when his results were invalidated after he posted, nearly verbatim, the contents of an item from the exam’s morning session. The post appeared on www.engineerboards. com, a Web site created by engineers interested in sharing advice—as well as some war stories—with others preparing for the FE and PE exams. The post was on the Internet for 10–15 minutes before being removed, according to NCEES Exam Development Engineer Tim Miller, P.E. The site is one of several that NCEES staff closely monitors in the days following exam administrations. The offending post, which appeared the Tuesday after the April 20 administration, read, “I know its [sic] not cool to go over the PE questions, but can’t help it!!! I got a question… which I did wrong, but want to confi rm the answer.”
The candidate went on to post the exam item, which asked candidates to calculate tensile force for a steel rod. Miller, who occasionally posts to the site under the user name ??????, saw the post and contacted the site’s administrators, who removed it and provided Miller with the e-mail and IP address of the poster. Miller relayed the information to Bob Whorton, P.E., the Council’s security and compliance manager, who notifi ed the candidate that his score would be invalidated and the incident reported to the board in Ohio, where the candidate took the exam. Whorton said the candidate responded and acknowledged a breach of the agreement signed by candidates in which they pledge not to divulge exam content. He added the candidate’s ability to take an exam at a future administration would depend on whether or not a state board allows him to do so.
Doug McGuirt
NCEES Editor
after posting item on Internet
The Internet is not always an ideal place to vent one’s frustration—or preserve one’s anonymity, for that matter. One Civil PE exam candidate recently learned this lesson the hard way when his results were invalidated after he posted, nearly verbatim, the contents of an item from the exam’s morning session. The post appeared on www.engineerboards. com, a Web site created by engineers interested in sharing advice—as well as some war stories—with others preparing for the FE and PE exams. The post was on the Internet for 10–15 minutes before being removed, according to NCEES Exam Development Engineer Tim Miller, P.E. The site is one of several that NCEES staff closely monitors in the days following exam administrations. The offending post, which appeared the Tuesday after the April 20 administration, read, “I know its [sic] not cool to go over the PE questions, but can’t help it!!! I got a question… which I did wrong, but want to confi rm the answer.”
The candidate went on to post the exam item, which asked candidates to calculate tensile force for a steel rod. Miller, who occasionally posts to the site under the user name ??????, saw the post and contacted the site’s administrators, who removed it and provided Miller with the e-mail and IP address of the poster. Miller relayed the information to Bob Whorton, P.E., the Council’s security and compliance manager, who notifi ed the candidate that his score would be invalidated and the incident reported to the board in Ohio, where the candidate took the exam. Whorton said the candidate responded and acknowledged a breach of the agreement signed by candidates in which they pledge not to divulge exam content. He added the candidate’s ability to take an exam at a future administration would depend on whether or not a state board allows him to do so.
Doug McGuirt
NCEES Editor
