How to Solve practice questions

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Tomhunt

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What is the best way to solve the practice questions to study for the exam? Do you look at the solution first and then try to solve or just work through the question?

Thanks.....

 
It depends.

I know it's a typical engineer answer, but it all depends on your learning style. How did you study for exams during college? Did you only review notes or did you work problems?

I personally did not work very many problems. It worked for me, but I understand most don't work this way. I know most of the people here rave about the 6 minute solutions and work through them the tradtional way then back-check the answers once they are done.

Sorry this isn't very helpful.

 
I am going to qualify my answer a little better ... it is still depends but I will say it depends upon how much RISK you want to take in your preparation. In other words, what kind of time investment do you plan on making in terms of preparing for this exam. If you plan to make significant time commitments, then I say you should proceed with reading and working through practice problems. If you are planning on a small time commitment, then I say you should focus on getting through the 'set-up' of as many problems as possible and don't worry about solving them thru - that way you can read/think about numerous problems without the added time of going thru the mechanics of actually arriving at an answer.

JR

 
I think you will find that each person finds what works for them, I for one do not take practice tests, I dont feel that they are a good measure of how you will perform on the test. I study a section, work through the example problems, then some of the other problems books and finally the NCEES exam problems. I worry more about knowing how to set up and complete each problems and I dont worry about time too much. Alot of people divide the time by the number of problems to see how much time they have for each problems, but some questions only take a few seconds so you really have alot more time on working problems than you think you have, especially if you know the material.

I look at the solution when I have finished all the problems in that section, not before. I am trying to think and maybe some other will help but I think 25 -35 percent of the exam is working problems, knowing the material and looking up answere is the bulk of the exam so make sure you read carefully and understand the material as well as how to work the problems.

 
With practice problems I worked through the problem and then checked the answer. If I was wrong I tried another way to arrive at the answer on my own. If I still couldn't get it, I read through the provided solution. The methodology in the book may use a different approach than you are used to, and many times it won't utilize the shortcut equations. Use the references to find the fastest approach that gets the right answer and don't miss out by just reading the provided solution.

 
I think it depends on where you are on your studying. When I first began, I couldn't just sit down and work the example problems. I didnt know where to start.. I sort of had to look at problems/notes and teach or reteach myself approach/strategy.. Once I felt comfortable with a type or concept, I would go and use sample questions to gauge my understanding and test myself.

Others may not agree, but I looked at NCEES sample questions first. It was the first book I bought and it was a good starting place for me, to see what questions types were fair game. I also used them at the end and made sure I was able to sit down and work all of them from start to finish w/o any problems at all. However there was enough time between working them that I didn't have the solutions memorized per say..

Hope I can help.

Also wanted to thank all of those that helped answer my questions and helped me work through my studying this past October. Also Congrats to all that passed.

 
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