ME PE Exam Reference Material

Hi All,

I will attempt the exam (PE Mechanical) this october and leaning towards machine design depth. I was not sure whether the merm was soley sufficient for the afternoon, so I purchased the latest edition of Shiglys (ME Design) and Roarks Forlmulas (Stress & Strain). I also started thinking...what if by the time I actually register for the test, I decide to go with Thermal/Fluids depth. On that note, I also purchased Camerons Hyd Data, but may be needing better resources for thermal.

If I do stick with the machine design depth, would the merm be soley sufficient for the morning? If not, I will be looking to purchase ASHRAE material (just in case - for good learning and knowledge of charts and tables if nothing else). Would an older edition (1990<Ed.) of fundamentals be ok?

Thanks people!

Yes, the MERM is sufficient for the morning.

Of course, we'll see when I get my results back!!!

Here's my suggestion,

unless you really, really love doing machine design and can visualize the concept, the machine design is probably the hardest.

I studied all three discipline, all the problems merm, 6 min solution, ncess practice exams (2000, 2008), lindeburg practice exam. I took the thermal portion.

My friend looked at the machine design portion and said it looked really hard. She wasn't planning to take that, but she wanted to see the difference between the thermal and m&d one.

I had shigley as a reference, but I didn't use it. I guess if you are taking the m&d, you might need that, but I took the ncees machine design practice test and I didn't need shigley, merm was good enough.

I took the lindeburg practice thermal got 52%. was feeling nervous

I took the ncees practice for thermal, md, hvac, got like around 80% for all of them. they were all easier.

The 2010 April exam, the morning was very, very similar to the ncees practice exam (all general basic stuff). Had 15 minutes left to go over the answer. Probably got 80-90%.

The afternoon was longer and had to guess at 5. Probably got 70%.

So, if you study all the discipline, you will do really well in the morning and you need all the easy points.

In the afternoon, good luck, it's every hard to get 70%.

So, if you can get 80% in the morning, you only need 60% in the afternoon. Basically, study everything and have no weakness. Take all three depth of the ncees and make sure you score at least 70%. If you don't, you are in trouble.

I took the ME Machine Design in April, and I felt the MERM was sufficient for the morning; however, I highly recommend the NCEES practice exam also. I had a few other books including Shigley's, which I referenced in the morning session, primarily because I knew exactly where I had to look. I am sure I could have found the same equation/info in the MERM.

I took T/F in April, but I almost exclusively used the MERM in the morning. I also used Cameron Hydraulic Data once in the morning, but it was info that could have probably been referenced in the MERM. I passed, so take that for what it's worth.

I totally agree with ecoli: study everything. Even though I took the T/F afternoon depth, I tried to cover everything in my prep. I probably spent the most time on my depth, but I definitely spent a good bit of time working HVAC and MD problems. I recommend following Lindeburgs 14 week outline in the MERM intro.

Extremely agree with Ecoli. Thermal Fluids is the way to go. The only thing I studied was the NCEES sample test and I got an 88.

There is way too much reference material needed for machine design, and unless you work in HVAC there are too many codes that they could ask you about.

Cameron Hydraulic data was my bible during the exam, but it doesn't have very good steam tables. I used my old thermo book for steam tables and probably used the Cameron book 15 times.

Good luck

ecoli946 said:

Here's my suggestion,
unless you really, really love doing machine design and can visualize the concept, the machine design is probably the hardest.

I studied all three discipline, all the problems merm, 6 min solution, ncess practice exams (2000, 2008), lindeburg practice exam. I took the thermal portion.

My friend looked at the machine design portion and said it looked really hard. She wasn't planning to take that, but she wanted to see the difference between the thermal and m&d one.

I had shigley as a reference, but I didn't use it. I guess if you are taking the m&d, you might need that, but I took the ncees machine design practice test and I didn't need shigley, merm was good enough.

I took the lindeburg practice thermal got 52%. was feeling nervous

I took the ncees practice for thermal, md, hvac, got like around 80% for all of them. they were all easier.

The 2010 April exam, the morning was very, very similar to the ncees practice exam (all general basic stuff). Had 15 minutes left to go over the answer. Probably got 80-90%.

The afternoon was longer and had to guess at 5. Probably got 70%.

So, if you study all the discipline, you will do really well in the morning and you need all the easy points.

In the afternoon, good luck, it's every hard to get 70%.

So, if you can get 80% in the morning, you only need 60% in the afternoon. Basically, study everything and have no weakness. Take all three depth of the ncees and make sure you score at least 70%. If you don't, you are in trouble.

Click to expand...

I am totally agree with you. My first attempt was only focus on the T&D and I did so bad in the morning MD(12%) and HVAC(50%). So my second try was treat every depths as my afternoon depths and prepare very hard for them + study day and night from the time I got my fail result for the first time to the beginng of the second time...

So try all 3 depths and determine which is better for you. In the mean time still prepare for all 3 of them.