As the exam day is approaching, I decided to post my advice on Chemical Afternoon FE preparation. There are some great posts on this board on the morning and general afternoon, and fabulous study tips for Chemical PE, but I did not find much for the FE Chemical PM. Maybe, someone will find my tips useful. I intentionally post this before the exam so that my opinion is not biased by real exam questions.
A little intro: graduated 15 years ago in Europe, in Chemical Engineering. During my professional experience, I dealt only with ~20% of the material needed for Chemical PM, the rest I never used. Initially, when I started preparing for the October exam in March, I thought of taking the General PM but then I realized that it is better to go with my discipline as even if I do not remember a lot of things, at least I have my discipline-oriented intuition, and as my practice exams showed, I was absolutely correct in this assumption.
So, my study materials for the FE Chemical PM:
1). NCEES Chemical sample example. Very useful. The biggest lesson I learnt from it is that the strategies for AM and PM exams should be different. I figured that the fastest way to solve AM problems is to see what is given, and this can help figuring out the necessary equation (it seems that the AM portion is not overburden with unnecessary info in the problem statement). This is absolutely not true for the PM: many questions are page-long with too much information, but to solve a problem you often need just half a line of data. So, look at the question first and then try to find necessary info by reading the problem statement. Having NCEES practice exam is an absolute must, because I hardly saw the problem overstatement in any other practice exams.
2). PPI sample Chemical exams. Do not attempt to work with this book as “practice exams”, they are way too long to appear at a real exam, and also the time you put to review some of the questions is not worth a slight probability of getting such exam question. I used the problems and solutions to go through the material for review.
3). I did not like at all Kaplan’s FE big review book, but I found the Chemical book very useful. Well, the chapters themselves did not help at all apart from the Distillation part (found it nicely written) but the exam at the end is great! It feels like a real exam, with short questions (unfortunately, they are well-expressed and problem statement gives only necessary info in the most cases), but I could practice the 4-hour exam and also review what I did not know.
4). I made sure that I know extremely well the areas that overlap in General and Chemical PM. For these areas, I studied the following:
- Lindeburg FE Review Manual
- 1001 solved problems (thermo and fluids sections; chemistry is strangely presented)
- NCEES “Other discipline” PM practice exam, also thermo and fluids sections
5). I also used PPI website for PM section, waste of time as many problems are the same as in the book, some have mistakes, and there are even two identical problems with different solutions and different final answers!
6). I have Chemical Engineering Reference manual from PPI as well, but did not find it useful for the FE preparation
7). Might sound strange but I at some point I got so depressed by PPI Chemical problems, i.e., my inability to solve most of them in 4 minutes, that I ordered NCEES PE Chemical exam booklet, and ended up using it extensively to review the problems, my weak areas and also to see the level of the PE difficulty, meaning that the problems on FE can not be harder! Extremely useful.
8). NCEES supplied handbook – for sure. Make sure to read every page of it because many of necessary equations are in Mechanical, Environmental Sections, etc.
9). Calculator (I used Casio fx-115es)– know inside-out, in the PM may help with integration and linear regression (in the reactors part) and solving equations.
I will let you know if I pass so that you can either use or not follow my strategy.
A little intro: graduated 15 years ago in Europe, in Chemical Engineering. During my professional experience, I dealt only with ~20% of the material needed for Chemical PM, the rest I never used. Initially, when I started preparing for the October exam in March, I thought of taking the General PM but then I realized that it is better to go with my discipline as even if I do not remember a lot of things, at least I have my discipline-oriented intuition, and as my practice exams showed, I was absolutely correct in this assumption.
So, my study materials for the FE Chemical PM:
1). NCEES Chemical sample example. Very useful. The biggest lesson I learnt from it is that the strategies for AM and PM exams should be different. I figured that the fastest way to solve AM problems is to see what is given, and this can help figuring out the necessary equation (it seems that the AM portion is not overburden with unnecessary info in the problem statement). This is absolutely not true for the PM: many questions are page-long with too much information, but to solve a problem you often need just half a line of data. So, look at the question first and then try to find necessary info by reading the problem statement. Having NCEES practice exam is an absolute must, because I hardly saw the problem overstatement in any other practice exams.
2). PPI sample Chemical exams. Do not attempt to work with this book as “practice exams”, they are way too long to appear at a real exam, and also the time you put to review some of the questions is not worth a slight probability of getting such exam question. I used the problems and solutions to go through the material for review.
3). I did not like at all Kaplan’s FE big review book, but I found the Chemical book very useful. Well, the chapters themselves did not help at all apart from the Distillation part (found it nicely written) but the exam at the end is great! It feels like a real exam, with short questions (unfortunately, they are well-expressed and problem statement gives only necessary info in the most cases), but I could practice the 4-hour exam and also review what I did not know.
4). I made sure that I know extremely well the areas that overlap in General and Chemical PM. For these areas, I studied the following:
- Lindeburg FE Review Manual
- 1001 solved problems (thermo and fluids sections; chemistry is strangely presented)
- NCEES “Other discipline” PM practice exam, also thermo and fluids sections
5). I also used PPI website for PM section, waste of time as many problems are the same as in the book, some have mistakes, and there are even two identical problems with different solutions and different final answers!
6). I have Chemical Engineering Reference manual from PPI as well, but did not find it useful for the FE preparation
7). Might sound strange but I at some point I got so depressed by PPI Chemical problems, i.e., my inability to solve most of them in 4 minutes, that I ordered NCEES PE Chemical exam booklet, and ended up using it extensively to review the problems, my weak areas and also to see the level of the PE difficulty, meaning that the problems on FE can not be harder! Extremely useful.
8). NCEES supplied handbook – for sure. Make sure to read every page of it because many of necessary equations are in Mechanical, Environmental Sections, etc.
9). Calculator (I used Casio fx-115es)– know inside-out, in the PM may help with integration and linear regression (in the reactors part) and solving equations.
I will let you know if I pass so that you can either use or not follow my strategy.
