Tips for Conceptual type questions/problems

I will be taking the PE Power exam for the second time next Friday. I find that I can do a majority of problems that require any sort of calculations fairly quickly, and feel confident in my answer. However, what I struggle with on the previous April exam and on some of the sample exams that I've tried (Complex Imaginary and NCEES) are the conceptual style questions. These type of questions seem to be of the sort where you either know the answer or you don't.

On my first attempt in April, I answered the calculations type problems in the morning and afternoon session in about ~1.5hrs and spent the remaining time looking through my notes/references to try to answer the conceptual type questions. I've been studying theory/concepts for the past 2 months to better improve in this aspect, but I feel I am still having a difficult time with these type of questions. What are some tips when answering these type of questions? How can I improve myself?

Also, I wish I had found this message board earlier.

How did you do on the NEC questions? Do you remember how many?

I too took the test last April, and like you I finished all the calculation problems in about an hour. I spent the next 3 hours flipping through my text books for answers I couldn't find. I still don't know what to study this time around, the only changes I'm making is bringing 3inch binder with over 400 pages of information.

I'm preparing for the exam this Friday and in my practice exams I've had the same difficulty. I was hoping to be able to go through the calculation problems and get those out of the way. Then go back and dig through my notes and references to see if I can find some sort of reasonable answer on the theory/concept questions. I would be interested to see if anyone has any good tips for working through these as well.

I took the test last April and just went through question by question watching my overall time. I remember some of the calculated problems but none of the concept questions. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of those questions in the results.

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Ship Wreck said:

How did you do on the NEC questions? Do you remember how many?

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I don't have any issues with NEC questions. I've tabbed my NEC like crazy and most times can locate what I need. From what I can remember, there were at least 5-6 NEC questions on the last exam.

What I struggle with are questions that seem pretty basic in what they are asking, however I still have difficulty in choosing the correct answer. If the whole test was calculation type problems, I feel I can pass with flying colors. However when they throw in these conceptual type "word" problems, I tend to struggle.

RBsai said:

<POST DELETED> See above.

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I would erase this if I were you...NCEES will see it and be angry You guys are correct, lots of concept questions in April exam...some of them threw me a loop at first..then I was like ohhhhh...so if you have any knowledge of the question...hopefully you can break it down...i found that after studying the calculations so much, when I ran into one of them, i had to slow down b/c they were generally easy once I thought about them..I would suggest using the directions the spiunup exam recommends for the exam for sure..it helps you break the questions down on dificulty level and it also helps manage your time very well during the exam