Electrical and electronics PE exam oct 2017

Experience of electrical and electronics PE exam Oct 2017

I passed the Oct 2017 Electronics - my first try.  Thank you to the folks of these forums who told of their experiences, it really helped me understand what I was up against and what I had to do.
 
Here are my thoughts on the experience:
 
Whoever said the test is on the fundamentals in these forums has it absolutely correct.  In a way, it's a more specialized, more difficult, FE exam.
 
Preparation:

• I'm decades out of school, and my degrees are not as concentrated in the test subject, indeed I was taking electronics because this is where I could prove practice, as opposed to mechanical, power or systems, which my schooling also covers.  I did not assume I was going to remember much, and there were things I had to learn from scratch.
  
• I did self study.  I was not impressed with the sample lecture videos at online course offerings at the online schools.  There are no other options near me.  Plus, I liked the flexibility.
  
• I bought the "bundle" at PPI2PASS and did not really need a lot of it.  The main things were the Camara reference manual (or EERM as folks here like to call it), the sample exam and sample problems.  So that probably would have cost me about the same as the bundle anyway. So I got a free thermos.  Wooo.  It really does keep thing hot all day.
  
• Hunting for more problems to do, I bought a Brightwood sample problem book also.  Sometimes the different approaches, symbols etc. in Brightwood were confusing when I was trying to nail down topics that were new to me.  On the other hand, exposure to different ways of asking problems/expressing solutions was probably a good thing.  The Brightwood solutions were not as clear and well presented as in the NCEES practice exam or PPI problem books.
  
• While I have a number of gripes about the Camara EERM, it did centralize and guide my study.  I'll keep it as a reference.  I submitted a bunch of corrections, odd that not many appeared on the errata page until I posted them.  
  
• Based on comments here at EB, I picked up additional references in Wireless Communications, Rapaport I will keep, Pearson I will sell.
  
• I kept a binder of worked problems, and crib sheets of formulas which also went into the binder.  Since reading here that proctors might take exception to pencil scribbles, I did all my practice problems in pen.
  
• I put in 207 hours from July 1 to exam day.  Making a schedule and tracking it was a really good way to stay disciplined, including while on vacation.  I used the philosophy in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cxu-iBzuAo to map time and topics in the test against probability of number of questions on the exam.
  

 
References used in the exam:

• I brought 45 pounds of books in a tote, easy access (see pic).  Books on end in the pic were the FE review book and practice exam and sample problem books.  I kept track of which references I was using the most as I studied and brought those.  I brought all my worked problems in a binder with my crib sheets.  Binder was tabbed, EERM was tabbed, references were tabbed a bit less, in response to what I went back to frequently while studying.  
  
• My references were either books from school which I had kept or references acquired and used over the years, so I really knew my way around my references.  My references were at my side for all my hours of study.  Horowitz and Hill - a classic for those of us who came up around ocean engineering - saved my butt 4 times.  
  
• No loose paper!  I removed dust jackets for the occasion.
  
• I brought spare calculator, batteries, etc. sparing no paranoia so that kind of thing, even the thought of it, wouldn't be a distraction.
  
• On bringing in worked problems - there was no time to thumb through worked problems.  My opinion is that in this discipline, they would be a distraction.  I either knew how to work things or I didn't.  For things I wasn't sure, I dipped into my references as a reminder.  I never looked at worked problems, any of the practice exams, or the practice problem books in the test.  I did dip into nearly all my other references.
  
• I was a little embarrassed at the number of books I had.  Then I saw the suitcases coming out of trunks in the parking lot, the stacks of bins on hand trucks, yow!  Who ever said in these forums that the "civils bring crates of books" was dead on.
  

 
Someone on these boards wrote about exam strategy, taking several passes through getting low hanging fruit first, more time consuming next, and then things one has to look up intensely and finally educated or complete guesses last.  That strategy worked for me.  I never re-checked a problem once I got a solution.  There's no time for that.  I worked methodically, so I'd have confidence I did the best as I was going to do at a problem as quickly as I could, once I filled in that little oval.
 
 
 

Refer to http://electronicspeprep.com/test-prep/

Good job to those who passed. I've been out of school for 7.5 years and I had to re-study completely from scratch. I remembered nothing when starting to study for the PE exam 6 months prior to. EERM is a useful book but one should not rely on it solely to pass the exam. I would say about 20% of the questions can be directly answered using EERM and there were a few areas where I feel the book is wrong and needs revisions. The exam deliberately asks questions that are not easily answered unless you have a specific subject matter book so it kinda forces you to bring other references as well. Go as comprehensive as you can as deep as you can. I bought a bunch of Schaum's books too but I hardly opened them except for communication parts where I needed extra practicing. 

Be advised http://electronicspeprep.com/ is now posting free training videos.

They are being released every week.