Formula sheet

Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum

Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Wow_PE!

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 17, 2019
Messages
149
Reaction score
43
I have the formulas from the back of Graffeo’s book.  Is anyone printing any formulas from the internet that you think will be very helpful in my binder?

 
For me, I have found best in creating my own formula sheet as I am going through problems/topics (kind of like a condensed version of the study guides because I am writing notes as well). I am using graffaeo/eng proguides/the essential text book resources mentioned here.

 
I started out with the idea for formula sheets - thinking I'd want a bunch of them in my binder. I quickly realized though that they aren't all that useful if you haven't worked problems with them and familiarized yourself. I went the route of focusing on practice problems and practice exams. They key was that I wrote out long form clean solutions to each one, and I would write out the formula I used and put a box around it so it was easy to find in the solution. Throughout the solution, if I used a formula or code section, I would explicitly write it out and then box it. (i.e. I would write the formula FIRST and then below it I would re-write it with the numbers/values specific to that problem in the right place, then write '= ___' and continue down the solution. I then sorted these problems/solution sets into sections from a table of contents I created. In the end, I never used any 'cheat sheets' or 'formula sheets' but instead went to the section of my binder that was most similar to the exam problem, reviewed the problem's I had done in my studying, and then used those solutions and the formulas/methods in them to solve the exam problem. This worked really well for me. It's hard to summarize in a single paragraph - I wrote the whole method up on this website. You can also download my Table of Contents from there. However, I would recommend editing/adjusting the TOC to match the most current exam subjects (published by NCEES). I did put formula sheets from Engineering Pro Guides  technical study guide at the beginning of each section for reference if I knew how to do the problem already and just needed to grab a formula. Also as an option for 'hail Mary' attempts at solving problems that I was totally stumped on. I think the key here is not to start out with the idea of collecting formula sheets - but to start out solving problems and then collect relevant formulas in a place where you know how to find/use them.

 
One thing to consider as you go through practice problems is make a list of common equations and then gave them grouped together in a seperare reference.  This way if you have multiple questions that are straightforward but you just want to verify the correct equation,  you wont need to flip through multiple resources to see wherw that formula was listed. 

 
I started out with the idea for formula sheets - thinking I'd want a bunch of them in my binder. I quickly realized though that they aren't all that useful if you haven't worked problems with them and familiarized yourself. I went the route of focusing on practice problems and practice exams. They key was that I wrote out long form clean solutions to each one, and I would write out the formula I used and put a box around it so it was easy to find in the solution. Throughout the solution, if I used a formula or code section, I would explicitly write it out and then box it. (i.e. I would write the formula FIRST and then below it I would re-write it with the numbers/values specific to that problem in the right place, then write '= ___' and continue down the solution. I then sorted these problems/solution sets into sections from a table of contents I created. In the end, I never used any 'cheat sheets' or 'formula sheets' but instead went to the section of my binder that was most similar to the exam problem, reviewed the problem's I had done in my studying, and then used those solutions and the formulas/methods in them to solve the exam problem. This worked really well for me. It's hard to summarize in a single paragraph - I wrote the whole method up on this website. You can also download my Table of Contents from there. However, I would recommend editing/adjusting the TOC to match the most current exam subjects (published by NCEES). I did put formula sheets from Engineering Pro Guides  technical study guide at the beginning of each section for reference if I knew how to do the problem already and just needed to grab a formula. Also as an option for 'hail Mary' attempts at solving problems that I was totally stumped on. I think the key here is not to start out with the idea of collecting formula sheets - but to start out solving problems and then collect relevant formulas in a place where you know how to find/use them.
So this is basically what I have been doing.  It just seemed to come about naturally as I’ve worked problems.  I’m really grateful for everyone sharing what they are putting in their binders.  I’m up to 3  binders now 😃

 
I appreciate everyone who has taken their time to provide input. All is very value information [emoji1545].

 
I would suggest memorizing the basic formulas because you dont wanna be spending time to open the books for every formula. For the remaining, make a binder with whatever resources you have and use it when you practice. Being familiar with your notes/formula sheet is very important in the exam. 

P.S - I had printed out Engproguides formula sheets, made a condensed version of Zach's Electrical PE course formulas and used them for all my practice tests at home. 

 
So this is basically what I have been doing.  It just seemed to come about naturally as I’ve worked problems.  I’m really grateful for everyone sharing what they are putting in their binders.  I’m up to 3  binders now 😃
Something else I did was condense my binders. I originally 'over-stuffed' my binder and it wasn't easy to navigate. I ended up making a second, 'auxiliary' binder where I put the same tabs, but put 'extra' or 'duplicate' info. So, say there were two nearly identical practice problems - I'd put just the one in my 'main' binder and then put the other in the appropriate place in my 'auxiliary' binder. Generally this 'auxiliary' binder was a holding zone for things I thought I wouldn't need, but wasn't brave enough not to bring. This kept my 'main binder' manageable in size and easy to navigate. I think if you have multiple binders, that's a workable solution as well, since you can just grab the appropriate binder for the question at hand.

 

Latest posts

Back
Top