Computer based PE Exam

I am personally glad the board is making the PE Exam computer based and don't believe all the criticism by the exam prep companies. Here are the main reasons why I'm waiting until 2023 to take the Civil Construction Exam:

-Will be able to take the exam more often during the year. Maximum of 4x a year but only allowed in 3 month increments.

-Save $$ by not traveling so far to test sites. The exam will be more available throughout the state at testing centers say at local universities and community colleges. No more hotel stays.

-Exam results will be available much faster, literally within 11 days of taking the exam.

I'm glad the board is making this change and hope many of you feel the same way. 

I think long term it will be fine. But there are two issues that make it a pain right now:

- You can't bring your own references. You're only allowed to use the single provided electronic reference. It's very important to be intimately familiar with your references. Now you have to learn a book that you're not already familiar with, as opposed to using the industry standard references that you're already using at work. You also can't tab your references for quick jumping around. Search works, but search isn't as fast as tabs that you know.

- New question types including multiple select, drag and drop, identification/matching, etc. In the long term, study methods and courses will adjust to the new question formats. But in the immediate future, test takers don't know how to prepare for these questions, and course creators are just making it up until we see what the real questions look like.

Right now the PE exam is a well known quantity. Everyone knows what to expect and (generally speaking) how to prepare. These changes are making it very much an unknown. I think the new questions types will be fine. Especially once people see them, and practice tests come out. The changes in reference policy is a HUGE and permanent shift to the core of the exam, but it will be fine. One advantage of the new CBT format is that this is how kids in school are tested now. My 13-year old son is very familiar with all these various question types. So there will already be a familiarity with the format.

I do think the exam prep companies are using this as an excuse to drive business before the test changes (take it now before the sky falls) and they will also use it to drive business after the change (take our course because you don't know how to prepare for this new format). Personally I don't want to be one of the first test takers. I wanted to either take it before the change or wait a couple years after the change.

I was unaware of the limited use of resources available for the exam. Honestly with the construction depth and how the board makes up problems I'm fine with this. I'm not a believer in an exam being 100% multiple choice and this is a good move by the board to eliminate engineers passing the exam who are just good test takers. Maybe the question format may also give real world examples as I have found some past exam questions to be very impractical.

Philosophically, I think that CBT is the right way to go if you're looking for an objectively-graded exam. Really, a mix of objective and subjective exam scoring would be best, but given the sheer volume of test takers, that's completely impractical for the PE Exam. The new question types and question selection algorithms should add more nuance and make the exam more robust.

I'm not sure how I feel about the exam being closed-book. I think I'd be more okay with it if the testing centers disabled the Ctrl+F function on the computers or if the reference handbook was split up into multiple files.

Personally, I'm going to take the exam pencil and paper for no other reason than that I can't fathom waiting an additional 3+ years to be licensed. I work for a design consultant, so licensure is expected of me, sooner rather than later. I think that's also why the PE focuses a lot theory and general application of overarching principles, because NCEES is responsible for the legal licensure of design engineers. For good or ill, that's going to keep a certain emphasis on theory and the nature of how things apply to design. Honestly, I've been a little surprised to see how many people working for contractors get licensed, just because of the focus on design.

Also, I'm fairly confident that you can only take a CBT exam 3 times a year. It can be taken once each quarter, but only up to three times in a calendar year.