April 2007 PE: What you did right

Suggest that folks post their passing stories before memories get too cold

Total immersion. I studied about 2 1/2 months, but totally dove in. I was even going over material and working problems at the dealership when I got my oil changed and during breaks at work.

I used the MGI EE PE Review and wove in my other references working the chapters. The MGI sample exams and the NCEES problems were the only ones I worked. I used the IEEE Review Videos and some Mike Holt NEC videos (Power Depth).

2 1/2 months, almost every night after work until 11 or 12. Almost every weekend Sat & Sun for 8 hrs. per.

I figure about 250 hrs.

I also borrowed some specialty books from the University for the Power Depth (about 5 or 6 of theirs), expensive ones I didn't have to buy.

I was in a unique situation. I had actually planned on taking the October 2006 test, which when you apply in Jersey, they tell you you are allowed to sit for the next two exams. My wife is working on her doctorate and found out that her Qualifying Exam was to be the same weekend Friday PM to Monday AM as the PE. She had no choice on dates, so with a 2 year old at home, I opted to take the April test since we couldn't both study.

Needless to say, we both passed.

Here is how my timeline went:

July '06

Started a review course at Rutgers - once a week until mid-October. I charted out the topics to be covered by each section of the test and set up 6 notebooks - one for each and a miscellaneous

August '06 - October '06

As class progressed I would compile my own notes per topic and start to type and make my own notes an put them in my notebooks with any applicable charts and nomographs, etc. I started to line up my references... finding some online to print, buying others.

November '06 - December '06

I decided to go the Transpo route and gathered more references. I continued to take and tweek my notes and notebooks.

January '07

With all of my notebooks set up, I started to work nothing but problems - CERM companion questions, Six Minute Solutions - I continued to add and change my notes as needed. I also ordered the final references I decided that I needed (Traffic Engineering Handbook, PCS, Asphalt Handbook, Unit Conversion Book)

Feburary - March '07

Worked nothing but problems and tweeked my notes further. Started tabbing references and notebooks. Took the NCEES sample exam problems. Put all of my references in milk crates and set up my dining room table like I would be taking the exam

April '07

First week - Took the CERM practice exam; did a post-mortum on it and started making final revisions to my notes

Second week - Made sure none of my books had loose paper, reviewed my references and tabs.

Week before the test - relaxed at night, watched some baseball, packed my ancillary items in a clear tuperware (calculators, tissues, water, granola bars, Rolaids, etc.)

One thing that really helped was that I was issued a work laptop. I used my laptop to type in all of my notes (since I had the time) and them I could revise them without too much difficulty and then reprint them at the office.

At some point when I have more time, I will type a list of the books I brought with me and how I set up my crates. I recognize that I took more time than most people have to study and prepare for the test, but the earlier you start with the upfront stuff (getting references, printing books like the MUTCD, etc.) the better.

In the fall, I probably spend an hour or two 4 days a week taking notes and a four hour block on most weekends. Starting January, I would spend 1-3 hours per night, 4 nights a week and usually 4-6 hours one weekend day. When I felt I was slipping behind where I wanted to be, I would take a friday off and get another 6 or so hours in (and in some cases catching up on the housework I was struggling to keep up with).

-Ray

My wife is working on her doctorate and found out that her Qualifying Exam was to be the same weekend Friday PM to Monday AM as the PE.

Click to expand...

Mine took hers a couple years ago. Did nothing but study at home and at the lab she does her research in for 3 months. Her prof was cool and let her study at the lab, since it's in his best interest for his students to pass rather than having to boot them and train someone new.

It sounded awful. This oral exam with 3 profs, Spanish Inquisition style.

Got the CERM about 4 months before the exam and used that as a study guide, going through the topics that I felt I would benefit the most from. Studied about 1 to 1 1/2 hours a night on average of two to three nights a week.

Got the NCEES problems and borrowed references from work about a month or so before the exam - looked them over over the course of the next few weeks on the same 1 to 1 1/2 hours a night on average of two to three nights a week schedule.

Got a hotel room for the night before so I wouldn't worry about drive times, being late, etc. Ate a decent breakfast. Took food along for lunch so I didn't have to try to find something.

What really helped me with studying for the mechanical test was the ASME video classes. If you buy them, they are expensive, however you might get lucky and find them in the library. I'm fortunate to live in the city that I went to school at, and was able to find them at the Engineering Library - they were on VHS, so i had to go out and buy a VCR, but that is a small cost compared to what it could have been. I think the DVDs cost around $500. It is a complete series - about an hour review for each mechanical subject - as well as basic electrical, economics, etc. There were about 6 hours of review for the morning exam, as well as 2 or 3 in-depth reviews for each of the mechanical afternoon exams. overall it was 16 video tapes, but i only watched the afternoon reviews for the HVAC portion (which is what i took mine in).

I watched these videos all, and took lots of notes from them, before i started studying from the book. They were a great overview and refresher, and really helped someone like me who has a difficult time learning from a book.

The only other thing i can say is if you are going to take HVAC - bring all 4 ASHRAE books! I just brought fundamentals, and there was an easy question i missed because I didn't have the right book with me. (without going into any detail for obvious reasons, it was a simple look-up-the-answer question)

Do lots of practice problems, and don't believe it when you hear "they will always have this on the exam"

Finally - I devoted a set amount of time every day to studying. I only made exceptions for special occasions (maybe dinner for someone's birthday, etc.)... I studied 2 hours every week day, and 5 hours on saturday, 5 hours on sunday - for about 2 months. (Remember, the first few weeks were watching TV with the videos - each 1 hour video took me about 2 hours to watch with pausing, and taking notes, and rewinding to catch things better)

It is better to understand the principles behind why you do a problem a certain way, then it is to know specifics and every way to do every type of problem. If you are following a formula you are less likely to get it right than if you understand what is going on behind the problem. Many of the questions were more general than i expected, and were really testing how well you understood all the concepts.

/sorry for the Tolstoy

IMO, the biggest factor is prep time. I devoted about 4 months to preparation with 2-3 hours a day during the week and about 10 days during the weekends. I did a lot of number problems initially, but later on started focussing on the word problems. The ENV PE is big on word problems, especially about regulations and such. I also took the review course, but didn't find it of much help. Essentially, I went through ENVRM twice, practicing all problems and understanding the concepts that I didn't use at work everyday. Took the practice exams timed like actual exam with only the references I planned on taking with me.

Civil/Transpo - Passed 1st attempt.

What I think helped in preparing...

1) I picked a depth module that catered to my stronger suits. I work in land development, so none of the depth portions were truly geared towards me. However, I use hydro, geotech and transpo stuff from time to time. So the transportation depth was right for me. I thought about the water resources module, but environmental always made me cringe.

2) I made a seperate binder containing the CERM index/glossary, unit conversions and part of the appendix from CERM, very helpful, was a timesaver for me. I read quite a few others did this, I highly recommend it.

3) I went through and made hand notes from chapters highlighting what I thought were key points and put them in a binder. For me, skimming and reading doesn't work too well. When I write something down, it helps me remember where it is and what it was. I could locate where the info I needed was pretty fast.

4) I skipped studying sections of the CERM, risky I know. Structural is about 1/3 of the CERM, I studied maybe half of the structural stuff.

5) I brought a ton of books. Most will tell you that you don't need all those books...and they're right. Peace of mind is a key for me and having all those books gave it to me. I didn't want to be one of those people that fail simply because they didn't bring a manual or two.

My 2 cents

I took the ME/Thermal Fluids depth April 2007:

I started casually studying last fall - I would go through the MERM, work an occassional problem, and just familiarize myself with the MERM and all my other references. I originally thought I was going to take the test in October 06, but then realized you had to apply essentially 6 months ahead of time. So April 2007 it was.

Starting in February, I studied every night for 2 hours. On weekends, I would try to get in about 10 hours total. This seems consistent with others posting here. I also started a 3 ring binder for my own personal notes and handy tables that I used often. I brought this binder with me as one of my references. I would jot down handy conversions, frequently used equations, and other notes to myself as I studied. I also read through, in detail, each of the sections in the MERM that was relevant to me: HVAC, Fluids, Thermo, Heat Transfer, and Power Cycles (I studied Statics, Machine Design and others less rigorously). I made a study schedule and did about one chapter per week, leaving myself a few week at the end for practice exams and general overview. I would study the chapter in MERM, take notes and work examples in the text, then at the end of that week, I went back and worked the Practice Problems for that chapter from the MERM Practice Problems book. I saved the practice exams (the one from "the other board" and the NCEES one) until the end, so that I could take them after having prepared. If you take them too early in the studying process, you will probably get frustrated. When I did take them, I tried to replicate test conditions as best I could including giving myself a strict 4 hour time limit for the sections. I knew going into the actual exam that I would work the test straight through, then go back to the problems that I couldn't solve on the first pass. I finished with about 30 extra minutes in the morning, and about 20 extra minutes in the afternoon.

In summary, my tips would be:

Have a study schedule and stick to it.

Use the practice tests to gauge what kind of speed you will need during the actual exam.

Know your references well.

Tab the hell out of your MERM (or equivalent).

Occasionally, take a look at the NCEES provided breakdown of problems to make sure you haven't overlooked anything (for me it was electrical, engineering econ, etc.)

Hope this helps!

I had just about all the books that are listed on the NCEES site as Transpo design standards, and I spent time getting familiar with them.

I also made a point to work on the things that were giving me trouble - the things I did not like to study! Sometimes we will spend more time on the things we like.

I did 2 practice exams, and scored them to find my weak spots, and then did a lot of review on those things again.

I began prep for the environmental exam in October. For the most part I followed the order of the schedule that the publisher of the reference manual provides online; however, I adjusted the time spent on each chapter so I could take off a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas and finish a month before the exam to work the practice problem and sample exam books. Besides the books published for the environmental exam, I also used the Environmental and Water Resources 6 Minute Solutions for the civil exam. I tried to study Monday thru Thursday for at least 2 hours each night and put in 6 to 8 hours over the weekend. In reality, aside from the last month, I was closer to averaging 1 hour per night Monday thru Thursday and 4 hours on the weekend.

I agree with VA Env Engr, word problems were a bigger part of the exam than I had anticipated. While going through the exam, I decided if I couldn't answer the word problems in more than 2 reads I would just skip them and come back at the end to either do a little hunting through my references or just flat out guess. In the end, I think spending time on the calculations rather than the word problems worked in my favor since I passed.

The most important thing is treat this test like your job, put in as much time as you can get away with. I had achallenge with that as my wife and kid were not happy with the cold shoulder treatment for 3 months, but I passed on the first try.

For those who have trouble knowing where to begin or what order to study things in, the "other board" has a study guie on the website somewhere that you are given access rights to when you buy a CERM that is fully customizeable. It lets you re-arrange the subject matter/chapter so that you can figure out which order to study which chapters and it lets you select the correct duration as well. I found this very useful when starting out. I was able to arrange the guidelines so that it mostly coincided with the ASCE review course I was enrolled in, reinforcing what I was learning/reviewing in class. I also moved the sections for what I was taking in the afternoon (geotechnical) to the end and put more time into studying those areas of the CERM.

Other than that, the most useful thing I did right was know all of my refrences inside and out, not a single moment wasted searching for things.

One thing to not do: kiss sick kids. I gave my 2 year old a kiss goodnight and gave myself the trots for the day before, of and 3 days after the exam.

I did the water resources depth. I started studying alittle less than 4 months before the exam (January) and I studied about 12 hours a week. I also took a class that was 5 weekends long with each weekend going over a different discipline of the test. Saturday we learned about the discipline and typical problem types and Sunday we just worked problems.

All I did on my own was work problems. I did all the 6 minute solutions. I worked the entire books for Environmental and Water Resource since that was most of my depth exam and created my own formula sheets based on the different problems I worked. For me it helped to write down the formulas as I did problems so i could recognize which formulas to use for which problems because I was afraid I'd start the problem and go off in the wrong direciton. I did about half the book for geotech and less than half for structural and transportation.

I started tabbing my books as I worked problems. For water resource I got an Intro To Environmental Engineering book that was very helpful, Metcalf and Eddy Wastewater Book was a must. I also had a hydraulics book. For Geotech I used a Braja M Das book. (He's written a few versions)

I also found the NCEES Sample book very helpful.

About 8 weeks before the exam I took a sample exam to see where I was at. I didn't do very well and I didn't finish in the alotted time. It really got me down because my main fear was not finishing in enough time for the exam.

About 4 weeks before the exam I signed up for the 30 day "the other board" access to questions and worked a bunch of those questions. I did a lot of qualitative questions since I had been mostly working quantitative up until then. I took another sample exam created by "the other board" website which I did better on but still had time issues and didn't get a passing score on it.

I tried not to spend a lot of time on Structural and Transportation since I only had it in the morning. I just really worked the class problems and a few in the 6-minute solutions. I brought no references for these two disciplines and only relied on the CERM and my binder from class for the morning. (My binder had some HCM chapters in it which I recommend having HCM references for Transportation and some standard structural tables and values).

I got to the exam an hour early and took my own lunch.

When I took the exam I finished the morning in two and a half hours and the afternoon in three hours so I had time to go back and check. I knew I had to work the problem and get an answer if I thought I knew how to do it and if I had time I would go back and check and rework. I assumed I'd only have time to try it once. Because I had worked so many problems studying most of them were not too surprising.

I passed on my first attempt. Good luck to all taking it in October!

I was picking C, but switched to B

Testmasters!

I took the course (ten days over three long weekends) the end of March beginning of April which was maybe 50 useful hours out of the 80 I sat in the class. I spent about 20 hours after the course going over each course problem once and making some notes. I looked through the CERM for maybe a few hours to familiarize myself with the layout past what I did in the course itself.

I arrived in the test city a day early by airplane, had a lunch and dinner of fish/seafood at the hotel's four star restaurant (very relaxing and good brain food), scoped out the exam site the night before, and arrived thirty minutes early to just "zone out". No alcohol or caffeine the day before the test!

Most importantly, after the exam I had some classic Oregon microbrews and quickly forgot all about the exam. Though I did do the Oregon take-home test while sitting in the pub.

I can't say enough about Testmasters for those that don't have a lot of time to dedicate to preparation. In hindsight, I might have even just went to the first day of the course to get the course notes and then go back home.

I took the structural exam...I went over the structural engineering reference manual thoroughly. I picked my weak points and then went over my undergrad and master's books / projects...etc. then I solved more questions....

Most important thing is familiarizing yourself with the manuals, reference books etc. You should be able to find what you are looking for fairly easily. I am not doing much design at work, so I had to review A LOT OF STUFF.

I studied for 4-5 months everyday...On weekdays I woke up at 5:00 am and studied until 7:00, then I studied 12:00 to 1:00 pm

on my lunch break then 2 - 3 hours after work...Obviously I skipped a lot of morning studying and tried to make up for it after work.

I studied only 1 day on the weekends (4-5 hrs)...

i sincerely don't know. i thought i was behind the 8 ball the entire time. i started late, only had 2.5 months. had a review class lined up and then that was canceled due to low enrollment. signed up for "the other board"'s passing zone online 3 weeks late (didn't know about this board unfortunately) and played catch-up the entire time. never gave a subject an entire week, each one only got at most 4 days.

so i guess what i did right was learn the MERM, take great notes, and compile a good binder. i also took both practice exams from NCEES and "the other board", those helped. but other than guessing, who knows at this point!

I think it was a combination of things which most people have already mentioned.

I did take a review course which I thought was helpful. It focused on all the key areas. Without it, I wasn't very motivated to study or know where to concentrate my efforts. About a month or so before the exam, I devoted one day during the weekend to study in the library for about 8 -10 hours and two days during the week after work for about 3-4 hours. I also made one binder of my own notes. I didn't want to have too many references and get bogged down during the exam (I only brought 5 references to the exam which fit in one bag).

I also copied the index of the main reference book for easy access so you don't have to keep flipping from the back of the book.

I went through about 3 practice exams and focused on my weakest areas first.

Whatever it was, it helped me pass the EE PE (power depth) on the first time. I know everyone has different study habits and methods, but the best advice it to do lots and lots of practice problems and get to know the refernces you are using and don't have too many.

Mech/HVAC - Passed First Time

My experience is atypical of others....started studying 6 weeks before the test, I studied on saturdays for 7-8 hours, and a couple hours during the week. Used MERM and the 6 minute solutions, the 6 minute solutions were more helpful than MERM in preparing me as they were more like the exam questions.

The most important part for me was to learn what was in each book and where to find t.

Total study time - 50 hours

I studied a lot of hours, but the best thing I did was take a review course. I took ITRE PE Review at NCSU. Very worthwhile. I also used a lot of tabs to index all of my books.