# So a month left - how is everyone's study going?



## Opisthenar PE (Mar 23, 2017)

Don't post much, but thought it would be interesting to see what others are doing for study and what references you have chosen for the April 2017 Exam.

As for myself, I started off thoroughly going over the practice NCEES exam about 2 months ago. On the first take, I didn't do to well. But I took meticulous notes on why I got the problem wrong. This also helped me add more notes to some of my references.

I have completed CI Exams 1-4 this week and scored about 70% on all of them. I am actually going to go back this week and re-work the problems I've missed. My biggest weakness as of right now is NEC questions, but I've bought the tabs and the Tom Henry Keyword Index to hopefully fix and speed up to answer these questions.

I am using my main point of reference as Graffeo. It is an excellent reference, but I've also added a lot of hand written notes in there.

For the next three weeks, I plan on going through the sample NCEES exam again and re-doing the Graffeo practice exam.

For references, I plan on taking:

1) Wildi

2) Stevenson and Grainer - Power System Analysis

3) NEC 2014 with tabs

4) Tom Henry Keyword Index

5) NFPA 70 E

6) NESC 2012

7) Graffeo


----------



## Ken PE 3.1 (Mar 24, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> Don't post much, but thought it would be interesting to see what others are doing for study and what references you have chosen for the April 2017 Exam.
> 
> As for myself, I started off thoroughly going over the practice NCEES exam about 2 months ago. On the first take, I didn't do to well. But I took meticulous notes on why I got the problem wrong. This also helped me add more notes to some of my references.
> 
> ...


Sounds like you are fairly good shape with a few weeks left.

Taking meticulous notes and tabbing the daylights out of your references will be a huge payoff during the exam. Best of luck to you!

Be sure to be comfortable (as much as practical) with the index for the NEC, that is the key to breezing thru the NEC questions IMHO.


----------



## mvsapre (Mar 24, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> Don't post much, but thought it would be interesting to see what others are doing for study and what references you have chosen for the April 2017 Exam.
> 
> As for myself, I started off thoroughly going over the practice NCEES exam about 2 months ago. On the first take, I didn't do to well. But I took meticulous notes on why I got the problem wrong. This also helped me add more notes to some of my references.
> 
> ...


I have been using Graffeo book as my main reference as well. So far I have solved 3 CI tests and 1 Graffeo, scored 80% in 1st two CIs and 90% in a CI and Graffeo. I am planning to bring Stevenson Grainger, Graffeo, NESC, NEC, Wildi, Power System book by J B Gupta and 2 binders full of random stuff printed from this forum. Each book is tabbed for particular topics that I plan on using during the PE.

During weekdays I focus on problems/topics that I got wrong in the practice exams. I seem to get most of the NEC questions right during the practice. I make silly mistakes by not paying attention to 1Ph or 3Ph, RMS or peak etc..... Need more concentration! I plan on solving few  Spin Up exams just to get more variety of problems, 5 problems each day from CI code book using Tom Henry Keyword Index. Hopefully this should do it.


----------



## Opisthenar PE (Mar 24, 2017)

mvsapre said:


> I have been using Graffeo book as my main reference as well. So far I have solved 3 CI tests and 1 Graffeo, scored 80% in 1st two CIs and 90% in a CI and Graffeo. I am planning to bring Stevenson Grainger, Graffeo, NESC, NEC, Wildi, Power System book by J B Gupta and 2 binders full of random stuff printed from this forum. Each book is tabbed for particular topics that I plan on using during the PE.
> 
> During weekdays I focus on problems/topics that I got wrong in the practice exams. I seem to get most of the NEC questions right during the practice. I make silly mistakes by not paying attention to 1Ph or 3Ph, RMS or peak etc..... Need more concentration! I plan on solving few  Spin Up exams just to get more variety of problems, 5 problems each day from CI code book using Tom Henry Keyword Index. Hopefully this should do it.


I really like the strategy for re-doing the missed problems on certain exams 1-2 days later to make sure you can solve that problem again. Really reinforces the concepts.

For the NEC problems - how is the Tom Henry Keyword Index working for ya? I've used it a couple of times on the CI problems and at times I feel I waste time looking through the Tom Henry Keyword Index first rather than the NEC index or the NEC TOC first. What's usually your strategy?


----------



## mvsapre (Mar 24, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> I really like the strategy for re-doing the missed problems on certain exams 1-2 days later to make sure you can solve that problem again. Really reinforces the concepts.
> 
> For the NEC problems - how is the Tom Henry Keyword Index working for ya? I've used it a couple of times on the CI problems and at times I feel I waste time looking through the Tom Henry Keyword Index first rather than the NEC index or the NEC TOC first. What's usually your strategy?


I have tabbed all the sections with frequently asked questions in NEC handbook, usually I do fine with any numerical problems regarding NEC but I do struggle when it comes to theory questions on random topics. My strategy is to brainstorm the question and understand the topic it could be related to. I dont need to do this if the question already has the keyword(s) I am looking for. If I don't find anything in handbook using TH keyword index then I look up in the handbook index, by the time I have done all these steps and I am still not able to find the answer then I flag the question and move to the next one and come back to it again after I am done with that section. I am still not very good with NEC and so plan on solving 5 questions a day. CI code book has a good introduction, do read it.


----------



## Troll (Mar 24, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> Don't post much, but thought it would be interesting to see what others are doing for study and what references you have chosen for the April 2017 Exam.
> 
> As for myself, I started off thoroughly going over the practice NCEES exam about 2 months ago. On the first take, I didn't do to well. But I took meticulous notes on why I got the problem wrong. This also helped me add more notes to some of my references.
> 
> ...


was there ever a question on NFPA 70E? Can anyone confirm?

I don't think it was even on the reference list.

Need the NESC by the way. don't worry about the $200 cost of it. If you pass by a single point, it was well worth it.


----------



## Troll (Mar 24, 2017)

oops, my eyes skipped right over #6


----------



## trainrider (Mar 25, 2017)

Currrently working on Complex Imaginary Code Drill Book along with the Tom Henry's Key Word Index (Handbook)/ NEC Handbook and I'm having a hard time trying to find the right index key word search within Tom Henry's book. I'm having better luck just using the NEC Handbook index instead. Has anyone else run into this issue?


----------



## rg1 (Mar 25, 2017)

Best of luck to all participants. I am thinking to make up my mind  to appear in next exam of PE Power after leaving college 27 years back. Will need help from the group here.


----------



## Opisthenar PE (Mar 25, 2017)

Troll said:


> was there ever a question on NFPA 70E? Can anyone confirm?
> 
> I don't think it was even on the reference list.
> 
> Need the NESC by the way. don't worry about the $200 cost of it. If you pass by a single point, it was well worth it.


Hello,

It hasn't been referenced much on these boards, but I get it free from work so I thought I'd just take it...in case. Sorry I can't be more helpful.


----------



## Opisthenar PE (Mar 25, 2017)

trainrider said:


> Currrently working on Complex Imaginary Code Drill Book along with the Tom Henry's Key Word Index (Handbook)/ NEC Handbook and I'm having a hard time trying to find the right index key word search within Tom Henry's book. I'm having better luck just using the NEC Handbook index instead. Has anyone else run into this issue?


Yes, I've come across the same issue at times with the Tom Henry Index. I'm thinking though it is because I've never used to the NEC for work and I'm a little behidn on practice problems. I'm going to spend most of this weekend doing NEC from CI and the NCEES sample exam.


----------



## Opisthenar PE (Mar 25, 2017)

Troll said:


> was there ever a question on NFPA 70E? Can anyone confirm?
> 
> I don't think it was even on the reference list.
> 
> Need the NESC by the way. don't worry about the $200 cost of it. If you pass by a single point, it was well worth it.


Troll, I found this thread:


----------



## Troll (Mar 25, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> Troll, I found this thread:


thanks

already passed the test but figured it'd be good to know for the future test takers


----------



## Ken PE 3.1 (Mar 26, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> > 15 hours ago, Troll said: was there ever a question on NFPA 70E? Can anyone confirm? I don't think it was even on the reference list.
> >
> > Need the NESC by the way. don't worry about the $200 cost of it. If you pass by a single point, it was well worth it.
> 
> ...


Depends on the test, but the 70E is fair game 9n the exam. There were a couple questions on it the cycle I passed it.


----------



## TWJ PE (Mar 26, 2017)

Ken PE 3.0 said:


> Depends on the test, but the 70E is fair game 9n the exam. There were a couple questions on it the cycle I passed it.


Ditto.


----------



## HotFudge (Mar 29, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> Don't post much, but thought it would be interesting to see what others are doing for study and what references you have chosen for the April 2017 Exam.
> 
> As for myself, I started off thoroughly going over the practice NCEES exam about 2 months ago. On the first take, I didn't do to well. But I took meticulous notes on why I got the problem wrong. This also helped me add more notes to some of my references.
> 
> ...


Has the Wildi and Grainger books been of any help to you? (i recently bought both and i plan to focus on the topics i found on this thread that recommended those books).I agree with you on the Graffeo book it seems to have most of what you need. I am enrolled in the testmasters online course and so far i am getting abteer understanding by getting the information from two sources. I also bought the Camara book as a reference just in case.


----------



## Opisthenar PE (Mar 30, 2017)

HotFudge said:


> Has the Wildi and Grainger books been of any help to you? (i recently bought both and i plan to focus on the topics i found on this thread that recommended those books).I agree with you on the Graffeo book it seems to have most of what you need. I am enrolled in the testmasters online course and so far i am getting abteer understanding by getting the information from two sources. I also bought the Camara book as a reference just in case.


Wildi has been very helpful - especially at understanding topics. He does a great job talking about things without getting too much on theory.

I haven't used Grainger much in my practice exams. The only times I've used it have been for some transmission line problems that dealt with propagation, etc.


----------



## Millerific (Mar 30, 2017)

Opisthenar said:


> Wildi has been very helpful - especially at understanding topics. He does a great job talking about things without getting too much on theory.
> 
> I haven't used Grainger much in my practice exams. The only times I've used it have been for some transmission line problems that dealt with propagation, etc.


What have you focused on in the Wildi book?  I have skimmed through some of the chapters other members have pointed out and highlighted some key aspects, but I haven't really been able to develop a good study habit with it.

Are the problems at the end of each chapter beneficial?


----------



## knight1fox3 (Mar 31, 2017)

Millerific said:


> What have you focused on in the Wildi book?  I have skimmed through some of the chapters other members have pointed out and highlighted some key aspects, but I haven't really been able to develop a good study habit with it.
> 
> Are the problems at the end of each chapter beneficial?


IMO, Wildi is good at reinforcing fundamental concepts on a wide array of power engineering topics. And in general, also shouldn't be your primary reference. The problems at the end (like most engineering textbooks) tend to go into much more detail than what you are likely to see on the PE power exam.


----------



## NJmike PE (Mar 31, 2017)

there's an exam coming up?


----------



## Voomie (Apr 3, 2017)

Oh [email protected]# I knew I was forgetting something...

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk


----------

