# So, what'd you think?



## Capt Worley PE (Oct 29, 2007)

I thought the AM section was harder than the NCEES practice exam, and I was surpised at how heavily the HVAC was emphasized versus what was on the practice exam.

I took machine design PM. There were a few things in there I'd just flat never heard of and couldn't find in my references.

Overall, I didn't feel all that great about it, but holding out a glimmer of hope about passing.


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## BORICUAZO (Oct 29, 2007)

Captain Worley said:


> I thought the AM section was harder than the NCEES practice exam, and I was surpised at how heavily the HVAC was emphasized versus what was on the practice exam.
> I took machine design PM. There were a few things in there I'd just flat never heard of and couldn't find in my references.
> 
> Overall, I didn't feel all that great about it, but holding out a glimmer of hope about passing.


Hope about passing! That's how I feel. AM was harder. I waiste lots of minutes solving all those problems that should be the "easier ones".

PM (HVAC) was made on time: +/- 6 minutes per problem.

Overall: 63% to 72%. Hope to get on the upper side of the cut score!


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## annie (Oct 29, 2007)

I also felt the AM section to be hard.

I took the Thermal &amp; Fluids in the afternoon and found that for a couple of questions, my answers didnt match with any provided.

Did anyone else have the same issue ? I am hoping those were wrong questions.


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## BluSkyy (Oct 29, 2007)

I took Machine Design PM as well (my area of primary work) and found it more difficult than I expected. It was much more broad than I thought it would be in terms of topics covered, and I was somewhat brainfried by that point too. I think I did better on the morning session which was surprising.


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## chavez (Oct 29, 2007)

I'm with blueskyy...i also suprisingly found the am session to be slightly easier, but it could have been burnout by hour 6 into the exam...i felt like i did ok, but only time will tell...i'm holding out for a victory as well..

BlueSkyy, get a new Avatar....


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## AlaME (Oct 30, 2007)

I thought that the morning session was more difficult. I took the MD afternoon and thought it was easier than what I expected. However, since I took it, I realize that I missed at least 3 on the afternoon. There wasn't anything on the afternoon I couldn't solve- I just solved it wrong.

As for passing- who knows? The 8 hours sitting was not good for me- my legs were killing me when I left. It also didn't help that they had the temperature down around 60 in the exam room- everyone had their coats on. I was ready to light up some of my reference books to keep warm.

This was my first attempt. I sat next to a guy taking the civil for the 6th time. Real inspiring.


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## GVPATEL (Oct 30, 2007)

annie said:


> I also felt the AM section to be hard. I took the Thermal &amp; Fluids in the afternoon and found that for a couple of questions, my answers didnt match with any provided.
> 
> Did anyone else have the same issue ? I am hoping those were wrong questions.




Hi all,

Mechanical PE exam october 26-2007 is very very hard on AM as well as PM (fluid &amp; thermal) section.

too many HVAC questions they asked i do not know what NCEES want to prove them self if anyone from the Board will take this test, hardly anyone

can pass this PE exam.

I am totally disappointed looking all this questions they asking in PE exam.

All of us have to write to NCEES so they can listen to all of us and improve their standard of asking questions to us.

plase write your thaughts to NCEES.

good luck to all.

In my opnion, this exam is waste of money and time without our fault.


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## jroyce (Oct 30, 2007)

Well let's see. I also felt that the HVAC portion was very heavy in the morning. I took the MD for the afternoon and I really didn't think it was that bad. There were a few questions that I didn't know but overall I thought it was pretty fair in the afternoon. However I also think that it depended on what reference materials you had brought. The MERM was pretty helpless on most of the afternoon section. I think I may have just got lucky and had the right materials. I also thought that a few of the questions were out there and could figure out how they related to mechanical design. But oh well such is life. For the next few weeks I think I am gonna try hard to forget about this test and relax knowing that if I didn't pass that I will studying again soon. Hope is a wonderful thing....


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## Ralph (Oct 31, 2007)

jroyce said:


> Well let's see. I also felt that the HVAC portion was very heavy in the morning. I took the MD for the afternoon and I really didn't think it was that bad. There were a few questions that I didn't know but overall I thought it was pretty fair in the afternoon. However I also think that it depended on what reference materials you had brought. The MERM was pretty helpless on most of the afternoon section. I think I may have just got lucky and had the right materials.


jroyce,

What were the right materials? I am planning on taking the MD depth in the spring.


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## jroyce (Oct 31, 2007)

I had the MERM for the morning which was pretty much the only reference I used. I also opened a few college textbook for the HVAC questions and thermo tables for properties. The beam tables that are in the back of MERM should be supplimented with the beam pdf file that is another thread in the Mechanical section (I think it was posted by the capt or shaggy).

For the afternoon MERM is used for some of the basic questions.

Shigley and Mischke - *Mechanical Engineering Design* (ISBN0-07-056899-5)

Juvinall and Marchek - *Fundamentals of Machine Component Design *(ISBN 0-471-44844-3)

*Norton - Machine Design - An Integrated Approach *(ISBN 0-13-017706-7)

*Marks' Engineering Handbook *- 11th Edition (ISBN 978-0-07-142867-5)

AISC - *Steel Construction Manual*

*Materials book *(I used my Mechanics of materials textbook from college) - this is just for some material properties so I'm sure you can use any materials book and it might even be in MERM but I was more comfortable with where information was in that book (time is critical)

6 minutes questions book from :sux:

NCEES practice test

:sux: practice test

That was all the book that I used in the afternoon session. Again the test changes each time so those books might not be as helpful the next time around. And who knows I may not have done as well as I think I might have. I just found alot of useful equations in those books. :2cents:


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## ridge35 (Nov 1, 2007)

in an interesting twist, the power in the building we were taking the PE in went out during our lunch break (obviously the joke of needing an electrical engineer ran heavily through the crowd) but we were asked to leave the site and come back an hour later than were expected to start.

and not only that, we were told that we might have to be rescheduled to take the test another day. i cant describe the look of shear terror that was expressed by the crowd when that statement was made, apparently the proctor wasnt versed on NCEES contingency plans in that event, because when people started questioning how that would be done, he had no idea. but fortunately the power came back on 5 minutes before they had to cancel the 2nd half (we found out that a transformer had been blown and that the electric company must have double-timed it to get it fixed)

i took the machine PM session, and i also found it to be somewhat bewildering, i will admit though given that virtual 2 hour lunch break did help to recover from the AM session.


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## cocoloco (Nov 1, 2007)

AlaME said:


> This was my first attempt. I sat next to a guy taking the civil for the 6th time. Real inspiring.



I had to laugh my behind off with this post... LOL!


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## Undertaker (Nov 1, 2007)

cocoloco said:


> I had to laugh my behind off with this post... LOL!


Hell Oh Yeah.I bet the other guy was not laughing.Six times?I am five tries away.


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## cocoloco (Nov 2, 2007)

chavez said:


> BlueSkyy, get a new Avatar....


Come on thats low, isnt that bluesky's actual picture from when he graduated high school? JUST KIDDING! LOL!


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## BluSkyy (Nov 2, 2007)

cocoloco said:


> Come on thats low, isnt that bluesky's actual picture from when he graduated high school? JUST KIDDING! LOL!


Balding when I was in high school? lol, not me.


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## Sschell (Feb 6, 2008)

jroyce said:


> The MERM was pretty helpless on most of the afternoon section.


I disagree entirely. I barely opened anything other than MERM all day (used Shigley maybe twice in the afternoon, and looks at the ASHRAE charts once in the morning). I am confident that I would have passed with ONLY MERM at my side (would have saved me the effort of lugging all that shit around too).

But I did study my ASS off (probably 250 hours, mainly with MERM) so I knew how to use that resource VERY well.)


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## Capt Worley PE (Feb 6, 2008)

I agree. The MERM was indispensable. Great reference book, too. I've used it a few times since the exam.

I really wish I'd had the MERM in college. It would have made a lot of things easier to understand.


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## Sschell (Feb 6, 2008)

Keep it on my desk, used it last week!


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## Brody (Feb 6, 2008)

The FERM is a pretty good reference book for me.


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