# Review course for Mechanical PE exam?



## hvacTyler

Greetings,

I am looking for some insight as to what review course to take for the Mechanical PE Exam (I am taking HVAC PM).

What review courses helped you the most? I cannot take testmasters as I do not live in Houston. What course would you recommend the most? What were the pros and cons?

Thanks for your help.


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## hvacTyler

To clarify the ones I have found online are *test-masters*, *School of PE*, *Dr. Toms classroom* and *Smart Pros*.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE

I took Dr. Tom's Classroom after failing the test twice. It worked, I passed, but he seems to only offer review for the other two depths.

I ended up bringing all of my "resource" notebooks to the exam, but really only needed his exam day companion and MERM. A couple of problems I did use the resource notebooks for, though.

Pros: it's spread out over 20 weeks so it's not a cram course, very detailed lesson plans as to what to do each day, can purchase by 4 week sets-budget friendly, he answers to your forum posts pretty quickly, explains things very well, and the course is focused on exposing you to only what may be on the exam based on NCEES outline.

Cons: you will need a week just to get organized, lots of copying and pasting of problems to organize in your notebooks which is time consuming, and I felt like the "reading and review" materials should be the first assignment of the week and did that vs the way he has it set up.

The organizing, though, is very useful during the exam and worth the time spent doing it. I made binder inserts, which helped too.


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## Mike M PE

I took the School of PE (HVAC/R) and it helped tremendously for the AM section but I must warn you that you must prepare for the PM section on your own. They give you the concepts but YOU have to find problems and work them (6 MS helped in that regards).

Mike


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## TheBigPig

I am currently taking Dr. Tom's 20 Week Review Online Only course (currently in week 9). I chose Dr. Tom for the reasons SNAPE outlines above. It's not a cram course and it offers good structure. It does take a lot of organization and a lot of time is expected. It is probably a good idea to go to his website and watch the free strategy videos. He strongly suggests taking the TFS depth exam and gives his reasoning for it. I think he caters his course mostly to those taking the TFS exam, but also offers the MD afternoon courses.

I'm very happy to hear SNAPE passed after taking his course.


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## kjdgus

I also used Dr Tom and took the HVAC depth - I passed on the first attempt. While the review course is geared towards Thermal/Fluids, that was an area I really needed to review for the morning session, and to be honest, several of those type problems appeared in the afternoon as well. As Snape said, the details about preparing were one of the key takeaways from the course for me. He also breaks things down in a really easy to follow format, and providing a weekly study list was helpful for me as I get overwhelmed easily by the MERM.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE

TheBigPig said:


> I am currently taking Dr. Tom's 20 Week Review Online Only course (currently in week 9). I chose Dr. Tom for the reasons SNAPE outlines above. It's not a cram course and it offers good structure. It does take a lot of organization and a lot of time is expected. It is probably a good idea to go to his website and watch the free strategy videos. He strongly suggests taking the TFS depth exam and gives his reasoning for it. I think he caters his course mostly to those taking the TFS exam, but also offers the MD afternoon courses.
> 
> I'm very happy to hear SNAPE passed after taking his course.


I did the online only format as well. He is an effective teacher. I knew from the moment I watched his free videos that his course was the one I would take.


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## ofareggie

My response to this thread:



> My quick review of School of PE:
> 
> I took the SoPE review course for the FE Fall 2011. Helped a lot, I passed.
> 
> I took it again for the PE Fall 2013... not so fortunate.
> 
> So since they offer the course again for free if you don't pass the first time, I took it again for the April 2014 exam and am extremely disappointed with the course (at the time of me writing this, I have not received my results yet). It appears this organization is slipping. The instructors are phoning it in and there appears to be no quality control as the notes and example problems are riddled with typos. The interaction with the instructors is a joke, if you have questions on concepts or examples you will receive 1 word answers.
> 
> What I will say for the SoPE is that it forces you to sit down for a certain period of time, open your review manual, take some notes and work some problems. It helps to knock of some rust and is pretty effective for review the AM material, but you're on your own for the PM depth. In my opinion borrowing your coworkers practice exams helped infinitely more than this review course.



I did pass second time around (prayed a lot more second time)

I took the Mechanical M&amp;M


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## IlliniWood

I took the 12-week online review through PPI with Richard Davis. The review was pretty good, he seemed very knowledgeable regarding the exam, and his notes had some nice supplemental material. The biggest thing with this review (and I'm assuming almost any review) was to have the syllabus available as a study guide. The required homework problems are a good start, but you need to do problems, problems, and more problems.

I'm not a mechanical engineer by degree, and haven't been doing much real engineering work in the last several years. I was able to pass Mechanical MS&amp;M on the first attempt (10+ years after my FE).

Good luck!


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## jeffsetzer

Check out the PE Exam resources at EngineeringDesignResources.com for help with the HVAC &amp; Refrigeration depth portion of the exam.


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