# I took the 2008 NCEES sample exam yesterday



## JoeysVee (Oct 11, 2009)

Well I took the morning section and was really gaining confidence as I worked through it. I thought I really smoked it! Before I graded it I guessed at what I thought my score was...I guessed it was at least a 33. Turns out I only got a 29 out of the 40.

Then I started the afternoon HVAC section only to find out 21 of those problems are the exact same as the 2001 NCEES sample HVAC afternoon problems. Since I had worked those 21 problems a few times each I really can't count those. I was disappointed that those were the same!

Of the 19 new problems I got 15 of them right but since 21 was a breeze (some I knew the answer without working the problem just from memory), I had more time to work those 19. I bet I would have only got about 12 of the 19 if I only had 6 minutes each. That would give me an estimated 25 out of 40 for the afternoon section.

So I'm disappointed about 2 things....first, I got an estimated 54 out of 80 and if 56 is passing I'm going to be in trouble here in 12 days. This is the same score I got on the 2001 NCEES sample exam 3 weeks ago. Secondly, I'm disappointed that 21 of those problems were the same and I have to come up with a way to estimate my score.

I got 12 days to try to get my score up just a few more points.


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## buick455 (Oct 11, 2009)

It is hard to tell how you will do on the actual exam but if you know how to work a problem and just messed something up I wouldn't worry about those. Re-work the ones you did not have a clue on. I have 19 more PPI problems to go and then I want to re-work the NCEES problems as I have not worked them in about 6 months. There have been a few PPI problems I just could not get and after looking at the solution I felt better because there would be no way I would have got it and I knew that type of problem would not be on the exam anyway. I have added allot of markup in the MERM from working these problems. If you have not worked some of them I would take a look at them, that is if you have the exam.


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## JoeysVee (Oct 11, 2009)

I have the exam but I don't think I will get to it. I'm still working the 6 minute solution problems. I think the 6 minute problems are better and more representative anyways. I'm running out of time.

I also need to re-review electrical, combustion, and heat transfer in the MERM. I also want to rework the example problems in Crane (these are very good problems) and I need to get better at enthalpy wheels in ASHRAE. I need about 1 more month.


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## buick455 (Oct 12, 2009)

I know the feeling. I studied 350 hours for the Spring 2008 exam and got a 65. I studied another 350 hours for the fall 2008 exam and got a 68. I have put in another 350 hours or more since July for this attempt. I am going through the PPI problems and still making notes in my MERM so how much do you need to study? I know I did not fail the last exam because I could not work the problems. I know I missed some due to being stressed and some due to just screwing up the equation some how. There was only a couple that I remember I just did not understand how to approach and one of these was in my opinion the way it was worded. I guess my point is, be prepared technically but also be very organized as time is not in your favor and just be real careful when your working the problems so not to make a stupid mistake as it is easy to do.


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## benbo (Oct 12, 2009)

I think you are right on track. I think your afternoon performance will probably be closer to the 15/19 than 12/19. You are probably overestimating the benefit you got from the little extra time. So just keep pluggin’ up to the test and try to stay calm.


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## Matt-NM (Oct 13, 2009)

If you're taking the ME PE with the HVAC afternoon, I wouldn't even look at any more electrical or combustion. You probably didn't need to look at those at all in the first place (I took the machine design depth so you may want to double check the combustion comment for HVAC). Practice locating subjects quickly. Take many references, even if you havent used them to study. You may get an easy look-up question by having them. I got an extra one or two right by having references that I never used during the study process. That may have made the difference.


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## Agg97 (Oct 13, 2009)

Matt-NM said:


> If you're taking the ME PE with the HVAC afternoon, I wouldn't even look at any more electrical or combustion. You probably didn't need to look at those at all in the first place (I took the machine design depth so you may want to double check the combustion comment for HVAC). Practice locating subjects quickly. Take many references, even if you havent used them to study. You may get an easy look-up question by having them. I got an extra one or two right by having references that I never used during the study process. That may have made the difference.


I wouldn't rank combustion as a primary topic that you'll get drilled with tons of questions on during the exam. Stick with power cycles, fluid flow problems, shear &amp; moment diagrams, psychrometrics, etc., and you should pass just on those "meat and potato" type topics. There are are quite a few secondary topics that seem to rotate in and out of the exams such as pressure vessels, combustion, etc., that may not show up at all or you might get 2-3 questions on it. During my studying, I chose to spend my time becoming an expert on the fundamental stuff and just barely touch the other stuff.


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## Matt-NM (Oct 13, 2009)

^^^

Agreed. Use the provided percentage breakdown as a good guide.


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## Kephart P.E. (Oct 13, 2009)

I am not sure that I did much better on the NCEES Sample Exams and I passed the PE Exam.

I think it is most important to look at the problems that you had the right process down, but made silly errors. Those are the ones you can (and will) get correct on the real thing.

That is basically what I did. I spent some time on the ones I had no clue on, but if I didn't think I could solve it even after looking at the solution and fiddling with it for 1/2 hour, I just left it and looked for the low hanging fruit.

I think I got around a 58 on the sample exam, then when going back over the problems there were about 5-7 problems where I did the problem right, I just made a dumb error or used the wrong value somehow. I went back and re-evaluated my references after this as well. Basically there are usually 2-3 different places you can find the same info, so I tried to make better decisions about what reference I would use for each type of problems. This kept me from making silly unit conversion errors etc.

Plus I worked the exam as 2, 4 hour sessions, I didn't do the full 8 hours like it sounds like you did, I wish I had, cause I was smoked after 6 hours and really fumbled for the last 10 questions.


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## Firefly (Mar 27, 2010)

I took this yesterday and am very disappointed. I ended up only getting 40 questions right. I felt good about the morning, but still missed a bunch. I plan to work through them all and hopefully find that I made stupid mistakes...but at this point, I'm bummed out.


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## mechgirl (Mar 28, 2010)

Firefly said:


> I took this yesterday and am very disappointed. I ended up only getting 40 questions right. I felt good about the morning, but still missed a bunch. I plan to work through them all and hopefully find that I made stupid mistakes...but at this point, I'm bummed out.


I took it today. I felt very confident on the morning section, but I missed 13. I felt much worse about the afternoon (HVAC), after struggling for an hour on the first five problems. I did finish in time, and I'm surprised that I missed less than the morning, with only 11 wrong because I got frustrated and started guessing. But 24 wrong total would maybe just pass the real thing. I'm trying not to get too depressed, and will just have to really focus on refrigeration tomorrow... and coil bypass... and the psych problems. Before, I was quite confident on psych, but these seemed quite hard. And several of the morning problems I missed were mechanics/mach design... that bolt problem, oh and the steel diagram w/ pearlite and ferrite. I ended up with carbon of .3%, I think. But I couldn't find a chart with the carbon content for steel types. Anyone know if there's one in MERM?

Anyway, we have 19 days, and now I have a better idea of my weaknesses.


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## Matt-NM (Mar 28, 2010)

It seems like you are doing well. You're right, at this point concentrate on weak areas. However, you still need to keep reviewing older material as well. It's amazing how much we forget when we don't use it even for a few weeks.

A couple other suggestions: Make sure you have your MERM and other references tabbed, all materials in one area (box), and are working at an area comparable in size to what you will get on test day. If you aren't sure what size the desk will be, assume it will be small, wobbly, and squeaky. Basically simulate test day as much as possible from here on out. It makes a huge difference. If you can, take a drive to the test location and get an early look.

Study engineering economics! When I took the exam in April 2008, there was a significant amount. Good luck.


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## Firefly (Mar 29, 2010)

Good Job Mech Girl. Although, I still feel like a D.A. haha. Hope to get that fixed quickly. I found that I made stupid mistakes, so there's nothing like getting the mistakes out on a practice test.


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## Bman (Mar 29, 2010)

Sounds like you're both doing alright. We've still got almost three weeks to study our weak areas before exam time, so I wouldn't get too discouraged just yet. I was planning on taking it over the weekend too, but decided to push it until this coming weekend. I got really frustrated/disappointed going through the MD Six Minute Solutions book, this is by far my weakest area... I figure I will spend a few days trying to shore this up before I take the practice exam. This still gives me almost two weeks to focus on weak areas before the exam too.


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## gaidox (Mar 29, 2010)

Same goes with me. I did push it to this weekend.

I did redo my merm practice prob for my mistakes and did refresh the whole merm by solving few problems (all areas) every day. I'm doing this to avoid forgetting and plan to do it till exam week . I'm about to finish the 6 mins and some probs that i've got too.

You guys are doing just fine. We have plenty of time to cover our weakness and strengthen it.

Solve problems in all areas everyday, note your mistakes and do some reminder list or something. If you've finished all your available problems, rework the problems that you did'nt solve correctly and try to quick refresh those subjects in MERM or your other references. At least allocate more time now

for your depth since this will be the big chunk of our exam. That's what I'm doing right now and plan to do till exam.


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## JoeysVee (Apr 2, 2010)

I bet ya'll will be fine.


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## PassItFirst (Apr 2, 2010)

What practice exams are you working? The NCEES Mechanical Sample Questions &amp; Solutions or something else? I'm ready to do a trial run, but I want to use something that is representative of what the actual exam will be like.


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## mechgirl (Apr 2, 2010)

PassItFirst said:


> What practice exams are you working? The NCEES Mechanical Sample Questions &amp; Solutions or something else? I'm ready to do a trial run, but I want to use something that is representative of what the actual exam will be like.


Yes, you probably have the 2008 and they call it sample problems, but it's set up in exam format with 40 morning questions then 40 for each depth. That is what I have. I saw in previous posts that NCEES had an earlier version that was called "sample exam" but the poster said that many of the problems are the same as those on the new one.

There is errata for the exam. Someone added it to the post a few back that I made asking about the exam gear problem. Sorry, I don't know how to add links in here.


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## PassItFirst (Apr 2, 2010)

Thanks! I will just work the problems again then. You have had some great posts. I've read a few of your posts - all great information. Thank you.


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## mechgirl (Apr 2, 2010)

PassItFirst said:


> Thanks! I will just work the problems again then. You have had some great posts. I've read a few of your posts - all great information. Thank you.


You're welcome. I hope you saw my edit. Looks like we posted at the same time. The name of the post I referred to is "Please clarify this gear problem"


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## Bman (Apr 5, 2010)

I took the exam yesterday and was really disappointed, I only got 44 correct. I felt pretty confident in the morning section except for some of the MD questions. I had to guess on a couple questions, but for the most part I felt like I was making fairly good educated quesses. I still got 16 wrong.... The first few questions on the afternoon HVAC test dealing with amonia threw me off and kind of freaked me out. I should have just skipped them, but I didn't and wasted too much time/effort on them and then felt rushed for the rest of the exam... Overall, I knew the concepts but was having trouble applying them to some of the questions (I think becuase I felt rushed...). I'm going to spend the next few days re-working these problems to make sure I know how to solve each one. I learned a few important lessons though:

1. Take my time and make sure the units work out. I'm sure I missed more than a few questions because of this.

2. I'm going to work all of the easy/ non-quantitative questions during the exam first to boost my confidence and then go back through and spend more time on the questions that will take a little longer to solve. This way I can make sure I am spending the most time on the problems that I have a higher chance of getting right.

Its just a practice exam and I still have almost 1 1/2 weeks, so I'm not too worried just yet. After all, I'm not trying to ace this thing, just pass it!


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## PassItFirst (Apr 5, 2010)

I worked the full exam on Saturday and ended up getting 74% correct. I thought I did better on the Morning section but actually did the opposite. Upon review of my errors, I could have picked up several more points if I had watched the units and the specifics of what the problems were requesting.

After working the MERM problems and 101 Solved Mech. Problems, I thought the NCEES exam was easier than I expected. But sitting in one place for 4 hours straight and having to get thru 40 problems in that amount of time, stressed me out and I'm sure caused me to make some atypical errors. I did need the full 4 hours for both sections. Pacing my self by half-hour increments helped a lot!

What is the usual percentage correct required for a passing score? As BMan said, all anyone will ever know is whether I passed or failed.


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## gaidox (Apr 5, 2010)

Bman said:


> I took the exam yesterday and was really disappointed, I only got 44 correct. I felt pretty confident in the morning section except for some of the MD questions. I had to guess on a couple questions, but for the most part I felt like I was making fairly good educated quesses. I still got 16 wrong.... The first few questions on the afternoon HVAC test dealing with amonia threw me off and kind of freaked me out. I should have just skipped them, but I didn't and wasted too much time/effort on them and then felt rushed for the rest of the exam... Overall, I knew the concepts but was having trouble applying them to some of the questions (I think becuase I felt rushed...). I'm going to spend the next few days re-working these problems to make sure I know how to solve each one. I learned a few important lessons though:
> 1. Take my time and make sure the units work out. I'm sure I missed more than a few questions because of this.
> 
> 2. I'm going to work all of the easy/ non-quantitative questions during the exam first to boost my confidence and then go back through and spend more time on the questions that will take a little longer to solve. This way I can make sure I am spending the most time on the problems that I have a higher chance of getting right.
> ...


You will be fine Bman..dont be disappointed with the score..but on what you gain with this.

we still have time..we can do it.

Focus on what you've found out like stupid mistakes, time to solve prob., strategy on real thing, and weakness areas.

I did back to back sample exam (lindeburg and ncees) last weekend too.. i've learned on the first one to skip long solution problem.. i didnt control myself and spent 10+ mins on some problems

and get nothing..on ncess I did try to look short soln/ plug-in type prob first..

Also, found out that i need to focus now in my depth..which comprise big chunk of the exam.

The merm index, tabbing and my note binders seems effective/organized enough now after i took it and did helped me a lot..


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## Bman (Apr 6, 2010)

I just worked the morning problems again last night. There were some problems that I legitimately got wrong, but for the most part I just made stupid mistakes. Some of the problems I reworked again without looking at the solutions and got them right; I'm not even sure what I was doing wrong when I took the practice on Sunday... I had about 30 minutes to spare when I took the morning section so I think I just need to slow it down, and double check my answers before I move on to the next question and make sure I write everthing down. I think I was trying to work too much of this in my head and got some wires double crossed....


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## gaidox (Apr 6, 2010)

10 days to go..dig more with the time left.

I may have to take some days off at work next week to have more time for solving problems.

I pretty exhausted now and looking forward to the days after exam but I dont want to waste all the

hours I've worked to be where I'm at..Still have 10 days to give our best shot.

Many have said that the actual exam is more difficult than the ncees sample especially the depth portion so we have to prepare for that. I do hope its the same difficulty with the sample but who knows, always expect the worst.

Sample exam may deceive us to get too confident and do less now..

I think it open us for time management, stupid mistakes, and scope of exam.


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## Shanks (Apr 12, 2010)

I took the NCEES Sample Exam on Sunday and I've mixed feelings now. I did well in AM exam ....was done an hour early with the first round, had 5-6 questions to re-try. I got done with second try and had about 30 minutes in hand though I didn't check my answers ...I ended up having 34 correct in AM, a few were really stupid mistakes and a few I wouldn't have got regardless....feeling all pumped up I'd a brief half-an-hour lunch break (should have taken an hour break), I came to PM (MD) test. For sure it was opposite the AM section, got done about half an hour early, could have checked my answers but I ran out of patience, final score 28/40. I am a little disappointed because I thought I will be have at least 30 in PM too. Also, I remembered the answers to a couple of questions, so not sure if they should be counted.

The NCEES exam is very close to what you get in the real-exam, if not harder. I saw a pattern in the scores I got when I took NCEES sample exam last year and PE result , it was quite close. If I compare to last time, the scored had improved but I don't want to get over-confident as you never know what you'll get.

On the side-note, I invested 2 days in organizing my material and tabbing them and it helped immensely! I was able to find the relevant equation within 30 seconds...well it took more time for the equations I didn't work w/before, like Bearing problems. I hope I am able to duplicate this in real exam.


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## PassItFirst (Apr 12, 2010)

Shanks said:


> I took the NCEES Sample Exam on Sunday and I've mixed feelings now. I did well in AM exam ....was done an hour early with the first round, had 5-6 questions to re-try. I got done with second try and had about 30 minutes in hand though I didn't check my answers ...I ended up having 34 correct in AM, a few were really stupid mistakes and a few I wouldn't have got regardless....feeling all pumped up I'd a brief half-an-hour lunch break (should have taken an hour break), I came to PM (MD) test. For sure it was opposite the AM section, got done about half an hour early, could have checked my answers but I ran out of patience, final score 28/40. I am a little disappointed because I thought I will be have at least 30 in PM too. Also, I remembered the answers to a couple of questions, so not sure if they should be counted.
> The NCEES exam is very close to what you get in the real-exam, if not harder. I saw a pattern in the scores I got when I took NCEES sample exam last year and PE result , it was quite close. If I compare to last time, the scored had improved but I don't want to get over-confident as you never know what you'll get.
> 
> On the side-note, I invested 2 days in organizing my material and tabbing them and it helped immensely! I was able to find the relevant equation within 30 seconds...well it took more time for the equations I didn't work w/before, like Bearing problems. I hope I am able to duplicate this in real exam.


Shanks - so I take it you didn't pass the PE last year. You scored a 77% on the NCEES exam. If the NCEES is comparable if not easier than the PE exam, why did you not pass last year?

I ended up with approximately your same score on the NCEES last weekend. This past weekend I worked all of the 6-Minute HVAC problems. I found these to be more challenging than the NCEES practice exam, so my confidence dropped some, but hearing you reiterate how the NCEES closely reflects the actual PE exam difficulty, my spirits are bolstered.

What is the typical percentage required to pass the PE?


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## buick455 (Apr 12, 2010)

I took the exam (MD) three times until I passed starting in October 2008 just when they incorporated SI units in the exam. In my opinion the exam was somewhat harder each time. The key is organization, practice and never giving up. Keep an eye on your time and do not waste your time on any one problem. On some I would get frustrated as I knew how to solve it but time was getting away you need to be able to give it up and move on and come back to it if time allows.

Good luck.


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## Shanks (Apr 12, 2010)

PassitFirst - My correct questions were 50% i.e. about 20/20 correct in AM/PM and that's about I got in the exam. The passing score is 70 and not 70%, so you might get 50% of the answers correct and still pass. It depends on a lot of factors and probably no one but NCEES knows for sure the exact # of question to pass which again changes every year. In my case I am guessing I would have passed, had I got 2 more questions correct.

Buick455 - I agree that one of the key is to know when to move on. Last time in my exam I wasted a lot of time on a few questions in PM exam and didn't have enough time to attempt a few questions. This time on practice exam I kept an eye on the watch and never went more than 6-7 mins, if I didn't get it, I moved on and I've plenty of time at the end to come back to the problem.

Also this time I didn't take a quick glimpse of all 40 questions while starting the exam, something which I did last time. For the practice exam, I solved the problems as I saw them and honestly I didn't miss anything.


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