# April 2014 - PM exam



## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 16, 2014)

I have not seen many Mechanicals comment on how the exam went for them. Just curious what everyone thought about it and which depth did you take?

I took the MD PM exam and it was tough. I barely finished on time. Some problems came out for me ok but others I struggled with since I could not get it to match any of their answers choices. I would like to think I got at least 50% correct but this was doing a quick scan near the end of the exam to check my answers. It might be enough to pass if I aced the morning portion (I sure felt good at lunchtime).

I calculated it over and over it my head what I think my "high" and "low" scores are. Somehow this makes me feel better. Especially if I can convince myself I got close to the cut score (cue cut score analysis thread).

Plus, since results don't come out for another 2 months, what else are we going to do except over analyze the exam?


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## psp80 (Apr 16, 2014)

I took the Mechanical Systems PM Depth Module. I found it to be easier than the morning session and the morning session was not bad either.


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## Bosco PE (Apr 16, 2014)

Morning session was a breeze. I was laughing at how stressed out I was.

I took the Thermal &amp; Fluids depth. I stopped laughing.


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## Calum (Apr 16, 2014)

Did the HVAC Depth

I found it pretty rough going - some tricky questions in there.


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## acethepemd (Apr 16, 2014)

> Golden Eagle said:
> 
> 
> > I have not seen many Mechanicals comment on how the exam went for them. Just curious what everyone thought about it and which depth did you take?
> ...


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## I M A PE (Apr 16, 2014)

I was Mechanical Design PM too. I finished the AM with about 30 minutes to spare. Went through about half the questions, checking math. Found 2 dumb mistakes and corrected.

PM was way harder. First pass through I skipped probably 2/3 of the problems but eventually did find a method to solve them all. Don't know if it was the "right" method but I ened up feeling decently. I got them all answered with about 10 minutes to spare.

If I don't pass, I DEFINITELY need to study more for the PM.


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## ChrisBR (Apr 16, 2014)

I took the mechanical systems and materials afternoon session.

I studied way too much for the diversity of AM subjects and not enough for the PM. I didn't have enough time for studying, so I took it for granted that I would remember certain topics from college classes from 8 years ago. The AM was pretty straight forward. I thought I'd be more crunched for time then I was and that caused me to panic at the beginning. I blame it on practicing problems that were unrealistically hard. Finished with 15 minutes to spare with all but 1-2 that I was confident in.

PM session was much harder since I over prepared for the morning. I had to leave a half hour early to pick my son up from daycare, but got a reasonable answer for all but 3-4 of them. More time would not really have helped. It would have just caused me to second guess myself.

Question for the esteemed crowd-

As part of my sanity checks, I looked at the 4 answers and looked for situations where one answer was different from another by a factor of 32. The logic being that a test writer trying to gauge comprehension of units and gravity would provide the right answer as well as the answer that was off by gc. I then assumed that the answer should be one of those 2 options.

Is that good logic? I never used it as the sole method for determining an answer, but it seemed to give me a warm fuzzy in a few cases.


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 16, 2014)

ChrisBR said:


> I took the mechanical systems and materials afternoon session.
> 
> I studied way too much for the diversity of AM subjects and not enough for the PM. I didn't have enough time for studying, so I took it for granted that I would remember certain topics from college classes from 8 years ago. The AM was pretty straight forward. I thought I'd be more crunched for time then I was and that caused me to panic at the beginning. I blame it on practicing problems that were unrealistically hard. Finished with 15 minutes to spare with all but 1-2 that I was confident in.
> 
> ...




Unless there was another mistake entirely that you made on the question (like convert ft to in or something)


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## Calum (Apr 16, 2014)

ChrisBR said:


> Question for the esteemed crowd-
> 
> As part of my sanity checks, I looked at the 4 answers and looked for situations where one answer was different from another by a factor of 32. The logic being that a test writer trying to gauge comprehension of units and gravity would provide the right answer as well as the answer that was off by gc. I then assumed that the answer should be one of those 2 options.
> 
> Is that good logic? I never used it as the sole method for determining an answer, but it seemed to give me a warm fuzzy in a few cases.




Haha, I did the same thing for a question (for initial guess, not sanity check)! Problem is, when I got home, i checked it and it was incorrect. It seems to me that They foresee people trying to outsmart Them, and put in a bogey answer. Having said that, it does seem a sensible way to sanity check once you've already worked out an answer.


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 16, 2014)

ChrisBR said:


> I took the mechanical systems and materials afternoon session.
> 
> I studied way too much for the diversity of AM subjects and not enough for the PM. I didn't have enough time for studying, so I took it for granted that I would remember certain topics from college classes from 8 years ago. The AM was pretty straight forward. I thought I'd be more crunched for time then I was and that caused me to panic at the beginning. I blame it on practicing problems that were unrealistically hard. Finished with 15 minutes to spare with all but 1-2 that I was confident in.
> 
> ...


Also, if that gc term was somehow inside of a square, then that would screw up your process as well. I know there were a few where I calculated it as close as I could and picked one of those answers.


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## ChrisBR (Apr 16, 2014)

More importantly I guess- being religious about writing out the equations and units really helped every step of the step of the way. Whether it was false security or not, I was happy if I could look at the different answers and say "oh, I would have gotten this wrong answer if I forgot to convert to ft" and have it be supported by clearly shown work. In fact, I wish they would have left more space in between problems to be more organized and thorough with solutions.

However, I never counted on trying to outsmart the writers and their answer choices. If I used the wrong equation, no unit conversions would have helped.


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## PGME (Apr 16, 2014)

I took the HVAC Depth.

Same story as many. Morning seemed to go great, until the afternoon.

Just not sure how anybody could have studied for some of those questions.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Apr 16, 2014)

MD...as stated, morning went good. PM not good, but I'm really hopeful I got enough to pass.


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## Bosco PE (Apr 17, 2014)

I'm surprised at how many people here took the Mechanical Systems depth. Nobody else who did Thermal &amp; Fluids wants to comment? Seriously, I got my ass kicked in the afternoon and I would feel fantastic if someone could share my misery.

Hearing someone say they took MD depth and "solved almost 36 and still had 30 minutes to check" is making me shit a brick. That was NOT my experience with T&amp;F depth.


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 17, 2014)

SMott said:


> MD...as stated, morning went good. PM not good, but I'm really hopeful I got enough to pass.




I like your new av!


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 17, 2014)

bosco115 said:


> I'm surprised at how many people here took the Mechanical Systems depth. Nobody else who did Thermal &amp; Fluids wants to comment? Seriously, I got my ass kicked in the afternoon and I would feel fantastic if someone could share my misery.
> 
> Hearing someone say they took MD depth and "solved almost 36 and still had 30 minutes to check" is making me shit a brick. That was NOT my experience with T&amp;F depth.


bosco, the guy that commented about the 36 problems and finishing early must have been a genius or just way smarter than me. I thought the MD PM exam was tough even though I made it through. Don't worry, most people probably suffered. Sounds like it was not exactly a breeze for Smott either.


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 17, 2014)

To follow that, I think the PM depth is supposed to be tough. But I applaud anyone who can take it can get 90% correct. Good for them. I studied my butt off and I still do not feel super confident about the PM exam.

Maybe results will come out super early....


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## Ramnares P.E. (Apr 17, 2014)

Any further input for the Thermal / Fluids depth would be greatly appreciated. For example, was NCEES / SMS good preparation? What would you have done differently to prepare? Any references you didn't take that you wish you had?


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## DeltaT (Apr 17, 2014)

I took the T&amp;F depth. After my first pass through all 40 questions, I was freaking out. I counted them up and only had about 20 answered. Once I calmed down and went through on the second pass, I gained back confidence because I was able to solve the other 20. Every question I solved I had an available answer choice to select. I do know that the most common and clever wrong answers are also listed, but it still helps me sleep at night knowing I didn't have to flat out guess on any of them.

Some nights I have nightmares that I didn't bubble in the answer sheet correctly. I'm serious. It really is a terrifying thought..


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## DeltaT (Apr 17, 2014)

ramnares said:


> Any further input for the Thermal / Fluids depth would be greatly appreciated. For example, was NCEES / SMS good preparation? What would you have done differently to prepare? Any references you didn't take that you wish you had?




I feel like the SMS was a good addition to my studying. I went ahead and used all three SMS books obviously focusing the most on T+F. and the morning questions of the others. I know that a lot of people hate them because of the errors, but I didn't mind that because it takes just 15 minutes to go get the errata and fix it yourself. No big thing.


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## I M A PE (Apr 17, 2014)

bosco115 said:


> I'm surprised at how many people here took the Mechanical Systems depth. Nobody else who did Thermal &amp; Fluids wants to comment? Seriously, I got my ass kicked in the afternoon and I would feel fantastic if someone could share my misery.
> 
> Hearing someone say they took MD depth and "solved almost 36 and still had 30 minutes to check" is making me shit a brick. That was NOT my experience with T&amp;F depth.


I answered all the MD PM questions with 10 minutes to spare but that doesn't translate into confidence. I got reasonable answers for most of them. Only stumped on a few but I am very worried about the "factor of 12" or 144 or 32.2 type mistakes that are very easily made. I tried to be super careful about units and *think* I did a good job. But who knows. 6 minutes average on that PM is DEFINITELY a rush job. Hard to be sure that every i is dotted and every T is crossed.

There were also several that I had no idea initially how to approach so I was figuring it out during the exam. I am wondering if NCEES anticipates a hack like me finding what seems to be the right equation to plug and chug and using the wrong one. Like I said, I got answers that matched choices but that doesn't mean I got them right. I can see the potential for lots and lots of that. I don't think finishing the test with a few minutes to spare guarantees success.


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## Bosco PE (Apr 17, 2014)

DeltaT said:


> I took the T&amp;F depth. After my first pass through all 40 questions, I was freaking out. I counted them up and only had about 20 answered. Once I calmed down and went through on the second pass, I gained back confidence because I was able to solve the other 20. Every question I solved I had an available answer choice to select.




STILL SHITTING A BRICK HERE.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Apr 17, 2014)

You are correct, I struggled with afternoon.


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## I M A PE (Apr 17, 2014)

DeltaT said:


> I took the T&amp;F depth. After my first pass through all 40 questions, I was freaking out. I counted them up and only had about 20 answered. Once I calmed down and went through on the second pass, I gained back confidence because I was able to solve the other 20. Every question I solved I had an available answer choice to select.


Exactly how I felt about the PM exam. I can remember looking at my answer sheet and there was an entire collumn of 10 questions without answers filled in. I'd skipped 10 in a row because I skimmed the problem statement and *thought* I had no clue and they were beyond me. I was a little freaked out but I kept my head. The second time through, on closer examination, most of them were much simpler than I'd originally thought. By "simpler" I only mean that they weren't impossible. Turns out there was a lot of superfluous information. Man, MERM is a lifesaver. That and my review course.


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 17, 2014)

SMott said:


> You are correct, I struggled with afternoon.


I bet you will pass.............even if you had to guess on some questions, you have to figure that you will get about 25% of those correct.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Apr 17, 2014)

Golden Eagle, gauging your experience taking the exam with mine, if I passed so did you!


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 17, 2014)

Maybe. I studied hard but the afternoon was tough. I still struggle in coming up with a number of how many correct answers I got.

Sigh. Maybe this weekend I should work on deriving the cut score again using my spreadsheet.


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## balavay (Apr 17, 2014)

How many of you took a review course? Which one and would you recommend it?


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## Golden Eagle PE (Apr 17, 2014)

School of pe is good. I think it helped me alot on the exam. It is expensive but the instructors are knowledgeable. We will see when I get my results!


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## speedbump (Apr 17, 2014)

I also took the MD depth. Like everyone had mentioned, it was pretty difficult. I felt so humbled once it was done.

I know I did very well in the AM (School of PE helped tremendously).

I'm holding out hope that I did enough to pass.

The wait is so agonizing....


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## Lumber Jim (Apr 18, 2014)

It gets worse...


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Apr 18, 2014)

Just lots of time working as many problems as possible. MERM, 2001&amp;2008 NCEES practice exams, all three 6MS, Carlos Chapek exams. Had Lindeburg practice exam, but didn't get to it.

It's called "Homeschoolin for the PE" review course!


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## I M A PE (Apr 18, 2014)

SMott said:


> Just lots of time working as many problems as possible. MERM, 2001&amp;2008 NCEES practice exams, all three 6MS, Carlos Chapek exams. Had Lindeburg practice exam, but didn't get to it.
> 
> It's called "Homeschoolin for the PE" review course!


If I didn't pass, this is what I'm doing next. I think the review course got me pretty far and all that could help now is lots and lots of representative, timed practice problems. I could be faster knowing exactly where everything is in MERM, memorizing more equations, and fine tuning my highlighting and "must know" equation sheets. Practice problems will help with all of this in addition to training me to be bullet proof on units errors and the like.

Why can't the whole world just be in metric? Convert inches to miles? Let me get my calculator. Convert mm to km? Let me move this decimal.


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## ofareggie (Apr 18, 2014)

I also took the mechanical systems PM, I felt pretty good about the AM. For the PM, I probably answered about 30 of the 40 in 3 hours, went back and figured out about 6 or 7 of the ones I skipped, intelligently guessed on the rest. Of course I now have those thoughts that the answers I came up were the bogus "off by a factor of 12 or 32" answers... but I don't think there is anyway around that. 

Additionally, I took the last 2 minutes to make sure the answer I bubbled matched the answer I actually calculated, and I found one glaring stupid mistake and corrected it as the proctor announced "pencils down, no more writing or erasing". I hope the streak I left on the scantron doesn't invalidate that answer...


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## ofareggie (Apr 18, 2014)

Also, my prep consisted of:


School of PE review - I have mixed feelings. Helped for the AM, some instructors were pretty awful though, at least it forced me to put the time in (6 hours Saturday and Sunday)

2-3 hours after work, 3-4 days a week, for about 5-6 weeks prior to the exam

A lot of time in prayer

MERM example problems - forced me to go through the MERM and go over some concepts and chapters that I would have skipped and that School of PE didn't cover.

2 NCEES practice tests, and 1 practice test by Lindeburg. A few problems on the Exam I just pulled out one of my practice tests and copied the process verbatim.


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## I M A PE (Apr 18, 2014)

Ha. At the very last minute I found a glaring mistake in the AM. I rushed to change my answer after the 1 minute warning. Then I walked out for lunch wondering if my first answer had been right and I'd panicked and made a units error with my "correction". I'll never know. I had to make a fast decision and I made it. Hope it was the right one.


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## Memozee (Apr 19, 2014)

[SIZE=13.5pt]I took Mechanical - Thermal / Fluids depth and as most of us here my morning went good but the afternoon kicked my left nutt. I had similar feeling of thinking "where to hang my PE license" after the morning exam but the afternoon session has taken all that joy away.[/SIZE]

*[SIZE=13.5pt]On my way back from exam I started calculating what the "cut-score" would be...in an attempt to see if I stand a chance on passing my exam. It’s later that I realized that I am trying to arrive a number with very few knowns and bunch of unknowns...so thats out.[/SIZE]*

[SIZE=13.5pt]Morning Exam: I felt that I might have scored about 70%[/SIZE]

[SIZE=13.5pt]Afternoon Exam: 15 (solid) + 15 (good engineering guesses..have spend a lot of time trying to solve but ended up guessing on the closest numbers I computed) x 0.4 + 10 (random guess as I ran out of time) x 0.2.[/SIZE]

*[SIZE=13.5pt]Therefore:[/SIZE]*

[SIZE=13.5pt]Morning: 40 x 0.7 = 28[/SIZE]

[SIZE=13.5pt]Afternoon: 15+6+2 = 23[/SIZE]

*[SIZE=13.5pt]Total: 51 / 80 ~ 63% raw..NOT SURE IF THIS IS ENOUGH!!![/SIZE]*


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## Memozee (Apr 19, 2014)

Took School of PE….the weekend option. My review of school of PE:

- Thermo &amp; HVAC Instructors – Very Good

- Fluids &amp; Machine Design Instructor – Fairly Good

- Engineering Econ &amp; Project Management Science Instructor – Awful

Overall it was a decent review and would recommend it for morning ONLY.


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## Bosco PE (Apr 22, 2014)

It comforts me that Memozee sounds as paranoid as I am. My estimates:

Morning: 32-34, or 80%-85%

Afternoon: 20-22, or 50-55%

Overall: 52-56, or 65%-70%

This is probably right on the borderline.


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## Golden Eagle PE (May 11, 2014)

bosco115, you are probably right on the edge. I have to admit that I did the same analysis in my head. I came up with a range of answers I think I got right on each AM and PM exam. Hopefully I was correct. We will see soon.

What PM exam did you take?


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## Porter_ (May 14, 2014)

i took the Mechanical Systems and Materials depth. i used every bit of all 4 hours for both the AM and PM sections. in fact i didn't really have time left to run a cursory check on my answers. i walked away from the exam feeling like:

AM Breadth: i left 6 problems on the table; either i blatantly guessed or wasn't confident in my answers.

PM Depth: same story left 6 on the table; either guessed or wasn't confident.

on each section i had 34 problems i felt confident on. really confident. however i know the laws of probability come into play. i'm sure fell victim to some simple mistakes and chose some of their dummy answers.

fingers crossed, the weeks are dragging by slowly.


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## Golden Eagle PE (May 17, 2014)

Porter_ said:


> i took the Mechanical Systems and Materials depth. i used every bit of all 4 hours for both the AM and PM sections. in fact i didn't really have time left to run a cursory check on my answers. i walked away from the exam feeling like:
> 
> AM Breadth: i left 6 problems on the table; either i blatantly guessed or wasn't confident in my answers.
> 
> ...


If you only guessed on 6 problems in the PM, then that is pretty impressive. I had to guess on more than that although some of them were intelligent guesses. You have to figure that you will get approximately 25% of those guesses correct. Anyway, if what you say is true, you probably easily passed.


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## Bosco PE (May 21, 2014)

Just received my results from PA. I passed! No more brick shitting for me.


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## Porter_ (May 21, 2014)

Golden Eagle said:


> Porter_ said:
> 
> 
> > i took the Mechanical Systems and Materials depth. i used every bit of all 4 hours for both the AM and PM sections. in fact i didn't really have time left to run a cursory check on my answers. i walked away from the exam feeling like:
> ...






i passed and my state doesn't give a passing score, so clearly the only logical assumption i can make is that i scored an 80/80. i'm a damn genius! arty-smiley-048:


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## Mike M PE (May 21, 2014)

I know we are all engineers but I'm truly surprised by all the analysis on the score. If you passed then why care what the percentages was? Personally I'm just happy to be done with the damn thing but that's just me...


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## Golden Eagle PE (May 21, 2014)

mmcdowell25 said:


> I know we are all engineers but I'm truly surprised by all the analysis on the score. If you passed then why care what the percentages was? Personally I'm just happy to be done with the damn thing but that's just me...


Agreed. I guess engineers just like to analyze way too much.


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## JoeyPinoy (Jun 5, 2014)

Just curious, but are test scores and passing cutoffs normalized across *all* mechanical PE depth modules?

Or are passing cuttoffs more granular and grouped per depth module?

If it's the former, then there's more tactical merit to finding the "easier" depth module.


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## speedbump (Jun 12, 2014)

JoeyPinoy said:


> Just curious, but are test scores and passing cutoffs normalized across *all* mechanical PE depth modules?
> 
> Or are passing cuttoffs more granular and grouped per depth module?
> 
> If it's the former, then there's more tactical merit to finding the "easier" depth module.


The former. If your job is HVAC, go with that or T&amp;F. My job relies a lot on Machine Design, so that is what I took, despite being equally strong in T&amp;F.


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