# Electrical PE exam Power AFternoon



## pete25 (Sep 13, 2007)

Guys and Gals

I have currently completed going over the NCEES sample exam both the morning and Aternoon Power. I have heard from many people that this test is the closest representation to the actual exam. IF this is the case, in particular the afternoon session, it seems to me that the problems require very little to none, computational solutions. I have studied other tests and problems, and they all seems to require alot of equations and steps where as for the NCEES test, there were many questions that required minimal equations or some required none ie. word problems. Is this how the actual exam is?

Even in the morning session, the problem solutions, contained minimal calculations. Is this what I can expect on the exam?

Pete


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## Dark Knight (Sep 13, 2007)

pete25 said:


> Guys and Gals
> I have currently completed going over the NCEES sample exam both the morning and Aternoon Power. I have heard from many people that this test is the closest representation to the actual exam. IF this is the case, in particular the afternoon session, it seems to me that the problems require very little to none, computational solutions. I have studied other tests and problems, and they all seems to require alot of equations and steps where as for the NCEES test, there were many questions that required minimal equations or some required none ie. word problems. Is this how the actual exam is?
> 
> Even in the morning session, the problem solutions, contained minimal calculations. Is this what I can expect on the exam?
> ...


NCEES' test is the closest thing to the PE test you will find. About if you will have to deal with calculations a lot or not that will depend on your test. I can tell you that there will be no problems where you will have to perform extensive calculations. Take my word for that.

Others my differ from me but that is my take on the PE test.

Just my :2cents:


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## chaosiscash (Sep 13, 2007)

I'm with Luis, er, BringItOn. No major long calcs required. You'll be amazed at how many problems on the test you will find that can be solved either via inspection or very few calculations, especially in the afternoon.


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## benbo (Sep 13, 2007)

Yep - you only have six minutes so you won't have time to solve lot's of systems of equations. There may be some sort of trick you have to see to make the problem easier, and that will simplify things.

I'm curious - which sample exams have you been looking at? THe Camara ("the other board") sample problems, 6 minute problems, and sample exam didn't seem to require lots of calculations to me. Kaplan was a little more ivolved. Are you talkling about something from textbooks or another source?


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## Capt Worley PE (Sep 13, 2007)

The samples from the companion to the MERM are pretty involved. I'm hoping the mechanical side is a lot like the NCEES sample exam.


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## pete25 (Sep 13, 2007)

benbo said:


> Yep - you only have six minutes so you won't have time to solve lot's of systems of equations. There may be some sort of trick you have to see to make the problem easier, and that will simplify things.
> I'm curious - which sample exams have you been looking at? THe Camara ("the other board") sample problems, 6 minute problems, and sample exam didn't seem to require lots of calculations to me. Kaplan was a little more ivolved. Are you talkling about something from textbooks or another source?


I was referring to the Kaplan.

Thanks


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## mudpuppy (Sep 13, 2007)

To study, I read the EERM and worked through the NCEES test, the "the other board" test and the 6 minute solutions. At the time I felt that the NCEES test required less calculations than the others, and I was expecting something on the order of the NCEES test for the actual thing. I took the April exam, and I left feeling much less confident than when I went in--thiniking the test was a lot harder than I expected. After the shock wore off (a few weeks later) and on further reflection, I realized that the exam was not really _harder,_ it was just more _work_ than I was expecting. It is known from the NCEES practice thest that there are some conceptual word problems, but it seemed to me the quantatative problems required a lot more calculations than the NCEES practice test. Not that it wasn't do-able, but it took me the entire 4 hours in the AM, and about 3:45 on the PM session to work through all the calculations.

To sum up, in my experience, the actual exam required _more_, though not necessarily _harder_ computation than the NCEES practice exam. But also note that a lot of the problems might have a "trick" that minimizes the calculations, and I may have missed that "trick" on several of the problems, which required me to brute-force my way through; I couldn't say for sure. And, as BIO says, it also depends on what mix of problems they put on the particular exam you're taking.


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## benbo (Sep 13, 2007)

When I took the test I took a review course that had a lot of it's own practice problems. Many of those were complicated, involved circuit analysis problems, and control theory problems (I took the ECC section). So I worked a lot of problems, so when the actual test came, it may have seemed like less calculation than what I worked on in my studies.


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## Wolverine (Sep 14, 2007)

> To sum up, in my experience, the actual exam required more, though not necessarily harder computation than the NCEES practice exam. But also note that a lot of the problems might have a "trick" that minimizes the calculations, and I may have missed that "trick" on several of the problems, which required me to brute-force my way through; I couldn't say for sure.


I'm going to echo Mudpuppy exactly - I did a lot more calculation on the real exam, but only because I defaulted to math mode if I didn't see the proper solution approach at first. As soon as I realized the calculation was going to take more than six minutes, I knew I was doing it wrong and stopped to re-assess. I really think the entire exam could be done in less than an hour IF you knew how to approach the problem, where to find the equation, or where to look for the solution (is that kind of like saying you would get 80/80 if you knew all the answers? Sorry.)


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