# Power PE exam and relays



## ee1234 (Oct 17, 2012)

I feel pretty confident for the PE Power exam next Friday. The last thing I need to review before the test is protective relays (and relays in general).

I don't have my study materials in front of me, but I remember a few practice problems (NCEES and Spin-Up) over the past 3 months dealing with relays. These problems weren't too detailed or necessarily difficult, but I must admit I don't have a good background in relays.

I found this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_Device_Numbers

I don't think it would be useful to research each one before the test. Are there key relay types from this list I should know for the test?

In your opinion, what is a good reference for relays?


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## soma (Oct 17, 2012)

It's a good list to have. All I am doing is reviewing various protection schemes such as differential, overcurrent, overvoltage, etc. and then bring the reference material with me to the exam.

I have Protective relaying by blackburn. You can google and find some good reference material. Give it a read, underline some points and bring it to the exam. Just knowing in which section of the reference you can find answer to a question is all we can do at this stage.

You seem to be feeling confident about the exam, which is very good. What other material you prepared ?

Thanks,


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## Wildsoldier PE (Oct 17, 2012)

ee1234 said:


> I feel pretty confident for the PE Power exam next Friday. The last thing I need to review before the test is protective relays (and relays in general).
> 
> I don't have my study materials in front of me, but I remember a few practice problems (NCEES and Spin-Up) over the past 3 months dealing with relays. These problems weren't too detailed or necessarily difficult, but I must admit I don't have a good background in relays.
> 
> ...


You will need that list for the exam


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## ee1234 (Oct 17, 2012)

soma, I have a massive binder of information I have picked from the web and from these boards as well as reference material I frequently use at work. I also have the Chelapati books, the Wildi book, the Grainger book, my Engineering Econ and circuit analysis books from college, and the Eaton consulting guide.


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## soma (Oct 17, 2012)

I too have more or less similar info. I did the Spin up and CI tests, which I thought were OK. However, the Chelapathi problems are always a challenge. Even in my second attempt I cant seem to get some of them right without looking at the solution.

Holding NCEES test for this Friday. Will be doing it like a real exam. Fingers crossed.

Good luck to you !


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## ee1234 (Oct 18, 2012)

soma said:


> I too have more or less similar info. I did the Spin up and CI tests, which I thought were OK. However, the Chelapathi problems are always a challenge. Even in my second attempt I cant seem to get some of them right without looking at the solution.
> 
> Holding NCEES test for this Friday. Will be doing it like a real exam. Fingers crossed.
> 
> Good luck to you !


I agree. The Spin-Up exams are good for reinforcing basic concepts, but they are not as challenging as the NCEES exam. I am on my third round (can't be too prepared, right?) of the NCEES sample exam problems and while I think I have a firm grasp of most of the problems and their solutions, I find myself thinking about the NCEES problems more than the Spin-Up problems.

One thing I really appreciate about the Spin-Up exams is that they made me research the MVA method. Previously I was solving short circuit analysis problems in the NCEES exam with the per-unit method. The MVA method is much quicker and greatly reduces the possibility of math mistakes because it requires far fewer steps than per-unit does for the same problem.

Thanks and good luck to you as well!


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## EE_PE_AP (Oct 18, 2012)

ee1234 - saying that "I feel confident for the exam" is quite a statement isnt it? what makes you feel so confident I have been studying for this exam for last 7 months I still cant say that may be because I dont even know the difficulty level of the actual exam problems. I heard ppl saying actual test is 6 times harder than spin-up, CI, NCEES sample exams so I dont even know if I should feel confident (though I am getting 80% and CI and NCEES exams). Any good information about the difficulty level that could make me feel relieved and confident? please


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## EE_PE_AP (Oct 18, 2012)

ee1234 said:


> I feel pretty confident for the PE Power exam next Friday. The last thing I need to review before the test is protective relays (and relays in general).
> 
> I don't have my study materials in front of me, but I remember a few practice problems (NCEES and Spin-Up) over the past 3 months dealing with relays. These problems weren't too detailed or necessarily difficult, but I must admit I don't have a good background in relays.
> 
> ...




ee1234 - saying that "I feel confident for the exam" is quite a statement isnt it? what makes you feel so confident I have been studying for this exam for last 7 months I still cant say that may be because I dont even know the difficulty level of the actual exam problems. I heard ppl saying actual test is 6 times harder than spin-up, CI, NCEES sample exams so I dont even know if I should feel confident (though I am getting 80% and CI and NCEES exams). Any good information about the difficulty level that could make me feel relieved and confident? please


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## Silkworm (Oct 20, 2012)

I don't know what to expect on Friday....I've treated the practice exams as a guide as to the subject material to focus on. No doubt the questions will be more difficult, otherwise the failure rate wouldn't be as high as it is. We'll see


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## Insaf (Oct 20, 2012)

NCEES sample questions only comparable to actual exam in terms of level of difficulties and style of problem (not CI, Spin-up, PPI sample or practice tests). Even I feel actual test is more difficult than sample one.


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## ee1234 (Oct 23, 2012)

guest said:


> ee1234 - saying that "I feel confident for the exam" is quite a statement isnt it? what makes you feel so confident I have been studying for this exam for last 7 months I still cant say that may be because I dont even know the difficulty level of the actual exam problems. I heard ppl saying actual test is 6 times harder than spin-up, CI, NCEES sample exams so I dont even know if I should feel confident (though I am getting 80% and CI and NCEES exams). Any good information about the difficulty level that could make me feel relieved and confident? please


I said that because other than relay protection schemes, I have gotten to the point where I can do the sample exam problems (both Spin-Up and NCEES) and example problems in my reference books without spending too much time flipping through notes, finding formulas, etc. In other words, I'm not "sweating" the problems too much. That wasn't the case when I first started studying.

A few coworkers who have taken the Power PE exam recently told me they think I'm prepared after they "quiz" me. They could just be trying to instill confidence in me.

Anyway, that's what I'm basing my statement on. I wasn't trying to boast. I didn't want to go into the exam with a topic of problems I wasn't comfortable with.


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## ee1234 (Oct 23, 2012)

Also, I haven't been calculating my results from the sample exams, but I would say I got somewhere between 92 and 95 percent of NCEES sample exam problems correct on my last attempt.


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## Audienceof1 (Oct 23, 2012)

&lt;ul&gt;

&lt;li&gt;My best advice to all of you using the NCEES practice exams as study guides is to know how to work the problem as it written, and every other possible problem that you could possibly derive out of that problem.  I.e., if it asks for the voltage for some given circuit, know how you would find the current, resistance, etc, etc, etc, as if they weren't provided.  Know those problems up one side and down the other.  In preparing for the 2011 fall exam, I focused on knowing how to solve those specific problems (mainly due to time restraints and travel for work) but didn't really have it down.  For this past April's exam, I spent more time digging into each problem, along with working problems out of Wildi, Grainger, and Camara, along with the Georgia Tech materials and made it through.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;One last thing-there are at least a few people reading this that will walk out of that room when the day is done feeling like you just failed the crap out of it like I did.  Don't sweat it-you'll do fine.  Good luck to everyone!&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;


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