# Is Graffeo Exam way too easy?



## roy167 (Dec 17, 2018)

I just finished reading Graffeo book, it is a concise summary of various topics. I'm taking an exam in the back of the book and find it quite easy. Did everyone feel it this way? Graffio also has practice problem book. Are the practice problems similar to what is in his book? If real exam is anything like Graffio it would be sweet, but I'm thinking it is not going to be that easy.


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## DLD PE (Dec 17, 2018)

I found both the NCEES and Eng Pro Guides to be more difficult than the Graffeo exam.


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## chaosNJ (Dec 17, 2018)

Graffeo, NCEES, and Camara practice exams (the only three I did) are far too easy compared to the real exam.


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## roy167 (Dec 17, 2018)

On Graffeo and Camara practice exams: 

Did you do them from their books or you bought their practice exams? 

For e.g. Graffeo have examples during the chapters and then morning and afternoon session at the end of the book. Not sure about Camara reference book yet as I have not studies from it.


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## chaosNJ (Dec 17, 2018)

roy167 said:


> On Graffeo and Camara practice exams:
> 
> Did you do them from their books or you bought their practice exams?
> 
> ...


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## Matt PSE (Dec 17, 2018)

In my opinion, Graffeo is easy because (with the exception of a few questions) you've just reviewed everything in his book and know where to find it.  The difficulty of the Graffeo exam and NCEES practice exams are similar, and fairly similar to the PE test....the difference is that there is a fair amount of topics on the PE test you didn't practice for in Graffeo  (i.e. the code, practical applications, definitions, etc.)

I did not purchase anything else of his besides the main book but it probably couldn't hurt if you're looking to stay sharp.


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## EE2PE (Dec 17, 2018)

Yes, Graffeo practice exam is easier than Eng Pro Guides and NCEES. If you are looking for good practice exam check out Eng Pro Guides Full exam as well as their Code Reference exam. Solutions for couple of questions are wrong but overall the quality of questions is good.


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## LyceeFruit PE (Dec 17, 2018)

Don't waste your money on the Camara exams


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## roy167 (Dec 17, 2018)

Graffeo, ProEng guide, they cover the same material, when you take these references in exam, do you get confused as to which one to look up if you do need to look up. 

Do you print the relevant pages instead of printing 450 page proguide manual along with other books. I am just thinking this shouldn't overwhelm you when you want to find something. quality information is better than ton of information from which you can't find stuff.


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## EE2PE (Dec 17, 2018)

Graffeo was one of the first books I bought when I started studying. I bought Eng Pro Guides couple of months before the exam. By then I was already familiar with Graffeo, so ended up using that as my main reference. But I still printed the formula sheets at the end of Eng Pro Guides Study Manual and took it with me to the exam. I found Eng Pro Guides Practice Exams more useful than their actual study manual.

I won't recommend buying both of them, since they are so similar. I will recommend buying Graffeo and Eng Pro Guides practice exams, this way you get best of both.


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## Invisible (Dec 19, 2018)

Graffeo had some good protection problems. Other than that, the paper was very ordinary.


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## roy167 (Dec 19, 2018)

Does EngProGuide and Compex Imginary both have NEC code drill manuals? For code problems, what resource do you guys recommend?


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## EE2PE (Dec 20, 2018)

EngPro Guide covers both NEC &amp; NESC while Complex Imaginary only covers NEC. Complex Imaginary has 300 Practice questions, while EngPro Guides has only 40. Quality of questions in EngPro Guides is way better than Complex Imaginary.  I did not like the quality of Complex Imaginary's practice questions, but you can use that to practice your technique of using NEC and finding relevant sections quickly and getting familiar with NEC code-book.


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## justin-hawaii (Dec 20, 2018)

EE2PE said:


> Yes, Graffeo practice exam is easier than Eng Pro Guides and NCEES. If you are looking for good practice exam check out Eng Pro Guides Full exam as well as their Code Reference exam. Solutions for couple of questions are wrong but overall the quality of questions is good.


Thank you for the comments.  Can you let me know which problems you found to be incorrect? I will gladly revise the problems and will greatly appreciate the feedback.


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## EE2PE (Dec 20, 2018)

I think your solution for the first question on the Full Practice Exam had one error. In the solution when converting the line voltage to phase voltage you divided it by √3 but did not consider the angle difference between line and phase voltage in a Y system. In a Y system Phase voltages lag Line Voltages by 30 Deg. If you consider the angle difference as well and divide Line voltage by  √3∠ 30 rather than just √3 then you get option B as the correct answer instead of option A. Both option A &amp; B give you total load of 500kVA because when you convert them to Polar form, their magnitude is same just the phase angle is different. I am open to an explanation on why angle difference was not considered when converting from line to phase, but I think it should have been considered. 

Second error was with some NEC question from your Code Reference Exam. I have to look at my notes and see if I wrote it down somewhere.


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## justin-hawaii (Dec 20, 2018)

Yes, I believe you are correct for Problem 1.  Thank you.


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## roy167 (Dec 20, 2018)

On question 1 the answer should be 295.8 -j 183.4 ohms. So I think they just missed the minus sign. 

On a question like this I have a question. 

A 3 phase 500 KVA load is served by a 13.2 KV line. Unless specifically mentioned we have to take given voltage line to line. so 13.2 KV is line to line. The question doesn't tell us whether load is Wye connected or delta connected. In this case how do we know whether to use  √3 or not?  The question then does ask what is line to neutral impedance. Is this a clue that load is wye connected?


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## DLD PE (Dec 20, 2018)

I would say yes since a delta does not have a neutral.


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## roy167 (Dec 20, 2018)

Question 5 solution is also wrong. 

Once you choose Generator voltage as a base then the base voltage for motors would be 120V because of 480/120 v transformer therefore the answer should be 0.6 PU and that choice is not available.


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## justin-hawaii (Dec 20, 2018)

roy167 said:


> Question 5 solution is also wrong.
> 
> Once you choose Generator voltage as a base then the base voltage for motors would be 120V because of 480/120 v transformer therefore the answer should be 0.6 PU and that choice is not available.


I do see what you are saying and I agree, thank you.  We tried to make the problem a little bit more tricky and to have the reader use the value of 480 V as the base voltage for the entire circuit and to override what is normally done.  Thank you for the input, I will revise the solution.


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## roy167 (Dec 20, 2018)

justin-hawaii said:


> I do see what you are saying and I agree, thank you.  We tried to make the problem a little bit more tricky and to have the reader use the value of 480 V as the base voltage for the entire circuit and to override what is normally done.  Thank you for the input, I will revise the solution.


Thank you Justin for being available to clarify and amend if necessary.  Also can you clarify, sometimes you are given line to line voltage but not told whether it is wye or delta source load, in that case what is the best thing to do.


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## rmsg (Dec 21, 2018)

roy167 said:


> I just finished reading Graffeo book, it is a concise summary of various topics. I'm taking an exam in the back of the book and find it quite easy. Did everyone feel it this way? Graffio also has practice problem book. Are the practice problems similar to what is in his book? If real exam is anything like Graffio it would be sweet, but I'm thinking it is not going to be that easy.


Yes, Graffeo practice exam is easier than actual exam. Try to also look for more tough problems elsewhere. Eng Pro Guide and Electrical PE Review are good. Wasim Asghar's PE Power practice exam is also good but I would also take Grafeo in the exam as certain topics/questions are covered in good detail.


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## DLD PE (Dec 21, 2018)

roy167 said:


> On question 1 the answer should be 295.8 -j 183.4 ohms. So I think they just missed the minus sign.
> 
> On a question like this I have a question.
> 
> A 3 phase 500 KVA load is served by a 13.2 KV line. Unless specifically mentioned we have to take given voltage line to line. so 13.2 KV is line to line. The question doesn't tell us whether load is Wye connected or delta connected. In this case how do we know whether to use  √3 or not?  The question then does ask what is line to neutral impedance. Is this a clue that load is wye connected?


He has the answer correct in his solutions and says the correct answer is (A).  You're right he missed the minus sign.


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## roy167 (Dec 31, 2018)

So far I have done Graffeo Test, then EngProguide, Spinup and now CI. I will then do the NCEES. Even CI is not to crazy. I hope at least 60-70%  of the real exam is similar to combination of these tests. even that would  be a breather. But that is just my wishful thinking.


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## rmsg (Jan 10, 2019)

MEtoEE said:


> I found both the NCEES and Eng Pro Guides to be more difficult than the Graffeo exam.


I took PE Electrical Review course. I think some of his questions were definitely of good tough quality. I do recommend PE Elec Review by Zach Stone.

I also left my feedback earlier to Zach and Justin Kauwale to increase more tough questions on Protection/Coordination and per unit methods.

Protection/Coordination seems to be toughest for everybody. I think I may have been right at the fence to pass because I did fear a lot before the results

that I might fail as I did very poorly on protection/coordination.

Good Luck


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## roy167 (Jan 10, 2019)

Unless NCEES provides sample questions on protection/co-ordination through their practice exam etc I am not sure how one of these people are going to come with questions because this is a vast area.


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## Sthabik PE (Jan 11, 2019)

Can someone please explain how Pmax is as shown in the attachment (Source: Graffeo Book)


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## ItsStudyTime! (Feb 6, 2019)

roy167 said:


> I'm taking an exam in the back of the book and find it quite easy.


I found that the Graffeo exam was 'easy' but only if you used the Graffeo reference book with it - i.e. there were exact copies of the questions from the exam directly in the reference book. I bring this up in my summary of all my resources I took with me, as it is a common problem with sample exams that are packaged with a companion handbook. If I did it again, I would buy sample exams and problem sets that are not sold by someone who also provides a handbook. This way, you have to solve the questions with your references, but the person who wrote the questions doesn't know which references you are using. This is more realistic to the exam situation.


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