# Electrical - Power: Review Courses?



## cwlodyka (Jan 3, 2011)

I took the exam this past October, and will be looking to take it again this April. I am looking into further study material and also review courses that are out there. Has anyone taken the PPI courses (Passing Zone)?? What type of 'course' is this? It just seems more like an access right to archives and a customized study schedule than anything. Not really an interactive course. I originally used the PPI Reference Manual for studying (and completed it all) and obviously didn't pass so I wasn't sure if this was something more.

I've also been recommended the review course at the Irvine Institute of Technology:

http://www.irvine-institute.org/admissions_iit.htm

It seems like a pretty solid review course from what I've read online. Anyone taken one here and if so, any input on how helpful the professors were?

Or anyone have any other recommendations?


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## cableguy (Jan 3, 2011)

I took the Passing Zone. I bought and paid for it. Was it worth it? IMO no. I don't feel like I got $200 or whatever it cost value out of it. But, I went in to it with very low expectations, and they were indeed met. I really did it because it was 'something' available in August - I wanted to start studying, and the Testmasters course didn't start until September. I started in June. I was cranking problems in July. Late July, Passing Zone "started". It's really just a self schedule for study. Divide up the Camara manual in to weeks of study, and there you go... same exact thing. A few "problems of the week" (ranging from 2-8 problems per "week"). Some of them were applicable, many were not.

There were a number of questions that gave me a "WTF?" feeling. I didn't bother asking in the forums though. It may be slightly beneficial as a supplement to the Camara book, but I don't think it's $200+ beneficial.

I also paid $1650 or so for the Testmasters course in Houston. Worth it? I think so. Then again, I am in Texas, and I stayed with my sister (she lives about 6 miles from the hotel where the course was), so I had minimal travel and no lodging expenses. The Testmasters material was quite relevant, but even more important was the classroom discussion. Classroom discussion made the wheels in my head turn and got me curious about certain topics, and made me force myself to understand things that were a bit fuzzy. Without Testmasters, I doubt I would have done nearly as well on the NEC stuff. The instructor for Testmasters for NEC knows his stuff. A lot of example problems I saw elsewhere... aren't quite correct. They also worked out good problems with Engineering Economics, and I think I got all of those on the exam, thanks again to Testmasters.

I also bought the Chelapati manual from Irvine Institute. It was good, but not really styled towards the current PE exam. I found it useful, yes, but the problems go much deeper than what I saw on the exam. The problems on the exam are not deep. More than 5 lines of calculation and you've done the problem wrong. Rapid fire.

I worked through the NCEES practice exam at least 7 times, including the night before the exam. The night before the exam, I completed the entire practice exam in under 2 hours, using only my formula sheet as a reference. I got 79/80 correct (oops). Yes, some were memorized answers, but I worked out every problem in writing as required, had every formula down pat, and knew where everything in my formula sheet workbook was.

Scored a 93 on the real thing.

I spared no expense on this exam, and threw hundreds of hours at studying for it. I finished the morning session in 2 hours, afternoon in 2 1/2. In conclusion, I'll repeat, I wasn't overly impressed with PPI's Passing Zone, and in retrospect, would not do it again. The money would be better spent on the Kaplan sample exam and finding all its flaws (shudder, then laughing maniacally).


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## knight1fox3 (Jan 4, 2011)

cwlodyka said:


> I took the exam this past October, and will be looking to take it again this April. I am looking into further study material and also review courses that are out there. Has anyone taken the PPI courses (Passing Zone)?? What type of 'course' is this? It just seems more like an access right to archives and a customized study schedule than anything. Not really an interactive course. I originally used the PPI Reference Manual for studying (and completed it all) and obviously didn't pass so I wasn't sure if this was something more.
> I've also been recommended the review course at the Irvine Institute of Technology:
> 
> http://www.irvine-institute.org/admissions_iit.htm
> ...


Hello cwlodyka. Have a look at this thread. It is a good discussion on an online PE power review course at GA Tech. I myself enrolled in this course to prepare for the Oct. 2010 exam. See my comments as well as comments from others. The Irvine Institute course also looks to be pretty good but with the GA Tech course, there wasn't a set schedule for online viewing. The IIT course conflicted with my daily schedule at the time. Hope that helps. Good luck.


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## megavar (Jan 4, 2011)

cwlodyka said:


> I took the exam this past October, and will be looking to take it again this April. I am looking into further study material and also review courses that are out there. Has anyone taken the PPI courses (Passing Zone)?? What type of 'course' is this? It just seems more like an access right to archives and a customized study schedule than anything. Not really an interactive course. I originally used the PPI Reference Manual for studying (and completed it all) and obviously didn't pass so I wasn't sure if this was something more.
> I've also been recommended the review course at the Irvine Institute of Technology:
> 
> http://www.irvine-institute.org/admissions_iit.htm
> ...


I wrote the PE Power exam in Oct 2010 - as of today - no results yet!

I completed the online review course with Irvine Institute for the Oct '10 exam. I found the material helpful, although I also used Beaty's book (Handbook of Power Calculations) and some of my own (old) text books from school, for a number of problems. (Stevenson - Elements of Power system analysis, Bartkowiak -Electric Circuits, Slemon Straughen - Electric Machines) The only issue I had was attending the online video conferences held 6 to 9pm west coast time, while I'm on east coast time. At least all lectures are recorded. I found the lectures much more helpfull compared to the actual text book. NEC section in the textbook is not good enough for the test. Also know how to search for issues in the NEC - I placed my own tabs on the pages. I used my economics notes from VillaNova - which were very helpfull. I can also recommend a good power electronics text book.

I hope to pass after 23years out of school in South Africa. (I passed FE last year using the VillaNova online course -their FE online lecture quality were much better)

- good luck to all!


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## megavar (Jan 5, 2011)

megavar said:


> cwlodyka said:
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> > I took the exam this past October, and will be looking to take it again this April. I am looking into further study material and also review courses that are out there. Has anyone taken the PPI courses (Passing Zone)?? What type of 'course' is this? It just seems more like an access right to archives and a customized study schedule than anything. Not really an interactive course. I originally used the PPI Reference Manual for studying (and completed it all) and obviously didn't pass so I wasn't sure if this was something more.
> ...



I just got the good news - I passed!!! PA State Board (Power)

good luck to all that is still waiting to hear. For those of you that did not make it - keep going at it!!!!!


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## cwlodyka (Jan 5, 2011)

megavar said:


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Big Congrats!!! I just signed up for the IIT Review Course today... and ordered about every sample exam I could find on the web. Going to sign up for the Exam Cafe on PPI for some extra problems as well.

Hopefully I'll experience the same results in Ohio this April!


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## megavar (Jan 6, 2011)

cwlodyka said:


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I found it very helpfull to add tabs/indexes to every reference book/notes i took into the exam. I also took the NCEES list of exam topics and made sure I had at least a text book or a set of downloaded notes on each subject. In addition to the text books and NEC book, I also compiled a 3-ring binder (with lots of colored index tabs!) for subjects not covered in the text books such as Economics, as well as the IIT sollution notes on the NCEES Sample exam - I remember looking this up a number of times during the exam. The best thing is to use your reference material as much as possible while studying to know exactly where to find each subject.

good luck!


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## freehealer (Jan 6, 2011)

megavar said:


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Does anyone know if the IIT just follows Chepalti's book or if they work a lot of shorter NCEES style examples? Doese the IIT course go beyond Chepalti's text? I've gone throught Chepalti's book forwards and backwards and am wonder if it's worth signing up for their course or Georgia Tech's? Thanks!


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## megavar (Jan 6, 2011)

freehealer said:


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I can only speak about IIT - done it this fall. They do work all the NCEES problems which I found very helpfull - The NCEES standard answers are sometimes pretty weird and it helps to get a second perspective. For economics, they use the Civil lectures on economics. I used my old FE notes on economics from my FE course last year (VillaNova online) which I found more organized. They jump around in the Celapati book to suit the different lectures. I focused mailnly on the sections in Chelapati that corresponds with the typical NCEES exam questions. The section on the NEC in Chelapati is in my opinion not very usefull. I use the NEC often in my work situation and know my way around the book. I would suggest to Google for NEC practice problems. Mike Holt has a nice website that can be a start. As mentioned before, the video lectures is essential to make sense of the Chelapati text book and I found the lectures mostly very helpfull.


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## freehealer (Jan 6, 2011)

megavar said:


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Thanks for the insight, I think I'll sign up for it...


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## Nik (Jan 8, 2011)

Guys,

I passed my PE exam in October 2010. I had books that I am selling right now (Dont want to earn money out of it, just recover some money that I spent on brand new books). Below is the listing. These are all the books that I had , might seem a lot, but hey, I had to pass this exam by any means. So I went a little crazy and bought almost all books that were available in the market.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...#ht_1602wt_1139

Ebay Listing ID : 290520750614

Thank you,

Nik


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