# opinion about the difficulty of morning problems of Thermal and Fluids exam compared to the afternoon?



## MecEng (Oct 26, 2019)

What is opinion about the difficulty of morning problems of Thermal and Fluids exam compared to the afternoon?


----------



## Beach_Vince (Oct 26, 2019)

I felt the morning one was slightly more difficult overall, but both the Afternoon and Morning portions for thermal fluids wasn't bad at all imo. This is my second time taking it and felt really good walking out of the exam, I really hope this is my last time having to take it.

I took it the first time this past April and all though I was more prepared this time around I really think the April one was harder by a decent margin, especially the afternoon portion, Good grief that was difficult.


----------



## SpecificHeat (Oct 26, 2019)

The afternoon session was definitely harder for me. I felt that the morning session was basic fluids mostly. I've heard rumors that this exam was closer to what's going to be on the computer based exams moving forward.


----------



## pse19622 (Oct 27, 2019)

Afternoon was definitely harder for me. The morning section just seemed odd though. I feel like it didn’t really match the exam spec. Overall I feel pretty good. Got an answer for all 40 in the morning, random guess on like 5-6 in the afternoon. We shall see.


----------



## TX_PE_Oct19 (Oct 28, 2019)

Morning part was surprisingly different than any practice exam/exam specifications that I have looked. I shocked when I finished the morning part. I was only sure about the half of the problems so I felt very bad about it in the whole break time.


----------



## leggo PE (Oct 28, 2019)

Hey everyone! Just to remind you, please do not post content about specific exam questions. NCEES watches these boards and bad things can happen if you are found to have shared info.

If you want to vent or distract yourself from the exam, head over to the Spam Board!


----------



## Ramnares P.E. (Oct 28, 2019)

Thanks for the edit @leggo PE!


----------



## Doug E. Fresh (Oct 28, 2019)

I agree with TX_PE and pse. I was kind of surprised by the type of questions on the morning section. It didn't seem to match up with any of the 4 practice exams I worked on. I felt like there were a lot that I didn't know how to do right away and ended up not having enough time to finish them all.

The afternoon session seemed more in line with what I was expecting. There were still a couple I didn't really know how to do, but I didn't have to rush to finish it.


----------



## JackMit (Oct 30, 2019)

I think afternoon was more difficult


----------



## TX_PE_Oct19 (Oct 31, 2019)

I think this thread needs further explanation. 

For example,

AM portion was harder for somebody who did really well on the PM portion (30+ correct) is NOT the same with AM portion was easier for somebody who did 25+ on the AM and 17+ on the PM.

Make sense?

My assumptions for my exam: 25+ AM and 35+ PM (So, AM was VERY hard/different/unexpected for me, because I was hoping 35+ AM and 25+ PM)


----------



## Doug E. Fresh (Nov 1, 2019)

TX_PE_Oct19 said:


> I think this thread needs further explanation.
> 
> For example,
> 
> ...


I would put my AM/PM numbers about the same as yours. AM I had around 25 or more that I thought I for sure knew how to do and ran out of time on the rest. PM portion I was confident in closer to 35. I also expected them to be the other way around.


----------



## cjcarter (Nov 3, 2019)

Doug E. Fresh said:


> Agree with Doug E. I felt like morning session didn’t cover thermo fluids topics enough. However, NCEES only states the number of questions from each subject as an approximate in their specifications. In reality, you are at the mercy of their problem selection. They can ask as many problems from each section as they want. I don’t know how their problem selection approval process goes. I do agree the morning session was also a surprise to me and harder due to limited thermo fluids questions.


----------



## JFrost (Nov 3, 2019)

This wast the  first ( and hopefully my last) time I take the PE Machine Design exam. 

The majority of the AM exam did not reflect the problems in the four practice exams I took, on top of a 20 week review course. 

The afternoon exam was more difficult, however, I was able to recognize more of the problems  from my study material.   

If I were to asses my results  it would be  AM 30+  , PM 30+ .


----------



## TX_PE_Oct19 (Nov 11, 2019)

JFrost said:


> This wast the  first ( and hopefully my last) time I take the PE Machine Design exam.
> 
> The majority of the AM exam did not reflect the problems in the four practice exams I took, on top of a 20 week review course.
> 
> ...


Now I am wondering which of the A.M. portion was the one that the test takers would expect? Thermal-Fluids was not, now we saw that the MDM also was off a little bit. Strange.


----------



## cjcarter (Nov 16, 2019)

TX_PE_Oct19 said:


> Now I am wondering which of the A.M. portion was the one that the test takers would expect? Thermal-Fluids was not, now we saw that the MDM also was off a little bit. Strange.


Out of curiosity I looked at the Page 5 of the latest NCEES Practice Exam regarding the Approximate Number for questions from each section. It says Basic Engineering Practice Section shows Approximate 6 problems and Supportive Knowledge Section Shows Approximate 4 questions with a total of 10 questions. This includes AM and PM Sections out of 80 problems. Now, the Practice Exam only had 8-9 questions total for these sections. The October 2019 exam had at least 20 questions total out of these sections. The question is can you sue NCEES for something like this without a proof since they don't provide the questions after the exam? They definitely did not stick with their own exam specification. Being and engineer, following industry standards and client's standards is a must. So what NCEES did with the October 2019 Exam is against their Ethics of Engineering. They better grade the Thermo Fluids Sections higher for the cut scores.


----------



## JFrost (Dec 16, 2019)

I got it.    Passed it !  Yay !!


----------

