Feel good about how you did on the exam?

Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum

Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I took the mechanical machine design and materials depth...

AM i felt alright about. I sorta psyched myself out and could not focus for the first 30 min or so. After that I sorta fell into a groove. 

PM i felt much more confident about. I wasn't as nervous/anxious so i was able to focus better. I know i got more right on the pm than i did am.

But its really hard to say how many i missed. It could go either way if i fell for more of the traps than i think i did..
Exactly how I feel. I'm now psyching myself out. Initially I thought the exam as a whole was easy (easier than expected at least), but now I'm worried I fell for the traps...Oh well. Worst case scenario I'll be taking it again in October.

 
Expected to not do well on the test, (Civil Construction) walked in giving myself a 10 - 15% chance of passing, everything was just to long ago (passed EIT in 1987).  Walked out of the morning feeling I got 80% correct, but there could have been some tricks I didnt catch.  Walked out of the afternoon thinking the test got a lot harder while I ate lunch. Think I got  around 60% after all the guessing was done in the afternoon.  Hope the average gets me to 70% and it is a passing score.  A little lucky guessing and I might have done better or worse. 

 
Expected to not do well on the test, (Civil Construction) walked in giving myself a 10 - 15% chance of passing, everything was just to long ago (passed EIT in 1987).  Walked out of the morning feeling I got 80% correct, but there could have been some tricks I didnt catch.  Walked out of the afternoon thinking the test got a lot harder while I ate lunch. Think I got  around 60% after all the guessing was done in the afternoon.  Hope the average gets me to 70% and it is a passing score.  A little lucky guessing and I might have done better or worse. 
hope you make it! 

 
Took Civil/Geotech. The AM was harder than I thought, but I counted up the questions I was pretty confident on, and it added up to 75%.

I think I rocked the afternoon, but I think so did a lot of other geotechs. I was done in 2 hours, checked over answers for another hour, and then BOUNCED. I'm thinking I got at least 85%.

I REALLY hope I passed... with the geotech heavy AM and the straightforward PM, I'm not sure I would see another exam that much in my favor!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I took Civil/WRE for the third time last friday.  I was close last time (44 raw, but 68% ) and I felt that I did better this time so that should be a pass.  I have spent hundreds of hours of studying and practice problems my past two attempts.  The overall exam just seem to flow better with a few questions that took a little longer to solve.  AM portion was straight forward with a couple that I wasn't sure about, because my results were in between multiple choice answers.  I had a printed NCEES exam guideline and noticed almost every AM question was following the specifications which helped looking up references.  The afternoon session was a little more difficult with some long calculations and some of the word problems were a little confusing.  I reread the questions a few times only to confuse myself more.  I figured they usually take out a few of the afternoon questions anyway so I saved the confusing ones for the end and double checked all my other answers.  Right after the exam I think I scored in the 60s so i should pass easily if the cut score was previously in the high 40s.  However, I would take 10 points off and a raw score in the 50s should also be a pass.  Last time I thought I had at least 50 correct, but I actually only had 44 correct.  One thing I did find annoying was the eraser on the new pencils.  I used it once and the lead was smearing everywhere.  I had to clean off the eraser by erasing on the exam booklet.  If i don't pass then I'll  have to wait a year, because in Texas i have to resubmit PE license application after 3 tries and an additional 1 yr of experience.  Hopefully, it doesn't get to that point.  Good luck to everyone who took the PE exam this time.  Last April results came out around Memorial Day, but I was pretty sure I failed that first attempt.  

 
Cut score was previously in the high 40s? I didn't think it would ever get below 54ish? 

 
I think caychanh is referring to correct answers...but still!

 
Yep. Everyone gets one, not an indication of passing or failing.
I know that everyone receives it. But I remember last exam cycle the timing of the emails was sporadic and everyone had a theory about it. Just finding a way to kill time/nerves :)

 
Cut score seems to vary by discipline and sometimes different states have different cut scores.  Its usually a little lower for water resources, because ncees throws out a few problems in the afternoon that many people missed.  I think civil-water resources is a popular discipline, because we're not especially verse in geotech or structures so we choose water resources.  However, I have a hard time trying to score more than 25/40 in the afternoon so it doesn't really matter.  Most people I've talked to say that they key to passing the exam is to score high in the am session and average score in the afternoon anyway.  Will find out by memorial day, but in the mean time I've already had a few drinks during the weekend to pre-celebrate.

 
Cut score seems to vary by discipline and sometimes different states have different cut scores.
The cut score is the same in every state for the same test and exam date. This is to make license by comity or reciprocity across states. I've never heard of a state lowering the cut score for an applicant.

A couple states give bonus points to disabled veterans. But I have no idea how that plays out if those individuals try to transfer their liscence to another state if they were originally below the cut score.

Its usually a little lower for water resources, because ncees throws out a few problems in the afternoon that many people missed.


Assuming that the question (and answer) was worded appropriately: it's not that too many people missed an individual question per se but that the number of questions that an average PE would have answered correctly in the exam-as-a-whole was low. So some of the more difficult questions don't add into the cut score.

If they are worded correctly the question isn't thrown out so much as it isn't included in the cut score. The subtlety is important.

 

Latest posts

Back
Top