April 2021 Post Exam Wait Period - Welcome to the Suck

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RBHeadge PE said:
200.gif



It's not *that* bad.
The PE exam is a big career milestone. It makes sense that it will leave its mark on ones psyche for a while.


I like the acronym!


Sound pretty normal.
It'll be over by early/Mid June for most of you.
Definitely by August for those in PA, GA, and HI.


Sounds a lot like what happened to me the session I passed.


I "graded" myself during my second attempt. I'm a PRA guy so I'd give myself fractions of a point for each question based on how confident I was in my answer. I roughly had four categories of "points" after the AM and PM session. I felt pretty good going into lunch. I was targeting 75% and that's where I think I ended up after the morning session. While one shouldn't speculate on the cut score, "75%" is likely a pass. Afternoon session wasn't as successful. My self-graded score when it was over was 70%. Way too borderline for my preferences. I spent a lot of time at the gym the following two months burning off the stress and the pounds.


It needs repeating that the cut score varies both within subjects (by discipline and if applicable afternoon depth) and for each session. Just because it was (hypothetically) 52/80 for (hypothetically) CE/WRE last session doesn't meant that it was 52/80 for every other exam last session. Nor would it have to be 52/80 for Civil/WRE this current session.

FWIW, we've seen a 56/80 fail a couple times. We've also seen possible cut scores in the high 40s or 50. There's no way to predict it. And even if one knew the cut score ahead of time, they wouldn't know how they did on the exam. Too many unknowns in that equation to solve it. My advice is to not dwell on it.


Problems are rarely if ever thrown out. If a problem is found to be flawed: i.e. typographic error, printing error, correct answer isn't there, more than one correct answer, etc.
Examinees may report the more obviously erroneous problems for investigation. And I'm pretty sure they do psychometric to flag problems with strange examinee answer patterns for a closer review.

As I understand it, if a problem is found to be in error then depending on the circumstance: anyone who answered it gets it right; or more than one answer is considered right.

IIRC it's not *that* common, and it happens maybe once a session. Examinees shouldn't hope for such a scenario to play out on a large scale to help their score.



The cut score is based on what the minimally competent PE would get for that selection of test problems. Yes, PEs and other SMEs take practice exams with those problems to establish a baseline.
It's not a set percentage across the board for all exams. The cut score is based on the difficulty of the combined problems in that exam.
I'm too lazy to retype the details so I'll point to the Oct 2019 WttS thread. Specifically and exchange between @Chattaneer PE and I starting around:
https://engineerboards.com/threads/...period-welcome-to-the-suck.34504/post-7586881And it goes on for a couple of pages.

tl;dr His summary is:
Click to expand...

Just wondering, what is the highest cut score has been seen (in these forums) for the Civil PE? Is like 56 the highest seen or something a bit higher like 58?
 
Reverse Polish said:
Some of you had best thank your lucky stars you don't have to wait for an envelope in the mail like we did back in the day.
Click to expand...
Similar to the old college acceptance letter.
Or any acceptance letter. The thin ones were no's, the thick one is yes.
I took the FE when they still mailed the envelope. But also were posting the result online as well.
 
Reverse Polish said:
Some of you had best thank your lucky stars you don't have to wait for an envelope in the mail like we did back in the day.
Click to expand...
vhab49_PE said:
Similar to the old college acceptance letter.
Or any acceptance letter. The thin ones were no's, the thick one is yes.
I took the FE when they still mailed the envelope. But also were posting the result online as well.
Click to expand...
Back in the day in Louisiana you could tell by how the letter was addressed, since the PE Exam was the last step to licensure. If you failed the letter was address to John Doe, but if you passed the letter was addressed to John Doe, PE
 
1973Olds98 said:
Just wondering, what is the highest cut score has been seen (in these forums) for the Civil PE? Is like 56 the highest seen or something a bit higher like 58?
Click to expand...
The highest fail score we've seen was a 56. It happened at least twice during my time here.


Some of you had best thank your lucky stars you don't have to wait for an envelope in the mail like we did back in the day.
vhab49_PE said:
I took the FE when they still mailed the envelope.
Click to expand...
Ditto. IIRC it was close to 3 months before I finally got the letter. I had basically forgotten about it by the time it had arrived. I passed. It was so long ago they told me my score too.
jean15paul_PE said:
Back in the day in Louisiana you could tell by how the letter was addressed, since the PE Exam was the last step to licensure. If you failed the letter was address to John Doe, but if you passed the letter was addressed to John Doe, PE
Click to expand...
Nice!
 
Reverse Polish said:
Some of you had best thank your lucky stars you don't have to wait for an envelope in the mail like we did back in the day.
Click to expand...
11 years ago I took the PE with four coworkers. One got his results in the mail at work on Monday (passed), several days passed with nothing for the rest of us, so we all assumed they sent pass letters first, and fail letters came later. By Friday morning we were tired of waiting so we emailed our local board. They wouldn't email us results, but said we could come to their office and they would print us a new copy of our letters. One of the four got a call from his wife just before lunch that his letter had arrived at home (pass). The remaining three of us drove to the board's office at lunch to get our letters. We walked up to the reception desk, presented our id's, and she laid an unfolded letter face down in front of each of us. We all turned them face up at the same time, and thankfully all passed! The lady at the reception desk was just as glad as the three of us that we all had the same result, that would've been awkward if one or two of us hadn't! And of course when we got back to the office, all of our letters had arrived in the mail that day.
 
HeidiofAZ said:
Is anyone else salty that the January examinees got their results in 21 days?? 21 days would be this Friday......I'm super doubtful we will get our results by Friday.
Click to expand...
IIRC, the January offering was just a handful of Civil that essentially were not comfortable sitting for October. I'm sure there was a significantly less number of examinees in that period, which could contribute to the speed in which they were able to turn around results. This April offering was the regularly scheduled programming and I'm sure had a much larger turn out.
 
The thought of possibly sitting again for the PE Civil Structural makes my stomach sink😭 but I literally gave my best. I even had shingles due to the stress and lack of sleep 😭 Why can’t June come sooner
 
Last edited:
realms17 said:
The thought of possibly sitting again for the PE Civil Structural makes my stomach sink😭 but I literally gave my best. I even had shingles due to the stress and lack of sleep 😭 Why can’t June come sooner
Click to expand...
Lots of people take the exam multiple times so if you don't get the result you want, don't sweat it! This was my second time taking it and I really hope I passed this time but you have to recognize that each time you take it, you are walking away with more knowledge. :)
 

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