Kaplan sample exam

I only did NCEES and PPI sample exams; but seeing the threads about Kaplan, I decided to get the Kaplan exam book and give it a shot.

I just started last night and went through the first 20; I found at least 5 very "shaky" questions; I think three of them were flat wrong. Does any one else agree that Kaplan sucks? I was going to sort of simulate the exam by doing the whole test in about 6 hours but I can't trust the book.

Yes - I concur. I bought a Kaplan book a few years ago while I was studying for the FE...and used it once (it wasn't worth my time). Ever since then I have swore off Kaplan.

I've probably ranted enough about Kaplan on here... but my opinion is that the problems are good, they're tough, they make you work. But their solutions and answers aren't very good, some are flat out wrong, and some of them are bad problems. The NEC cluster in the morning section - if you work it as 6 conductors in individual conduits, and take their "calculated" value of 645 as already having had the 125% multiplier applied - they work. But not including information like that makes their NEC stuff very questionable.

I will say that the Kaplan exam is superior to the Camara practice exam, for problem quality. The Camara sample exam has better proofreading (though I did find at least one bad regular problem, and one debatable NEC problem), but the problems are not as good (IMO) in getting you to think about the solution. Seems to me that they're more geared towards making you flip through the Camara reference manual.

^ agreed. The content of the Kaplan problems makes for good practice on the fundamentals power engineering. However, their solutions could stand another "proof-reading" (or perhaps an errata?) to try eliminate the errors. Another +1 to what cableguy said on the Kaplan problems dealing with NEC. Though they make for good practice on what sections to navigate to in NEC, there are a few that require assumptions to be made. I don't think NCEES problems leave anything open to assumption when it comes to that. The format itself of the Kaplan problems also doesn't match the NCEES format. So all in all, it's good practice for fundamental concepts, but still has its issues.

Is there either an official Kaplan errata sheet on errors in the answers, or have the community compiled one?

At a minimum, it would be nice to know what problems are wrong, so I don't wrack my head trying to solve them.

Peele1 said:

Is there either an official Kaplan errata sheet on errors in the answers, or have the community compiled one?
At a minimum, it would be nice to know what problems are wrong, so I don't wrack my head trying to solve them.

Click to expand...

I don't believe there is a nice organized list showing which problems are wrong and what is wrong in them. However, if you have some time, I would say the bulk of errors discovered have been addressed in this forum beginning around the 1st of October (2010) or so.

knight1fox3 said:

Peele1 said:

Is there either an official Kaplan errata sheet on errors in the answers, or have the community compiled one?
At a minimum, it would be nice to know what problems are wrong, so I don't wrack my head trying to solve them.

Click to expand...

I don't believe there is a nice organized list showing which problems are wrong and what is wrong in them. However, if you have some time, I would say the bulk of errors discovered have been addressed in this forum beginning around the 1st of October (2010) or so.

Click to expand...

Seriously dude, I want my money back. I just finished going through first 20 problems (skipped the NEC problems because book is in my office); it took me about 5 hours!!! And I found three problems that are flat out wrong and at least two that are ambiguous/questionable.

My advice: stay away from it.

But I am still going to do more because I have nothing else to do.

edited: 21 is wrong too!

Here's what I've got for an errata list...

Morning #2: The answer should be 24 uF. They forgot to divide by 3.

Morning #4: They give us an efficiency of .85 in the problem, but solve using .80

Morning #13: Their # of cables in a conduit problem falls apart on this one. Just mark it out and forget it.

Morning #14: This one almost falls apart. The answer is right for the wrong reason.

Morning #22: They blow it in their addition/multiplication to find voltage.

Morning #28: So is it © as marked - .785 leading - or is it (a) as given in the answer ".785 lagging"

Morning #30: answer has an error in printing, but is otherwise OK (-j4500 on bottom instead of on top where it belongs)

Morning #35: solution printing error Eg=.8547-j.1935 - NOT j1.935 like they wrote

Afternoon #10: Picture is drawn so poorly I can't tell what they're trying to compare. They give us no dimensions on a magnetic diagram, we're just supposed to realize that there are 3x something involved.

Afternoon #22: This one gets a big WTF? Power flow in = Power flow out, right? Well, somehow, they get more power out of a system than they put in to it. 10+j15 in, 10+j15.36 out somehow. Sign me up with their electric company.

Afternoon #31: Stop the presses, zero sequence currents cannot flow in wye-connected windings. Says so right there.

Afternoon #38: They misplace the decimal on the current and everything goes down the crapper...

Afternoon #40: They use the 2002 NEC, similar but slightly different answer from 2008 NEC.

I'm sure there are more, but these were the ones I had marked in my book right now.

cableguy said:

Here's what I've got for an errata list...
Morning #2: The answer should be 24 uF. They forgot to divide by 3.

Morning #4: They give us an efficiency of .85 in the problem, but solve using .80

Morning #13: Their # of cables in a conduit problem falls apart on this one. Just mark it out and forget it.

Morning #14: This one almost falls apart. The answer is right for the wrong reason.

Morning #22: They blow it in their addition/multiplication to find voltage.

Morning #28: So is it © as marked - .785 leading - or is it (a) as given in the answer ".785 lagging"

Morning #30: answer has an error in printing, but is otherwise OK (-j4500 on bottom instead of on top where it belongs)

Morning #35: solution printing error Eg=.8547-j.1935 - NOT j1.935 like they wrote

Afternoon #10: Picture is drawn so poorly I can't tell what they're trying to compare. They give us no dimensions on a magnetic diagram, we're just supposed to realize that there are 3x something involved.

Afternoon #22: This one gets a big WTF? Power flow in = Power flow out, right? Well, somehow, they get more power out of a system than they put in to it. 10+j15 in, 10+j15.36 out somehow. Sign me up with their electric company.

Afternoon #31: Stop the presses, zero sequence currents cannot flow in wye-connected windings. Says so right there.

Afternoon #38: They misplace the decimal on the current and everything goes down the crapper...

Afternoon #40: They use the 2002 NEC, similar but slightly different answer from 2008 NEC.

I'm sure there are more, but these were the ones I had marked in my book right now.

Click to expand...

well, I am only half way through the morning part and have found a bunch of incorrect/ambiguous/bad problems. But I think #2 is correct.

Total compensated Qc = -5 MVAR; 13600^2/5M = Xc=36.99; C=1/(2*pi*60*Xc)=71.7uF.

cableguy said:

Here's what I've got for an errata list...
Morning #2: The answer should be 24 uF. They forgot to divide by 3.

Morning #4: They give us an efficiency of .85 in the problem, but solve using .80

Morning #13: Their # of cables in a conduit problem falls apart on this one. Just mark it out and forget it.

Morning #14: This one almost falls apart. The answer is right for the wrong reason.

Morning #22: They blow it in their addition/multiplication to find voltage.

Morning #28: So is it © as marked - .785 leading - or is it (a) as given in the answer ".785 lagging"

Morning #30: answer has an error in printing, but is otherwise OK (-j4500 on bottom instead of on top where it belongs)

Morning #35: solution printing error Eg=.8547-j.1935 - NOT j1.935 like they wrote

Afternoon #10: Picture is drawn so poorly I can't tell what they're trying to compare. They give us no dimensions on a magnetic diagram, we're just supposed to realize that there are 3x something involved.

Afternoon #22: This one gets a big WTF? Power flow in = Power flow out, right? Well, somehow, they get more power out of a system than they put in to it. 10+j15 in, 10+j15.36 out somehow. Sign me up with their electric company.

Afternoon #31: Stop the presses, zero sequence currents cannot flow in wye-connected windings. Says so right there.

Afternoon #38: They misplace the decimal on the current and everything goes down the crapper...

Afternoon #40: They use the 2002 NEC, similar but slightly different answer from 2008 NEC.

I'm sure there are more, but these were the ones I had marked in my book right now.

Click to expand...

ROFL @ #22 and #31. Some good electrical humor there...

LMAO said:

well, I am only half way through the morning part and have found a bunch of incorrect/ambiguous/bad problems. But I think #2 is correct. Total compensated Qc = -5 MVAR; 13600^2/5M = Xc=36.99; C=1/(2*pi*60*Xc)=71.7uF.

Click to expand...

Your total compensated Qc is 1.67 MVAR. Obtained from the formula

Qc = Real Power * (tan (cos-1 PF1) - tan (cos-1 PF2)) = 8 * (tan(cos-1(.894)) - tan(cos-1(.96))) = 1.67

cableguy said:

LMAO said:

well, I am only half way through the morning part and have found a bunch of incorrect/ambiguous/bad problems. But I think #2 is correct. Total compensated Qc = -5 MVAR; 13600^2/5M = Xc=36.99; C=1/(2*pi*60*Xc)=71.7uF.

Click to expand...

Your total compensated Qc is 1.67 MVAR. Obtained from the formula

Qc = Real Power * (tan (cos-1 PF1) - tan (cos-1 PF2)) = 8 * (tan(cos-1(.894)) - tan(cos-1(.96))) = 1.67

Click to expand...

that's Qc per phase; you have to multiply by 3. 1.67x3=5MVAR

You're right. Just looked, it does say per phase. I guess I missed that every time I solved this problem.

That's the kind of stuff I have to watch out for on the PE exam. I plan to underline the important parts of the question in hopes to avoid stuff like this.

Awesome list cableguy. I appreciate it.

I also appreciate the humor...

I don't want to beat the dead horse here but I am going to go one step further and question the knowledge of people who wrote this pile of junk, Kaplan. I think they have some fundamental misunderstanding.

Let me just give you an example: Read problem 30 carefully (forget about the fact that they have missed 'j' in front of XL and '-j' in front of Xc). They ask "when the load is suddenly removed, the resulting voltage regulation is"? The answer would be zero, period!

just read the definition of voltage regulation and think about it...