Any new HVAC practice exams/questions out there?

[SustainabilityGuy]

At this point I feel as though I've gone through all of the standard practice exams/question sets out there (NCEES, Engineering Pro Guides, 6-Minute Solutions) and I still feel like I should be doing more questions. I tried re-taking the NCEES exams, but at this point I feel like I remember the questions from the last time so it's not realistic practice. Anyone else in the same boat or have any suggestions!?

 

[Pass the PE Exam]

Hey @SustainabilityGuy, we actually have just the thing for you. 

Pass the PE has a brand new, 80-question HVAC practice exam that (hopefully) solves your problem. We just released it, so it's pretty unlikely you've come across any of these questions before. Feel free to check it out!

https://pass-the-pe.com/practice-exams/

If you have any questions about the exam feel free to let me know. Thanks!

 

[SustainabilityGuy]

@Pass the PE Exam, thanks! This is perfect.

 

[Mechanical Ryan]

At this point I feel as though I've gone through all of the standard practice exams/question sets out there (NCEES, Engineering Pro Guides, 6-Minute Solutions) and I still feel like I should be doing more questions. I tried re-taking the NCEES exams, but at this point I feel like I remember the questions from the last time so it's not realistic practice. Anyone else in the same boat or have any suggestions!?

i feel the same way hehe please provide feedback with this exam 

 

[SustainabilityGuy]

@Mechanical Ryan, glad I wasn't the only one! I'm going to take it on Sunday I think. Once I sit down and work through the exam I'll write a bit more about it, but my first impression from glancing around the exam is that it'll be a pretty good set of questions. Super glad to have more to work through.

The only thing I didn't expect about it is that, because each question is on its own page (so you can work on the exam page I guess?) it's a lot of pages. My handwriting is pretty small, so I ended up printing two-to-a-page to save room in my binders so they don't get too big! If you end up buying it and print it out I'd probably suggest you do the same. You can probably also avoid printing the first couple of sections before the exam, as it's mostly exam tips, etc. that you don't really need to be printed out.

In general, very happy to have something new to test myself against! Thanks @Pass the PE Exam. I'll let you know more once I actually take the exam.

 

[Mechanical Ryan]

@Mechanical Ryan, glad I wasn't the only one! I'm going to take it on Sunday I think. Once I sit down and work through the exam I'll write a bit more about it, but my first impression from glancing around the exam is that it'll be a pretty good set of questions. Super glad to have more to work through.

The only thing I didn't expect about it is that, because each question is on its own page (so you can work on the exam page I guess?) it's a lot of pages. My handwriting is pretty small, so I ended up printing two-to-a-page to save room in my binders so they don't get too big! If you end up buying it and print it out I'd probably suggest you do the same. You can probably also avoid printing the first couple of sections before the exam, as it's mostly exam tips, etc. that you don't really need to be printed out.

In general, very happy to have something new to test myself against! Thanks @Pass the PE Exam. I'll let you know more once I actually take the exam.

So did you do all the engineering pro guides question? Full and final exam, and look up exam and study guide questions?

 

[SustainabilityGuy]

@Mechanical Ryan, I did all but the Final Exam because I felt like I had gotten in a bunch of questions that were all of a similar style, so instead of double-checking that I was making progress on Engineering Pro Guides-style questions I wanted to try a different source to make sure I was improving measured against a different source.

And now that I have taken the Pass the PE practice exam I'm actually pretty happy I got it. It was a pretty good exam and was slightly harder than the NCEES exam and the Engineering Pro Guides exams (I thought these were slightly easier than the NCEES exam?), but not unrealistically harder. I think it was good practice to be honest, so if you feel like you need more questions I'd suggest it.

I think everything I said before is true, definitely print it out two-to-a-page so if you bring your solved problems into the exam it fits into your binder easily. 

Hindsight being 20/20, I think my recommended approach might be to do the 6 Minute Solutions, Engineering Pro Guides stuff early to figure out which topics you are familiar/not familiar with, then take the Pass the PE exam as a fresh way to benchmark preparedness (it's easy to get used to the EPG question-asking style, and 6MS isn't really a realistic practice exam format, so Pass the PE asked questions in a fresh style that I hadn't grown accustomed to), then take the NCEES exam (again, good to get questions of a slightly different style) once you think you're almost done studying to give a final assessment of readiness/motivation to study a bit more in certain areas.

Thoughts?

 

[Mechanical Ryan]

@Mechanical Ryan, I did all but the Final Exam because I felt like I had gotten in a bunch of questions that were all of a similar style, so instead of double-checking that I was making progress on Engineering Pro Guides-style questions I wanted to try a different source to make sure I was improving measured against a different source.

And now that I have taken the Pass the PE practice exam I'm actually pretty happy I got it. It was a pretty good exam and was slightly harder than the NCEES exam and the Engineering Pro Guides exams (I thought these were slightly easier than the NCEES exam?), but not unrealistically harder. I think it was good practice to be honest, so if you feel like you need more questions I'd suggest it.

I think everything I said before is true, definitely print it out two-to-a-page so if you bring your solved problems into the exam it fits into your binder easily. 

Hindsight being 20/20, I think my recommended approach might be to do the 6 Minute Solutions, Engineering Pro Guides stuff early to figure out which topics you are familiar/not familiar with, then take the Pass the PE exam as a fresh way to benchmark preparedness (it's easy to get used to the EPG question-asking style, and 6MS isn't really a realistic practice exam format, so Pass the PE asked questions in a fresh style that I hadn't grown accustomed to), then take the NCEES exam (again, good to get questions of a slightly different style) once you think you're almost done studying to give a final assessment of readiness/motivation to study a bit more in certain areas.

Thoughts?

I bought the same exam and i failed quite terrible with this exam 36 out of 80, then i looked into the solutions, i had some problems that is easy but i messed up on the units, but only a few. The one that bugs me a lot of questions came from ashrae 90.1 which is like 300 pages and i wasn't ready for that. and there is some questions particularly with food properties are full of errors like not noting which is the freezing temp. all in all not happy with it. but its definitely different from six minute solutions and engineer pro guides questions. 

 

[Pass the PE Exam]

@Mechanical Ryan, we're sorry you had this experience and are eager to suggest ways in which you can boost your score. The exam was designed to be representative of the actual exam experience, and trickiness with units is certainly a part of that. Similarly, referencing the standards (ASHRAE, NFPA, and others) that govern the design of HVAC systems comprises an important component of not only taking the PE exam, but professional practice (though you luckily have more time during your actual work than you have on the exam!). While we understand that it can be frustrating to have to parse such a standard, we believe it to be a reasonable expectation that the actual PE exam would expect the same of you.

Related to your point about the food properties, we do not necessarily believe that an error has been made in not noting the freezing temperature because this value can be found in the ASHRAE Refrigeration Handbook, which is a resource we would definitely recommend bringing to the exam!

We are happy to discuss any aspects of the exam you would like clarification on (and if there are errors found, we are very happy to post errata on our site) and are happy to discuss overall studying and resource strategy, however I hesitate to post the details of too many questions on a forum, as it has the potential to give away tricks/answers that may negatively impact the "surprise" factor of taking the practice exam. As such, if you would like additional clarification, would like strategies for which resources/what parts of resources are likely to be important, or think we have made errors on any specific questions please send me a private message, and if there are any errata that need to be posted we will post them in this forum.

We really appreciate your feedback though! One thing of note is that, for future exams, the ambiguity of which resources are important to bring to the exam will be solved by computer-based testing. As such, future practice exams will be designed around the updated question format and computer-based resources, limiting ambiguity as to what would be a reasonable expectation of finding information in resources.

 

[Pass the PE Exam]

To follow up on this, there actually was a typo on one question so we have created an errata page on our site: https://pass-the-pe.com/errata/

Furthermore, in the event anyone has any suspicions there's a typo on any other exams they've taken here are some links to similar errata pages for other sample exams in circulation:

https://ncees.org/exams/exam-preparation-materials/exam-prep-errata/

https://www.engproguides.com/hvacguideerrata.pdf

Apologies if this error threw anyone off, and best of luck with the remainder of your studying!