Best PE Power review course and reference material used in the Exam

[ahmed2j]

I am taking the PE power exam in April 2012, if anyone has taking any of the available courses, such as Testmasters, Irvine, or GA Tech and believe it helped him/her pass the PE power exam, please advice.

Also what was the material used to study for the exam.

Your help and chaired experience is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[snerts50]

I am taking the PE power exam in April 2012, if anyone has taking any of the available courses, such as Testmasters, Irvine, or GA Tech and believe it helped him/her pass the PE power exam, please advice.

Also what was the material used to study for the exam.

Your help and chaired experience is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Practice problems!!

By far the best are the NCEES questions. The key to passing the exam is a complete understanding of those exmaples, as they do mirror what you will see on the test itself. I found the camera problems to be too dissimilar to the NCEES format to be useful.

There is a company called Complex Imaginary (who is also a member here) who published 4 sets of practice problems, that I found to be very useful in studying, though there were a good deal of errors which made for somewhat complicated studying. I bought two of these (which I'm going to post on the for sale section) and went over them again and again, along with the NCEES questions, until, even though they were memorized I had every aspect of them understood, or at least to the best of my ability. If i had any questions I sought them here, this forum is jam packed with amazing info about the NCEES questions. There are some smart members in this forum.

If you hunt around there are numerous posts that list peoples favorite materials. But I found the following useful.

Electrical Machines, Drives and Power Systems by Wildi

Handbook of Electric Power Calculations by Beaty

Power System Analysis by Grainger

Electrical Engineering Reference Manual for the Power, Electrical and Electronics, and Computer PE Exams

My test used the 2008 NEC but the 2011 Handbook is a useful tool to understand the NEC

I also took a good deal of time crafting cheatsheets that allowed me to both study and focus my material into a number of pages to use, rather then hunting down particular portions of the reference materials. A good cheat sheet I feel is important. Well, it ended up being more of a cheat notebook. I filled it with material from this site, printed examples, portions of guides, I spent a lot of time snipping items from PDFs and recreating a new one. I encourage new test takers to do this. It helped me study.

I also just read everything I could find and kept reading and stuck to a regime of 1-2 hours a day of studying/examples for 2.5 months. I think other people have done more, some less, but this worked for me.

There is more to add but I just got into work. Good luck, and sift through the electrical section of this forum, there is a TON of material.

 

[ahmed2j]

thank you so much snerts50, I went on complex imaginary website and found that the sets will become available 01/15/2012, i hope they have all errors corrected.

again thanks for the advice

 

[PE.MA.ELEC]

Personally, I think the best resource is the Power Reference Manual by Camara and their associated sample tests which I really feel got me to pass the exam this October. I ordered the PE Power package from ppi2pass.com and can't emphasize enough how useful it all was. The first time i took the exam in April of 2011, I took the online Irvine course and used their textbooks and did not pass the exam. I felt that the online course was almost useless and did not find their textbook to be all that great, it has no index and it was really tough trying to find stuff in the text during the exam. The class consisted of essentially reading the textbook and then working out the NCEES practice test problems. Just make sure to print out some reference material on the general power engineering section such as insulation testing, ground resistance testing, wattmeters etc. as the book doesn't go into great detail on those topics.

 

[EEVA PE]

My opinion is the best resource is the notes you create for the exam while you are preparing for the exam. I relied on my notes the most. My notes were the accumulation of what I would look up the most. Without creating a sheet full of formulas to easily access I would probably of not made it through the exam. The notes were my friend and when I needed help that was the first thing that I reached for.

 

[170B]

Did you just order the PPI2pass printed materials or use their online course?

Personally, I think the best resource is the Power Reference Manual by Camara and their associated sample tests which I really feel got me to pass the exam this October. I ordered the PE Power package from ppi2pass.com and can't emphasize enough how useful it all was. The first time i took the exam in April of 2011, I took the online Irvine course and used their textbooks and did not pass the exam. I felt that the online course was almost useless and did not find their textbook to be all that great, it has no index and it was really tough trying to find stuff in the text during the exam. The class consisted of essentially reading the textbook and then working out the NCEES practice test problems. Just make sure to print out some reference material on the general power engineering section such as insulation testing, ground resistance testing, wattmeters etc. as the book doesn't go into great detail on those topics.

 

[R2KBA]

I sort of did the shotgun approach which worked very well for me. I ordered the PPI power package (EPRM, NCEES sample exam, PPI sample exams, PPI practice problems) which were good, except the practice problems book was so-so. The EPRM is certainly not all you need to pass. It contains a lot of useful info along with lots of stuff you should not even bother looking at. Some people hate it, but I wouldn't go into the exam without it. I also took the GA Tech review course which was excellent. The course covers a lot of material, and you have Professor Callen to answer any questions you may have. He will even provide aditional notes and reference material if you ask about something that is not covered in the binder. The GA Tech binder does not have an index, but I made my own and used index tabs which solved that problem easily. I spent a good chunk of my total study time indexing, referencing, gathering, etc my reference material so I didn't have to stumble through it on the exam. Also, I got some very good advice from this website. Many of the books frequently recommended here helped me a lot. I had more than 20 references, used almost all of them, but did NOT get caught up wasting time thumbing through a bunch of books. Any problem I didn't know how to solve immediately (with or without references) I left for last.

 

[forest]

Which chapters should I study on the Electrical Machines, Drives and Power Systems by Wildi?

Thank you

 

[knight1fox3]

Which chapters should I study on the Electrical Machines, Drives and Power Systems by Wildi?

Thank you

Have a look at this thread which has some very useful information on what study materials/methods worked for certain individuals (including myself). It mentions the chapters of primary focus as being 21-23. Hope that helps.

 

[forest]

Thank you.

 

[Wildsoldier PE]

Which chapters should I study on the Electrical Machines, Drives and Power Systems by Wildi?

Thank you

From Wildi....if i was you i study:

Chapter 1---show you how to use the per unit

Chapter 2 ---If you don't remember the basics of KVL, KCL etc.

Chapter 3, 4, 5....i barely touch it....is DC generators and motors...so no need to worry about those.

Chapter 7-12 ---needs to be studied....discussed power and transformers.---this is like 45% of the exam.

Chapter 13-15--needs to be studied....it discussed motors....when i study for the PE i concentrate on motors not generators....generators is the same thing but reverse.

Chapter 17---needs to be studied... synchronous motor.

Chapter 21--needs to be studied....power electronics....from power electronics you just need to know if the input wave look like this how would look the output wave.

Chapter 24- gives you an understanding of how the power is generated....i read it... interesting chapter.

Chapter 25 & 26- Transmission and distribution.....these are important chapters that needs to be studied....in fact there was a question in the real exam that i answer the question from one of those chapters.

Chapter 30 - Harmonics you at least need to know what cause it....what is a 2nd order 3rd order...etc. I wouldn't skip this one.

Those are the chapters that i studied from the Wildi book....Is a bunch of stuff to study but usually every chapter takes about a week....I prepare for 1 year and a half for the PE thats why i had time to read all those chapters. If you are taking it on april and you haven't study anything and starting right now...probably Wildi is not the way to go...probably you would need a refresher course that goes more fast paced.

 

[forest]

Thank you.