Computer Depth

[rcurras]

Of course IF the passing grade is 70% then you must answer 56 questions correctly. But that is not always true. It varies, and nobody knows the actual passing percent for any given exam. All you know is that for your last exam it was higher than 55.5% (or around 45 questions correct).

Meaning that it (passing grade) could be higher than 70 %? Thus, it could be 75% (60 good out of 80), or even 80% (64 good out of 80). That is scary.

Quote from NCEES:

“…What is the passing score?

The passing score for each NCEES examination has been set at a scaled score of 70…”

Then, the “scaled score of 70”, can be set to a percentage higher than 70%?

Thanks.

RC.

 

[Mike in Gastonia]

Then, the “scaled score of 70”, can be set to a percentage higher than 70%?

Exactly. Imagine it this way. Here is a sample list of exams and their hypothetical raw score to pass:

Civil - Construction - 43

Civil - Geotechnical - 49

Civil - Transportation - 59

Electrical - Power - 54

Electrical - Computer - 52

Mechanical - HVAC - 55

Fire Protection - 39

How would you keep track of all that? What if they released that information? And those numbers change from one exam to the next so how confusing would that be?

So they set each one of those above scores equal to a scaled score of 70. Not a percentage passing score, a scaled score. That way everyone can compare apples to apples. So that's where the 70 came from. they could have called it 75 or 62, but they chose 70.

But apparently even that was too complicated, so they just went to pass/fail.

 

[mbparksPE]

So what does everyone think, was the April 2008 Computer Engineering exam easy or hard? Anyone with "past" experience that can compare would be appreciated.

 

[Techie_Junkie_PE_LEED_AP]

Another Computer Engineering PE Wannabe here. I agree MiPatLwr, I feel okay. About as good as I did when I came out of the EIT. I do feel the morning was VERY light on computer related topics. Oh well. The afternoon I felt was fair, wish I had a few more reference books, and more recent books too! Well, the wait is upon us. Best wishes to all my brother (and sister?) CompE PE Wannabes!

I probably should have asked sooner, but what "few more references" do you wish you had during the exam? This might be helpful down the road for others.

 

[mbparksPE]

I probably should have asked sooner, but what "few more references" do you wish you had during the exam? This might be helpful down the road for others.

The only real additional reference I wish had with me was more on Software Engineering. I was surprised on how much software related questions there was. Also, a book on Operating Systems would've helped.

As for my other comment, make sure your books include the latest protocols and standards. All the study guides I had (both from NCEES and others) focused on RS-232, needed books with my current technology.

 

[KnowledgeAcquirer]

I really appreciate your posting since I just passed the April 2008 FE exam (1st time I've taken such an exam) and am planning on taking the PE Exam in Electrical with the focus on Computers section of the Afternoon exam.

My background includes 26 years of space/ground architecture, satellite system design, VLSI circuit design, LAN/WAN design and installation including Cisco, Nortel, 3Com, and Wellfleet, along with other network engineering, software engineering, and project managemet.

You're the first to identify a set of references that you found useful for the Computers section of the exam.

Some of the questions that I have, that you may be able to provide insight:

1) When you refer to recent protocols other than RS-232, do you mean stuff such as SS7, xDSL, 802.x, older stuff such as X.25?

2) What about the Internet protocols such as SSL, HTTP, HTTPS, SNMP, UDP, TCP/IP?

3) What about the OSI model and CMM?

4) With respect to software engineering, are you talking about SDLC and CMM?

5) With respect to operating systems, do you mean vendor-specific OSs or generic OS type of questions?

I do have a set (I think or I may have given the entire set away) of William Stallings books on Communication Standards.

I have a Software Engineering textbook that I used for my graduate coursework for my MSIS and MBA (copyright around 1990 or thereabouts I think).

Any further insight(s) you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

What references did you find helpful for the morning (BREADTH) session? I was thinking of bringing Horowitz's The Art of Electronics.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

1) When you refer to recent protocols other than RS-232, do you mean stuff such as SS7, xDSL, 802.x, older stuff such as X.25?2) What about the Internet protocols such as SSL, HTTP, HTTPS, SNMP, UDP, TCP/IP?

3) What about the OSI model and CMM?

4) With respect to software engineering, are you talking about SDLC and CMM?

5) With respect to operating systems, do you mean vendor-specific OSs or generic OS type of questions?

What references did you find helpful for the morning (BREADTH) session? I was thinking of bringing Horowitz's The Art of Electronics.

The answer to your last question is simply the EERM. I'd say about 95%+ of the morning questions could be answered with info out of the EERM. I may have double checked some stuff in my other references (practice exams, Kaplan books, etc.) but I don't remember any specifically.

1. I mentioned RS-232 because that seems to be the era of technology covered in the NCEES practice exam (along with IDE, SCSI, etc.)...basically older computer protocols. You should study for the same types of questions found in the NCEES practice exam except applied to more modern protocols like USB, FireWire, 802.11, etc.

2. You need some sort of networking book because there WILL be questions about networking protocols (TCP/IP, 802.11, types of ethernet, etc.).

3. You just need to either know, or have a reference that describes, OSI. I don't think there were any in-depth questions about it...but you need to be aware of what it entails.

4. I don't know what you are asking here, so I would assume you don't need to study it too much for the exam.

5. General OS programming questions like data structures, debugging processes, types of faults, etc.

 

[adr]

4) With respect to software engineering, are you talking about SDLC and CMM?

I took the October 2007 Electrical/Computer depth exam. There were questions on parts of the software life cycle, nothing specific on CMM.

Definitely take the Art of Electronics book. It was very useful in the afternoon.

Books I found useful for the morning:

EERM7

NEC 2005 Handbook

For the afternoon I would recommend:

NCEES sample problems

Digital Design by Wakerly

Art of Electronics by Horowitz

Computer Networks by Peterson & Davie (covers Networks & Security)

Software Engineering by Schach 4th edition (or any other software engineering book)

Data structures by Horowitz (or Schaum's)

Database Systems by CJ Date (or Schaum's)

OS by Silberschatz et al (or Schaum's)

Schaum's Computer Architecture

 

[KnowledgeAcquirer]

wilheldp PE, adr:

Thank you for the great input

SDLC is the acronym for Software Development Life Cycle on the IT side; it is the acronym for Systems Development Life Cycle for the industry-exempt areas that do a lot of military/intelligence government projects, especially with space systems.

CMM is the acronym for Capability Maturity Model --- applicable only in Software Development environments.

As my luck would have it, I have NEC 2002 so I guess I'll have to reload.

Hey! I have some of the references that adr listed buried somewhere beneath my vendor-specific Digital Design books (i.e., TI, National Semiconductor, etc).

I finally received my NCEES Sample PE Exam for Electrical and Computer Engineering this evening. I'll take a look at it to see if the protocol questions and networking questions are similar to those for Cisco certification.

 

[MiPatLwr]

I took the Computer Depth of the EE Exam. I think that I am okay. However, I am a little concerned because I relied primarily upon common sense, logic, intuition and experience from many years ago (instead of a hardcopy reference) for many of the questions in the software area. Just in case, I need a line on a good software engineering reference. According to NCEES, 35% of the Computer Depth exam pertains to software. I felt a little uneasy going into the exam without a specific software reference. Amazon lists many software engineering books by Schach.
What was the specific title and edition of the Schach book?

Does that book cover all of the topics listed by NCEES and its detailed listing of topics covered by the Computer Depth exam? If not, which topics are not covered?

I took a review course. At a common meeting for all disciplines it was recommended that we find out who has a hand in the test preparation and look to that source for study material. In my Amazon search I noticed that IEEE also publishes a software engineering book. If IEEE is involved in the Computer Depth question preparation, I would lean to that book rather than the Schach book if I were to buy only one.

Does anyone know if IEEE is involved in the Computer Depth test preparation?

Does anyone have any opinions as to how well the IEEE software engineering book covers the NCEES detailed listing of topics for the Computer Depth exam?

Results update - I did pass the April 08 EE/Computer test. Hopefully, the rest of those taking the the EE/Computer test and participating in this thread passed also.

 

[mbparksPE]

To my future Computer Engineer P.E.s, if you need any advice and I am not around here, feel free to drop me a line @ [email protected]

 

[John Williams]

Another PE wanabe here. I took the Computer test this weekend also. Wanted to see if anyone else did?

Below are the books I used…

Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms (ISBN: 978-0-7641-3417-3)

Computer Systems and Design and Architecture (ISBN: 0-8053-4330-X)

Digital Design Principles and Practices (ISBN: 0-13-769191-2)

Operating Systems Internals and Design Principles (ISBN: 0-13-887407-7)

NCEES Computer Engineering Sample Questions (ISBN: 978-1-932613-39-1)

The Art of Electronics (ISBN: 0-521-37095-7)

Upgrading and Repairing PC’s (ISBN: 978-0-7897-3697-0)

Schaum’s Computer Architecture (ISBN: 0-07-136207-X)

Schaum’s Operating Systems (ISBN: 978-0-07-136435-5)

Schaum’s Computer Networking (ISBN: 0-07-136285-1)

Schaum’s Data Structures with Java (ISBN: 0-07-136128-6)

Schaum’s Fundamentals of Relational Databases (ISBN: 0-07-136188-X)

Schaum’s Software Engineering (ISBN: 0-07-137794-8)

Schaum’s Digital Principles (ISBN: 0-07-065050-0)

Electrical Engineering Reference Manual 7th Ed (ISBN: 978-1-59126-096-7)

Object-oriented and classical software engineering (ISBN: 0072865512)

Cant say that I really felt like I needed anymore references, there were a few questions I was not sure on but overall I feel good about the test. During my studying I really read the Schaum’s outlines a lot to get caught up on everything. The Computer Architecture is really good and helped me both on the sample test and the real test (read it twice).

For the actual test I used the “Dictionary of Computer and Internet” and “Upgrading and Repairing PC’s” a bunch for the look-up questions. I highly recommend “Upgrading and Repairing PC’s” because it has a fantastic index. I used “Digital Design Principles and Practices” quit a bit also for digital type questions; I used this book in school so I was very familiar with it. I also was able to just answer many questions because I read “Object-oriented and classical software engineering” right before the test. I would recommend doing that.

I was actually surprised on the amount of circuit type stuff I saw and was able to use “Electrical Engineering Reference Manual 7th Ed” for those questions. I work for an ISP so I leave and breathe networks and was not worried about that part of the test. The network questions were so easy I don’t even really remember any of them. I don’t know of a good book to recommend for that but I felt like the Schaum’s outline for networks was very good. If you do not know networks well you might want to pick up another network books.

Hope to see that some other CompE’s took the test and this helps any future takers. I used this thread to build my references and really think that I would have been lost without all the recommendations. Hopefully I wont have to retake this thing again in October.s

 

[wilheldp_PE]

For the actual test I used the “Dictionary of Computer and Internet” and “Upgrading and Repairing PC’s” a bunch for the look-up questions. I highly recommend “Upgrading and Repairing PC’s” because it has a fantastic index.

Just out of curiosity, did you get those two books based on my recommendation, or did you already have them?

 

[John Williams]

Just out of curiosity, did you get those two books based on my recommendation, or did you already have them?

Those were all based off your recommendations, really glad I found this site before I took the test, Thanks!

I actually did not think I would use the repairing PC's book at all during my studying but there were some crazy standards type questions on the test and found several in this book.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

Those were all based off your recommendations, really glad I found this site before I took the test, Thanks!
I actually did not think I would use the repairing PC's book at all during my studying but there were some crazy standards type questions on the test and found several in this book.

No problem...I'm just happy that I was able to give some advice that helped somebody. I didn't think I would use that PC book either, but I had it laying around the house and decided to take it with me.

 

[tbob]

Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms (ISBN: 978-0-7641-3417-3)

Computer Systems and Design and Architecture (ISBN: 0-8053-4330-X)

Digital Design Principles and Practices (ISBN: 0-13-769191-2)

Operating Systems Internals and Design Principles (ISBN: 0-13-887407-7)

NCEES Computer Engineering Sample Questions (ISBN: 978-1-932613-39-1)

The Art of Electronics (ISBN: 0-521-37095-7)

Upgrading and Repairing PC’s (ISBN: 978-0-7897-3697-0)

Schaum’s Computer Architecture (ISBN: 0-07-136207-X)

Schaum’s Operating Systems (ISBN: 978-0-07-136435-5)

Schaum’s Computer Networking (ISBN: 0-07-136285-1)

Schaum’s Data Structures with Java (ISBN: 0-07-136128-6)

Schaum’s Fundamentals of Relational Databases (ISBN: 0-07-136188-X)

Schaum’s Software Engineering (ISBN: 0-07-137794-8)

Schaum’s Digital Principles (ISBN: 0-07-065050-0)

Electrical Engineering Reference Manual 7th Ed (ISBN: 978-1-59126-096-7)

Object-oriented and classical software engineering (ISBN: 0072865512)

I need to buy those books that you advice.

Anyone can help me solving the NCEES problems Computer Depth afternoon samples #10 and #13. I can't figure out the solution for those sample questions.

Thanks.

Bob

 

[John Williams]

Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms (ISBN: 978-0-7641-3417-3)Computer Systems and Design and Architecture (ISBN: 0-8053-4330-X)

Digital Design Principles and Practices (ISBN: 0-13-769191-2)

Operating Systems Internals and Design Principles (ISBN: 0-13-887407-7)

NCEES Computer Engineering Sample Questions (ISBN: 978-1-932613-39-1)

The Art of Electronics (ISBN: 0-521-37095-7)

Upgrading and Repairing PC’s (ISBN: 978-0-7897-3697-0)

Schaum’s Computer Architecture (ISBN: 0-07-136207-X)

Schaum’s Operating Systems (ISBN: 978-0-07-136435-5)

Schaum’s Computer Networking (ISBN: 0-07-136285-1)

Schaum’s Data Structures with Java (ISBN: 0-07-136128-6)

Schaum’s Fundamentals of Relational Databases (ISBN: 0-07-136188-X)

Schaum’s Software Engineering (ISBN: 0-07-137794-8)

Schaum’s Digital Principles (ISBN: 0-07-065050-0)

Electrical Engineering Reference Manual 7th Ed (ISBN: 978-1-59126-096-7)

Object-oriented and classical software engineering (ISBN: 0072865512)

I need to buy those books that you advice.

Anyone can help me solving the NCEES problems Computer Depth afternoon samples #10 and #13. I can't figure out the solution for those sample questions.

Thanks.

Bob

Those are both great examples to know well for the test (#510 and #513). I took the real deal last Friday and I can tell you knowing those helped.

As for #510 this covers several types of things you might see. But really it is an easy problem to solve. It gives you the Instruction Register (01110100) Which you can just write in the boxes from MSB to LSB (Instruction Register IR). From there you can see the Op code for the ALU is 110 which states to do an AND operation on inputs IN1 and IN2. IN1 comes from the registers 1-4 and from the Instruction (01110100) you can see that it is register R2. IN2 comes from the Accumulator so now we know where IN1 and IN2 come from. IN1 is R2 which shows to be loaded with (80)HEX and IN2 comes from the Accumulator which is loaded with (FF)HEX. So now we know what the operation is…

(80)HEX AND (FF)HEX which is (1000000)BINARY AND (11111111)BINARY.

Doing that operation you get (80)HEX because of the “AND” operation. Then you can also see that the ENB bit is a “1” for the Accumulator which means that it will latch to the output of the ALU which we just found is (80)HEX and that’s your answer.

As for #513 it is just a state diagram, one way you can look at it is no matter what combo you put in it should give you candy when you get more or at $0.25. So one way to think is the lowest money amount you can put in is a Nickel which means that you are going to have 5 states. That takes out option A and C right away. Option D can be thrown out because if you put in 3 Nickels then a Dime it does not dispense candy. Start from Reset go around putting in 3 Nickels and then the Dime and it just goes back to the reset state but does not dispense candy, actually any combo of dimes never gives you candy. You could feed the thing dime after dime and just go in circles. So that only leaves answer B.

I hope that helps and assuming I pass the test Ill sell you some of my books if you want. I wont find out until late June or early July but if I pass Ill want the cash.

 

[chiggarEB]

Hi,

Can you elaborate "I was actually surprised on the amount of circuit type stuff ..?" I am planning to take the ComEng exam Fall'09 or Spring'10.

Thanks,

chiggarEB

 

[John Williams]

Hi,
Can you elaborate "I was actually surprised on the amount of circuit type stuff ..?" I am planning to take the ComEng exam Fall'09 or Spring'10.

Thanks,

chiggarEB

Not a problem, after going back and looking at the sample test don't guess I should say surprised. Some really good examples are problems 121, 520, 521 from the sample exam. Really just basic circuits and electronics type stuff. Cant say I really studied at all for those subjects and did not feel as good on those problems as I did on other parts of the test. My suggestion would be review that stuff in the EERM before the test.

Hope that helps.

 

[tbob]

Thanks very much John. I am taking the test on this Oct 09 and I need a lot of review after more than 12 yrs out of college and have 3 young kids.

Thanks again John