Do I need more practice problems?

[starquest]

Just to give you some magnitude on the time it would take to run thru the first pass of problems in these books:

MDM 6MS:  First pass took 35 hours (2nd pass was 21.5 hours, 3rd was 8.5 hours).   Note:  this was the first thing I did for exam prep.

2011 NCEES (general AM & MDM PM):  First pass was 23 hours (2nd was 8 hours)

MERM PP:  First pass was 51 hours for just the MDM specific sections (Statics, Materials, Machine Design, & Vibration)  but that was with a good base from the 6MS book.   Note: I never did a full 2nd pass of these problems, only a review the week prior to the exam. 

In addition to this, I spent 62 hours on the MERM sections for thermo/hvac which aren't required anymore.   I also spent 15 hours on the Oughtred practice exam, 6 hours with Schaum's outline, and 4 hours reviewing the sections of Shigley's and taking notes.  Plus 21 hours of general cramming the week of the exam (taking notes, binders, reviewing previously preformed work).

If I had the 62 hours of thermo/hvac back, I would have focused on three passes of the MERM specific MDM problems and a better review of Shigley's including performing at least the example problems in the book.  

This was for the April 16 MDM exam from a person with over 12 years removed from any type of schooling, no refresher course,  and NOT performing engineering calculations of any sort during my routine work day. 

 

[Audi Driver P.E.]

I know @Audi driver, P.E. and I disagree on this but I've found the SMS to generally be helpful.  There are a few questions that are completely out of left field and some that certainly require very thorough and comprehensive work but if you can master the questions on the SMS, moving on to the NCEES practice exams should be fairly simple in comparison.

Yeah, I don't think they're completely useless, but for someone to say they're the most representative of exam questions is dishonest.  There are some problems in there not worth spending any time trying to figure out because they're just unreasonable.  And generally speaking they're significantly harder than the actual exam questions.  For that reason alone they are valuable, in that they should help you be prepared.  But if you're short on funds, skip them.