Hi all,
I am following this forum since last year, when I decided to start with the PE Process. For me, getting to the point to be approved by the Board to take the exam was the worst part as I am an expat that came for work to the US so no EIT for me, had to collect references and a large etc. After all, I was accepted (I got the FE waived) for the PE Exam last October. This forum helped me so much that I decided to sign up and leave my experience.
I used for preparing the exam:
- Graffeo Book (The Electrical Engineer's Guide to Passing the Power PE Exam)
- Complex Imaginary Test Books (all of them, even though the NEC drill wasn't used that much)
- NCEES Practice Exam
- Chaya PDFs on a binder
I took to the exam:
- All the above list (except the Complex Imaginary Books that I had on ebook format).
- NEC 2017
- Ugly's Electrical Reference
- A binder with all the problems from Complex Imaginary solved
With a family of 4 and working, it was really difficult to find a time (and quiet time!) to study. I read the Graffeo book once and started to do problems. I think that was the key for me, for this exam and during college... doing problems. I wrote down every problem on a different sheet of paper that later on I organized by the subjects that appear on the NCEES index for the exam. And I barely used the binder, as I had lots of problems and how to solve them really fresh on my mind.
The exam itself was fine, I don't think that the morning and afternoon sessions were so different in difficulty. In the first pass the amount of answered questions were more or less the same (more than the half of them). Truth is that experience helped to answer some questions without the need to have reference books. Common sense helps a lot as well.
I regret I didn't take with me the NESC. There were two questions I could deduct with the help of the NEC, but I went home with the doubt if I replied correct or not. I don't think I could go through chapter books of hundreds of pages with the given amount of time, that literally was gone quickly. Other Electrical PE guys I was talking to before the exam were surprised of the amount of material I took with me (I was able to fit everything on a diapers box!).
... and I passed! That's it! I was doubtful all these past weeks but now I'm really happy! About to order my stamp today!
I want to thank everybody for the posts and the reference material I could get as well as everyone's experience.
See you around!