Exam day

Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum

Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Will you be inserting it behind a clear plastic cover? If so I would think you're good. If not I would just tape your cover sheet down. All of my binders are different colors so I know when I come to a Protection problem that's in my blue binder, motors are in purple so on and so forth. In each binder I have inserted a piece of paper behind the plastic cover with topics for that binder just in case I freeze up and forgot which color binder has which topics . I'm a multiple time test taker and no one has said anything to me about the loose piece of paper behind the plastic cover.  
Thanks for the info. Yes I was planning on putting the paper behind the plastic.

 
2 Advil at 7:30 🕢, and 2 more at 1:00.

 
I am planning on having Nyquil to fall asleep on the night before the exam 😛
I took 1/2 cap of Zzzquil and slept like a baby... didn't take a full cap because I didn't want to feel groggy the morning after.

Good luck to you next week !

 
Are you allowed to stick few pages with clear tape? Like there are 15-20 pages in the beginning in NEC code book with author biography etc  which are useless and I don't want this to be in the way. 

Do you feel drowsy etc after taking sleeping pills the night before? I know it would be very hard to sleep the night before and you need to be well rested for 10 hour marathon day.  

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Are you allowed to stick few pages with clear tape? Like there are 15-20 pages in the beginning in NEC code book with author biography etc  which are useless and I don't want this to be in the way. 

Do you feel drowsy etc after taking sleeping pills the night before? I know it would be very hard to sleep the night before and you need to be well rested for 10 hour marathon day.  
Have you purchased the NEC Handbook tabs? They are amazing.

I tend to do well with a little bit of over the counter help. I can take one benadryl and be ok the next day if I take 2 I'm groggy all morning but that's just me. You should do what works for you. Don't test something new out the night before the exam.

 
Haha I agree with you.  So 1/2 cup it is ! Thanks :)
Try it tonight or this weekend to see how you feel the morning after...don't wait until the day of the exam to see how the medication affects you...

 
Are you allowed to stick few pages with clear tape? Like there are 15-20 pages in the beginning in NEC code book with author biography etc  which are useless and I don't want this to be in the way. 

Do you feel drowsy etc after taking sleeping pills the night before? I know it would be very hard to sleep the night before and you need to be well rested for 10 hour marathon day.  
If you bought the book & not your employer, just slice them out.

I did this with similar pages in my copy of the NESC because my binder is janky and pages catch on one of the rings. 

 
Try it tonight or this weekend to see how you feel the morning after...don't wait until the day of the exam to see how the medication affects you...
Good idea, I will. I know for sure I wont be able to sleep normally due to exam and new place i.e Hotel.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I am planning on having Nyquil to fall asleep on the night before the exam 😛


I took 1/2 cap of Zzzquil and slept like a baby... didn't take a full cap because I didn't want to feel groggy the morning after.

Good luck to you next week !
The active ingredient in Nyquil, Zzzquil (aka benadryl) that makes you tired are antihistamines. Doxylamine (or diphenhydramine) for Nyquil and diphenhydramine for the zzzquil/benadryl.

Liquid nyquil has a few other active ingredients, like dextromethorphan (DM) that may cause some individuals to not operate mentally at 100%. DM metabolizes at different rates for different people and can linger in the system for a while. Some individuals, for a couple of different reasons, are very sensitive to it. If you've ever complain about "dayquil or nyquil head", then you should avoid taking it before the mental marathon that is the PE exam. Plus it's not like the other ingredients in Nyquil will benefit you much anyway vs antihistamines.

Try it tonight or this weekend to see how you feel the morning after...don't wait until the day of the exam to see how the medication affects you...
Yep, agreed. Like DM above, diphenhydramine can linger in the system longer than expected. You shouldn't handicap yourself for the test.

Nerves kept me up most of the night before the exam - I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. But I refused to take antihistammines because I knew it and eight hours of sleep would be worse for me during the test, than three hours of sleep + caffeine.

 
I take dyphenhydramine most nights before going to sleep. If you want to use it before test day I recommend trying it a few nights before the exam. It doesn't negatively affect me as long as I take it 1 hr before bed and 9 hrs before I wake up.

 
I got up super early the day before the test and didn’t take anything to help me sleep the night before. It works for me when I’m on a normal schedule, so I figured it would help the night before the test also. I ended up getting maybe 6 hours, which is pretty normal for me.

The beer I had at dinner might have helped a bit, too...

 
I got up super early the day before the test and didn’t take anything to help me sleep the night before. It works for me when I’m on a normal schedule, so I figured it would help the night before the test also. I ended up getting maybe 6 hours, which is pretty normal for me.

The beer I had at dinner might have helped a bit, too...
Before my Mechanical PE exam I trained myself for 2 weeks going to bed by 11 pm and wake up at 6 am. As usual on the exam night I went to bed at 11 PM but guess what I woke up at 12:30 AM. I had only 1 hour 30 minutes sleep, I couldn't sleep the whole night. The worst thing going to the exam hall on that morning was the pessimistic mindset, I was terrified how I am gonna survive this brutal 8 hours exam. But anyway I passed, so at the end lack of sleep didn't become a big issue. 

 
Good lucky everyone.  I must say, after taking this twice, passing the second time, I will be looking forward to harassing everyone up until the results are released (as everyone did before me).  Even after passing I still visited this site quite often because I was so obsessed with the exam.  Now it's less frequent, but I still stop by to see what's going on.

 
Good lucky everyone.  I must say, after taking this twice, passing the second time, I will be looking forward to harassing everyone up until the results are released (as everyone did before me).  Even after passing I still visited this site quite often because I was so obsessed with the exam.  Now it's less frequent, but I still stop by to see what's going on.
I agree. Everyone that took the exam is fair game starting 04/06/2019.

Honestly best of luck though.

@a4u2fear the countdown begins. 

 
Back
Top