Exam Mistakes

[eowen99]

So I took the PE civil transportation exam April 2013. I actually thought the test was easy I mean I finished the morning in just under 2.5 hours. I practiced problems for 4 months, took a review course (Test Masters), and studied a lot. Taking the test what went through my mind was "you studied too much". Ha! Same for the afternoon I finished in 3 hours.. I had examples as references and I knew where to go in tables and references.

Unfortunately I failed! 44 right answers. I had my but handed to me in the morning. Granted it is my fault I didnt go back and check every single answer. I did check to make sure I bubbled in the right answer from the test to the answer sheet.

Question is it possible to know your stuff and still make minor mistakes to account for all those wrong answers? I am quite discouraged and not sure I even want to try again.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

It's easy to get sloppy with the time and pressure, but I wouldn't chalk up 36 wrong answers simply to that.

 

[knight1fox3]

^ indeed.

Also keep in mind that even if your calculation is just a bit off, you can bet NCEES anticipated it and that answer (albeit wrong) will be one of the choices to pick from.

 

[snickerd3]

^ indeed.

Also keep in mind that even if your calculation is just a bit off, you can bet NCEES anticipated it and that answer (albeit wrong) will be one of the choices to pick from.

THIS!!!!!!!!

unit conversion is huge and mistakes with it will still give solution that are choices

 

[solomonb]

DO NOT give up. This was a great learning experience in attention to detail, one of the key traits of the engineer. It is water over the dam-- get back up, dust yourself off and go for it again. You can do this-- yes, it is hard, yes, it is complicated, however, you got through 4 or more years of schooling, graduated and I trust, am working as a practicing engineer.

There is no reason to stew-- it is over with-- get back up, get back on the horse and go-- now you know some of what to look for. You may have been somewhat over confident, I don't know, however, hit it had for the next 5 months, pay the fee and go again. You can do this.

 

[butch81385]

I know on my Architectural Engineering PE exam I caught a bunch of small details on my second time through the exam problems that completely changed some of the answers... and of course, if you didn't catch the small detail, that wrong answer was an option too... My guess is that you missed some small details or didn't answer specifically what they were looking for (whether a unit issue, or you went to far with a calculation when they were looking for something from before that.)

 

[Peele1]

The PE is designed to be hard. It is designed so that if you do the problem just a little wrong, your answer will match one of theirs. Unlike most multiple choice where you can throw out an answer or two without much effort, the PE is designed so that all answers seem valid. The only exception that I can think of is if you know the answer must be positive or negative, and there are both as options.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

The PE is designed to be hard.

I disagree. I believe it is designed to test minimum engineering competency. If you are borderline (like most engineers who are only 4 years into their careers), the exam can be very hard.

When they write the exam, they are not trying to trick or deceive anyone.

 

[butch81385]

The PE is designed to be hard.

I disagree. I believe it is designed to test minimum engineering competency. If you are borderline (like most engineers who are only 4 years into their careers), the exam can be very hard.

When they write the exam, they are not trying to trick or deceive anyone.

I won't comment on whether they try to trick or deceive anyone, but I can say from my exam that there was certainly as much emphasis on reading comprehension as there was on engineering principles.

 

[solomonb]

I can ASSURE you that "they" do not try to trick or deceive you. I am on the license development committee for the industrial examination. The test is designed to test for minimal competency of the candidate who is out of school for 4 years. The test questions come from the NCEES posted syllabus. Each question is read, reviewed, reviewed, read, reviewed, tested, reviewed and reread many times, by many different committee members before a particular question is placed in the license bank.

I am very confident in the process and would guess the same format is used, irrespective of discipline.

I cannot address the question of reading comprehension-- I know that in the committee meetings that I have participated in, the question is thoroughly vetted many times to hopefully preclude any ambiguity or misunderstanding on the part of the candidate. Of course, if the candidate cannot read, then.....................................

The exam, by its nature is very broad to encompass the entire field of the discipline. NCEES has a very structured methodology to poll professional engineers in the field to insure that the material being tested is salient and germane to the specific discipline, for an engineer who is notionally, 4 years out of school with an undergraduate degree in engineering.

Now, if the candidate has another degree--i.e, physics, math, technology, then state board rules address if more experience is required before the candidate may take the examination. Most candidates have to have completed the FE examination successfully before they are allowed to sit for the PE examination. There are some states that will allow the candidate to waive the FE examination, however, my understanding is that they require documented experience normally greater than 20 years.

Hope this helps.

 

[butch81385]

Solomonb, thank you for the input. I did not mean to imply that the test was unfair in any way. In fact, I felt it was entirely fair and if I did not pass it is entirely my fault. My comment was only meant to show that at least some exams had questions that were easy to get wrong if you didn't pay attention to the wording (and not necessarily the engineering). As an example, without using anything from my exam, Picture a room. I tell you that I change the insulation on walls 1, 2, 3, roof, and floor.... Well, wall 4 wasn't listed, and therefore kept the initial insulation values as listed in the original givens. However, in the way that it was worded, it was easy to not pay attention to the fact that wall 4 wasn't listed. And, of course, that answer was one of the multiple choices. But, if you paid attention, you kept the existing insulation on that one wall and got the real correct answer.

Like I said, that is not a problem that I had on my exam, but it represents the type of "reading comprehension" that I encountered that could easily slip someone up that otherwise knew the engineering principles.

Of course, my exam may have been unique with that, but I'm not sure, as a previous coworker had given me the best advice after he had taken the Civil exam which was "re-read every question after you first read it and re-read the question before you fill in the bubble to make sure you didn't miss anything (units or otherwise)."

 

[EngrMut]

I would recommend buying one of the NCEES sample problems book and pratice those problems. I really felt like I was more comfortable with the wording of the test problems after praticing these problems. Also, I saw several problems on the test that seemed very similar to the examples so I felt really confident of my responses to those types of problems.

Good luck!

 

[MWC PE]

I remember a question that was asking for one variable. But they had enough information to solve for and correct value as a possible answer for the more complex thing that you normally would use for design. So of course I solved for that just out of habit of studying and seeing that given information. (I think that is sufficiently vague not to make NCEES mad) The questions wasn't really testing to see if you could solve for B if you were feed all the information (which is very easy) but whether you read the question. Since I finished early I was able to go back and reread it and was like oh they only wanted to know A and not B.

If you finish early next time go back and look at the questions again. If you can work the whole morning test in 2.5 hours you probably can check over it in less than 1.5 hours.

 

[mkt1]

I disagree. I believe it is designed to test minimum engineering competency. If you are borderline (like most engineers who are only 4 years into their careers), the exam can be very hard.

When they write the exam, they are not trying to trick or deceive anyone.

Agreed. Took enviro in October 2013 - I had to go over some questions multiple times because of how simple they were and needed to make sure they werent trying to trick me. They werent. The most "trickiest" question was one where they gave us the question in micrograms and the answer was in milligrams. The only "hard" questions were the ones that I had no experience in, but that's because the enviro exam is very, very broad.

 

[mriemer]

Take more time and read every question, I had the same thought when I took it the first time. Turns out I just didnt take my time and read all the questions like I should have. I passed the april exam only because i took the full 4 hours each session and read back through my answers. I caught a few that were worded very tactfully, and the initial answer i put down was not the one they were looking for.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

I've given this advice on other subjects, but it applies here: sometimes you need to slow down in order to finish faster.

By this I mean that if you slow down and read the problem, to truly understand what it is asking, you will find that you will NOT actually run out of time because you are approaching it correctly the first time instead of working it, finding the issues, starting over, then moving on. So many are freaked out by the 4min/problem that in an attempt to save time they will actually skim over the question, make assumptions, and start down the wrong path, only to find that after a couple of minutes (if they catch it) they are doing the wrong thing.

 

[scary dog PE]

^ indeed.

Also keep in mind that even if your calculation is just a bit off, you can bet NCEES anticipated it and that answer (albeit wrong) will be one of the choices to pick from.

THIS!!!!!!!!

unit conversion is huge and mistakes with it will still give solution that are choices

I agree with this response...

UNIT UNITS UNITS make sure you are using all standard units or all metric units and you are changing all thousand units to single units (example kilometers to meters)

AND you are only answering what the question is asking for!!!

Made a huge difference for me to concentrate on this during the test.

good luck and always remember:

"never give up, never surrender" really glad I didn't!!!!