Congrats Spark! Anything you did different this time around?
Yea, here's a copy/paste from another message:
I honestly didn't study as much as I did the previous time. I almost didn't even bother taking the test and only started really studying an hour or 2 every weekday, and between 10-16 hours on weekends. It was really tough to buckle down since it was summer and I kind of lost motivation to be honest. I remember looking out the window at beautiful days and hoping it was going to be worth it!
Maybe that helped me not get so stressed out about the test or something but I focused my efforts on the NCEES sample test. I barely cracked open the PPI sample exams. I purchased the NESC and figured that may have helped because I feel like I missed some questions on the NESC the first time around. My materials were the NEC 2011, PPI exam pack (reference book, sample exams, some other PPI book that I don't even recall using), the NESC, FE reference guide, MVA method paper, phase sequence explaination paper, ANSI device number listing. The 2 papers I mentioned you can find on this forum somewhere. I also had a bunch of reference material from a PE course I took a few years ago in preparation for the FE/PE exams. I felt that helped a bit too, by offering a different perspective on the material I was supposed to know.
I made absolutely sure I knew how to answer every single exam question in the NCEES sample exam, both using PU analysis and MVA method. I didn't know of the MVA method going into the exam the first time - it definitely saved time and helped me get points on questions I may have missed previously. If I couldn't solve a problem during review, I'd come to this website and try to someone with a solution. If it still wasn't clear, I'd post about it and ask about that particular question again for clarification. Once I had an answer, I'd revisit the question again at a later time, after a few days maybe, and make sure I still understood the question.
I also tried to remember the style of questions I didn't do well on the first time around. There were definitely some areas that I wasn't prepared for, and I was kind of caught off guard when I saw them the first time around. I focused on beefing up on those topics.
I also tried a technique on the afternoon session that may have helped. For whatever reason, when I first started I was having a lot of difficulty getting going. I wasn't able to pick up any steam and "get in the zone" if that makes any sense, I was having trouble focusing or finding the right answer. To help fix this, I skipped to the end of the exam and started working my way backward. I seemed to build up momentum and eventually, when I got back to the beginning of the exam where I was having issues with, I was able to answer those questions pretty easily. Maybe I just had to get some under my belt to build confidence or something, I don't know.
Someone also gave the advice that this test is only supposed to test the C/D grade student. If something doesn't click and doesn't jump out at you and you're stuck doing a bunch of number crunching, you're probably not doing the problem correctly.
I guess that's all I have for now. Try not to get caught up in too many different reference materials, that may add to the confusion. Anyway, good luck.
