Future PE Exams may be closed book!

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.

Choose which best representes your opinion:

  • I think the PE exam should remain open-book.

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • I think the PE exam should be closed-book, similar to the FE exam, requiring only a NCEES-supplied r

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1
By "fatty raises" do you mean a large some of money or a check that is drenched in grease to the point its translucent?

 
what about trans fats (assuming you're not in NY)?

I'll just use Peanut oil, to help those with allergies too.

 
Last edited:
what about trans fats (assuming you're not in NY)?
I'll just use Peanut oil, to help those with allergies too.
I am in NY, but not in Bloomberg City. If I knew better, I would swear you would use Coco butter, LOL

 
I was one of those people with a handtruck fill of books... I took Transpo PM - after you put the MUTCD, Green Book, Roadside Design Guide, Traffic Engineering Handbook, etc. (only the Transpo recommended references) you have already filled up one crate. I had a second crate of other discipline books (geotech, water resource, etc.) and a small third crate with the CERM, my discipline specific binders, and my conversion handbook...

I can't imagine how they would try to consolidate all of the transpo references to a small NCEES guide book.

 
I was one of those people with a handtruck fill of books... I took Transpo PM - after you put the MUTCD, Green Book, Roadside Design Guide, Traffic Engineering Handbook, etc. (only the Transpo recommended references) you have already filled up one crate. I had a second crate of other discipline books (geotech, water resource, etc.) and a small third crate with the CERM, my discipline specific binders, and my conversion handbook...
I can't imagine how they would try to consolidate all of the transpo references to a small NCEES guide book.
What Big Ray said.

 
LOL!

This whole idea with making the PE exam closed book will most likely happen when the BS+30 requirement comes into play.

Until then, sit back & relax.

 
so a little digging on bar examinations:

National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) is currently in the process of developing a Uniform Bar Examination (UBE), which will consist solely of the multistate bar examination (MBE), multistate essay examination (MEE), and multistate performance test (MPT), and will offer portability of scores across state lines. As of October 2009, at least 10 jurisdictions, all of which were among the 22 that already were using all three components of the UBE, were expected to adopt that examination, with the first tests likely to be administered in 2011. However, many of the largest legal markets—New York, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, and Texas—have so far chosen not to consider a change to the UBE in the near future. Among the concerns cited with the adoption of the UBE were its absence of questions on state law and the fact that it would give the NCBE much greater power in the bar credentialing process
I think maybe state professional boards have gone too far in with ncees, giving them way too much power in engineer / surveyor licensure - i'm not sure a national licensure would be a good thing, just that its likely inevitable at this point (with engineering anyways)

 
By "fatty raises" do you mean a large some of money or a check that is drenched in grease to the point its translucent?
You could use avacado oil but I cant afford that until I switch contractors lol. Supposidly avacado oil is good for high heat for deep frying but sounds like it would be better for you, although im not completely sure if its healthy but it sounds expensive.

 
Last edited:
If they make it closed book they will have to make it less difficult and further from what a true engineer needs. We dont need to memorize stuff....just know where to get the stuff. I think this would be a bad idea.

 
Here's my 2 cents:

If the passing rate was high (60%+), then I can understand an effort by the NCEES to refine what is allowable to bring into the exam. However, since the passing rate is pretty low (60% first time takers, 28% repeat takers), then I don't see how a closed-book exam would make any difference in the results. And I agree with the above posts that it would be a challenge for the NCEES to include all of the necessary reference material for all disciplines in the same book.

As for the security aspect of maintaining the secrecy of the exam questions, the chances of someone copying the questions is the same likelihood that someone with a photographic memory will blog the questions after the exam for everyone to see. This isn't an exam where anyone off the street can just take it and pass. It requires some scrutiny during the application stage and lots of preparation to study for and pass the exam.

Keep it the way it is. The results have not revealed any breach of security or questionable activity by the exam takers. Otherwise, we would be seeing more PEs in the market.

 
I suppose someone could go through the hassle and expense of getting signed up to take the exam and then use their test time trying to come up with a way of smuggling the questions out in order to sell some sort of 'top secret study guide', but....

1) It seems like the NCEES Sample Exam was a pretty close match to the type of questions you see on the exam anyway so I don't think there'd be any need for it

2) I'm sure it's safe to assume that NCEES isn't in the habit of recycling their exam questions.

 
I don't know if anyone said this or not where if it is closed book, they can not test you too much materials that is not cover by a manual.

And the manual will be from NCEES like EIT exam book manual with all the formulas. It is money driven.

 
Back
Top