This post is both a review and request for any answers for those who have gone through the Graffeo practice exam.
The Graffeo Guide is popular among many test takers and it's easy to see why. It might be weak in a few areas but overall it's an easy to read book with easy to follow examples and diagrams. I took the practice exam (at the end of the book) recently and here is what I found:
I see a lot of people ask if this exam is "way too easy", and I can see why. There are a lot of questions that can easily be solved by simply referring to a similar example problem in one of the chapters, or by simply looking up the answer in one of the chapters. Fair argument, but in reality, you're going to have so many notes and worked out problems in your bound notes that you're probably going to do something similar during the actual exam. Other practice exams like NCEES and Eng Pro Guides force you to get your answers from other sources, so those are more effective practice exams. One thing you could try to is force yourself to take Graffeo without looking at any other part of the book, but that's taking away a key reference you'll definitely use during the exam.
Anyway, I also found several problems were simply repeats of an earlier problem, just worded differently. This somewhat limits the variety of problems found in there. On another note, some problems I found I could only solve using an unexpected reference such as Wildi or Glover. Those are the problems I really enjoyed getting right.
This may be the objective of the author (which is realistic), but few problems seemed so far out in left field I still don't understand the solution. They are problems # 41, 61, 65 and 74. I will post them below and perhaps one of you could shed light on them? Thank you in advance.
The Graffeo Guide is popular among many test takers and it's easy to see why. It might be weak in a few areas but overall it's an easy to read book with easy to follow examples and diagrams. I took the practice exam (at the end of the book) recently and here is what I found:
I see a lot of people ask if this exam is "way too easy", and I can see why. There are a lot of questions that can easily be solved by simply referring to a similar example problem in one of the chapters, or by simply looking up the answer in one of the chapters. Fair argument, but in reality, you're going to have so many notes and worked out problems in your bound notes that you're probably going to do something similar during the actual exam. Other practice exams like NCEES and Eng Pro Guides force you to get your answers from other sources, so those are more effective practice exams. One thing you could try to is force yourself to take Graffeo without looking at any other part of the book, but that's taking away a key reference you'll definitely use during the exam.
Anyway, I also found several problems were simply repeats of an earlier problem, just worded differently. This somewhat limits the variety of problems found in there. On another note, some problems I found I could only solve using an unexpected reference such as Wildi or Glover. Those are the problems I really enjoyed getting right.
This may be the objective of the author (which is realistic), but few problems seemed so far out in left field I still don't understand the solution. They are problems # 41, 61, 65 and 74. I will post them below and perhaps one of you could shed light on them? Thank you in advance.
