How long did you study for the exam ?

[PE blues]

Typically, how long did you guys study for the exam? I understand that it depends on one's memory, concentration etc,but wanted to get an idea. I'm preparing for the October PE power exam and there are only 6 months left. While some people say they studied for only 3 months and passed, I wonder if they are boasting. I have a huge work assignment coming up and would be dedicating two out of my 6 months for that, so in reality, i will have only 4 months to study for PE. I want to give only one shot, my best shot for this exam, as it's both expensive and stressful. Anyone out there who thinks that their 4 months preparation was sufficient? Please share your thoughts and study habits.

 

[knight1fox3]

Hello PE blues. There have been a good number of threads already created on the topic you mentioned. Have a look here for starters. I also posted the following in another thread earlier this year which contains some helpful links:

There have been a lot of good threads on this topic. Have a look at this thread which has a lot of helpful suggestions. There was another thread as well which discussed success strategies from not only the electrical discipline but other disciplines as well. You can find it here. Some good tips there, good luck!

Hope that helps!

 

[Peele1]

I would not measure it in mythical months, rather hours. My application, preparation, and study time totaled about 500 hours. I passed the first time.

 

[cdcengineer]

I think I put in about 275 hours. Keep a time sheet.

 

[PE blues]

That gives me some hope now. And another question, did you guys memorize most of the concepts or just know where each topic is in your books? I'm planning to use Ugly's power calculations for formulae and I'm making notes of important concepts that I come across during my study.

 

[cdcengineer]

I memorize as little as possible. Remember this is an open book test. Just be familiar with your references.

Ugly's is helpful for things like power factor correction, etc. It has limited NEC code tables so you'll need the real NEC. I use the Handbook, but that's because I use it for work.

The NEC is a good reference to become very familiar if you are taking the power exam. Do practice tests and practice problems. It helps get the brain going and also helps you become familiar with your reference materials.

Good luck

 

[mauldinite]

That gives me some hope now. And another question, did you guys memorize most of the concepts or just know where each topic is in your books? I'm planning to use Ugly's power calculations for formulae and I'm making notes of important concepts that I come across during my study.

I would say that I didn't go out of my way to memorize a thing, but if you do enough practice tests, you run into the same concepts over and over. Some of those formulas I think will be in my head from now till the grave. For the NEC, I tried to use Ugly's first but then also find everything in the NEC directly. I recommend the Handbook with tabs. I'd never seen this stuff before, and a lot of the descriptions really helped to clarify things for me.

 

[mcb003]

No real need to memorize. I feel it's far better to understand the concepts, and then work as many problems as you can get your hands on. By going back to the books time and again to look things up you will be reinforcing how you'll actually be using the books during the exam. You should know your power triangle concepts by memory, but if you have to look up per unit conversions or such, you'll know exactly where they are in the book.

For the NEC, yes, use the handbook. See if you can buy a used copy that's current for when you will take the exam. I'm not convinced about the tabs. My book had the tabs in it, but I always hit the index first. The NEC index is very complete, and if you spend one study period taking a journeyman electrician's test preparation, you'll get a good feel for how their index is built.

I took the FE in April 2011, and started studying for the PE in May. I took a local review course that started in August, and sat for the exam that October. The "Ah ha" moment happended about 6 weeks before the exam date, and the studying seemed to get more focused and productive at that point. Note that I was out of school for 20 years, have a job, wife, kids, hobbies, and all that (well, not so many hobbies that summer). I passed, and while you don't get your score, I feel that I did quite well.

 

[PE blues]

That helps a lot. Thanks all

 

[cdcengineer]

Start now, end 2 days before the test. You'll be good

 

[vdubEE]

I studied five weeks before the test, about 2-4 hours during the week and 4-8 hours during the weekend. I got a little bored of studying about a week before the test and took a day off. The two days before the test were spent doing lite studying and review, getting all references ready to go, and all the stuff I was taking to the exam with me rounded up.

I took like 5 books (Power Reference Manual, Energy Conversion textbook, Power Electronics textbook, NEC, and NESC), a 1.5" binder with notes, previously worked problems and printed out references, and all the practice exams I had access to. I think I was one of the few desks that were not covered in references. I started to worry that I should have brought more references when I saw the amounts some people brought to the test but I ended up not even using the NESC and Power Electronics books or any of the practice exams.

 

[mauldinite]

Start now, end 2 days before the test. You'll be good

This is basically the way I approached it too. I took the FE in October and I really kept track of hours studied and all that jazz. But that doesn't really work for me and it wound up forcing me to sit there and half-study (you know, when the book is in front of you but your eyes are kind of glazed over) for a good portion of the time.

For the PE I really started at the end of December or early January and I basically just focused on getting through 2 sample exams during the week and 1 or 2 sample exams during the weekends. Anything I felt that I needed to brush up on, I just did it when a relevant question came about. For me, this was much more effective than trying to learn everything and then testing myself right before the exam.

But that's just me. My fiance was studying for the Civil/Construction exam at the same time and she was much more by the book. Whatever works for you! The earlier you start, the more flexibility you'll have with your study plan.

 

[ventilator]

My prep started 6 months before the exam but the first two months were really just a few hours a week going over some very basic stuff from the PPI power manual. After that I started doing 2 hours or so a night with the weekends off for the next two months, then the last two months I really started feeling stressed so I was doing 2-3 hours each weeknight with 4+ hours on Sat. I always took Sundays off so my kids could see me a little and keep my mind from totally melting.

Overall I would say I put in something like 350 hours of prep time with prob. close to 200-250 of that spent on problems.

As far as memorizing, after that many problems you would be surprised what you memorize without trying. I did not spend any time intentionally memorizing information but you should take a day or two to make sure all you material is tabbed in the important sections.

 

[John@Idaho]

40 hours paging through reference books I took into the exam....while watching tv. 80 hours practice problems. 4 credit hours power systems analysis = priceless. 1) get to know your references 2) take a PSA course for audit or credit 3) practice problems. If you are planning on spending $ for a review course...I would suggest a PWR course versus a PE prep course. I took a PE study course...just to be sure, and found it unhelpful. Too basic, we're not undergrads....we're looking for the PE!!

 

[USFishin]

I probably put in a total of about 4-500 hours of studying. The biggest thing is to stay organized and know exactly where to go for your materials. I had 3 binders that I used for about 80% of the test. One has all of the typical power subjects in it (3 phase, delta/wye, complex power, transformers, etc.). One is all of the NEC stuff (voltage drop, conductor sizing, motor sizing, including charts and everything - I only used my actual NEC book for maybe 2 questions on the test, the rest was from this binder). The 3rd binder is all protection reference materials (bus bars, selective coordination, protective relaying, etc. On most of the questions, within 5 seconds of reading the question I would have my reference materials open to where I needed to answer that question. This probably afforded me a lot of extra time on questions I didn't know how to solve because I didn't waste any time flipping through books. I brought my 3 binders, the Grainger book, the Chelapati book, NEC Handbook, EC&M Electrical Calculations book, my Complex Imaginary and NEC sample tests and a copy of the NESC in with me. I think my organization and planning is what gave me the edge to passing the test. Also, practice practice practice problems. They get you really comfortable with using your reference materials on problems similar to what you'll encounter on the test.

 

[USFishin]

I probably put in a total of about 4-500 hours of studying. The biggest thing is to stay organized and know exactly where to go for your materials. I had 3 binders that I used for about 80% of the test. One has all of the typical power subjects in it (3 phase, delta/wye, complex power, transformers, etc.). One is all of the NEC stuff (voltage drop, conductor sizing, motor sizing, including charts and everything - I only used my actual NEC book for maybe 2 questions on the test, the rest was from this binder). The 3rd binder is all protection reference materials (bus bars, selective coordination, protective relaying, etc. On most of the questions, within 5 seconds of reading the question I would have my reference materials open to where I needed to answer that question. This probably afforded me a lot of extra time on questions I didn't know how to solve because I didn't waste any time flipping through books. I brought my 3 binders, the Grainger book, the Chelapati book, NEC Handbook, EC&M Electrical Calculations book, my Complex Imaginary and NEC sample tests and a copy of the NESC in with me. I think my organization and planning is what gave me the edge to passing the test. Also, practice practice practice problems. They get you really comfortable with using your reference materials on problems similar to what you'll encounter on the test.

I forgot... I also had the Georgia Tech Binder with me but don't remember if I answered any questions out of it. Maybe one or two.

 

[dirk2827]

I probably put in a total of about 4-500 hours of studying. The biggest thing is to stay organized and know exactly where to go for your materials. I had 3 binders that I used for about 80% of the test. One has all of the typical power subjects in it (3 phase, delta/wye, complex power, transformers, etc.). One is all of the NEC stuff (voltage drop, conductor sizing, motor sizing, including charts and everything - I only used my actual NEC book for maybe 2 questions on the test, the rest was from this binder). The 3rd binder is all protection reference materials (bus bars, selective coordination, protective relaying, etc. On most of the questions, within 5 seconds of reading the question I would have my reference materials open to where I needed to answer that question. This probably afforded me a lot of extra time on questions I didn't know how to solve because I didn't waste any time flipping through books. I brought my 3 binders, the Grainger book, the Chelapati book, NEC Handbook, EC&M Electrical Calculations book, my Complex Imaginary and NEC sample tests and a copy of the NESC in with me. I think my organization and planning is what gave me the edge to passing the test. Also, practice practice practice problems. They get you really comfortable with using your reference materials on problems similar to what you'll encounter on the test.

Could you give more detail on what you had in your "protection reference materials" binder?

 

[USFishin]

I probably put in a total of about 4-500 hours of studying. The biggest thing is to stay organized and know exactly where to go for your materials. I had 3 binders that I used for about 80% of the test. One has all of the typical power subjects in it (3 phase, delta/wye, complex power, transformers, etc.). One is all of the NEC stuff (voltage drop, conductor sizing, motor sizing, including charts and everything - I only used my actual NEC book for maybe 2 questions on the test, the rest was from this binder). The 3rd binder is all protection reference materials (bus bars, selective coordination, protective relaying, etc. On most of the questions, within 5 seconds of reading the question I would have my reference materials open to where I needed to answer that question. This probably afforded me a lot of extra time on questions I didn't know how to solve because I didn't waste any time flipping through books. I brought my 3 binders, the Grainger book, the Chelapati book, NEC Handbook, EC&M Electrical Calculations book, my Complex Imaginary and NEC sample tests and a copy of the NESC in with me. I think my organization and planning is what gave me the edge to passing the test. Also, practice practice practice problems. They get you really comfortable with using your reference materials on problems similar to what you'll encounter on the test.

Could you give more detail on what you had in your "protection reference materials" binder?

GE Transformer Protection Reference

Instrumentation Transformers Application Guide by ABB

Selective Coordination Handout by Bussmann

Article on types of Ground Fault Protection by Jim Rasmussen, GE Specification Engineer

Resistance Grounding System Basics by Michael D. Seal

Article on Ground Fault Protection Methods by a bunch of guys at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

NEMA PB 2.2 Application Guide For Ground Fault Protective Devices For Equipment

Power Flow Analysis Article by Ian A. Hiskens

Chart of ANSI/IEEE Standard Device Numbers for Protection and Relaying

Protective Relaying Principles and Applications by J. Lewis Blackburn

GE - The Art and Science of Protective Relaying

GE - The Philosophy of Protective Relaying