HVAC: Oct 2018 Exam Thoughts

[gomeybear]

How does everyone think they did on  the October 2018 HVAC Exam? Felt like the afternoon had alot of non-core concepts on it.  Don’t have a clue if I’ll pass or not... Anyways, going to pour myself another glass of some Johnnie Walker Black since Im too cheap for the Blue variant! Cheers!

 

[BT in CT]

Hi Gomey - I thought the exam was very difficult, both AM and PM. For me the PM was a bit less chalenging but both very hard. It was my first attempt and I've been out of school since 1994. What with FE exam prep included it's been a year of hitting the books. I've been encouraged reading posts by folks who had to deal with the disappointment of a fail and then had the strength to recover and retake and succeed in the end. It's going to be close for me. I have a feeling I'll be right at the cut.

 

[BT in CT]

I agree it seemed PM had me searching through indexes of my reference materials more than the AM did. There were a few of the core questions that I felt very well prepared on the subject matter but there was a twist in how the question was asked that threw me off. At least four or five of those overall. 

 

[gomeybear]

I feel its going to be close for me as well.  I was feeling good going into the afternoon, and when I started flipping through the problems that quickly changed.  I put alot of hours into studying; so, I had alot of confidence going into the exam.  Lets just say I was feeling the total opposite when it was done.  The waiting begins... Best of luck to you!

PS Anyone have a general timeframe of when Oct Exam results usually get released?  

Update: Looks like early December from previous years.

 

[Enginerd7]

I felt the overall content was a little out of left field, both in the morning and afternoon. I felt very prepared for the exam going into it; I had done well on practice tests and studied for over 200 hours over the past few months. I've been out of school for 4 years so I'm not too far away from the basics, but do feel like I was not ready for a few of the on-the-job knowledge questions. In the AM once I started going through questions I felt myself circling/skipping/coming back to more than I expected. Overall felt a little discouraged. PM was a little bit better, but still was surprised at the content and the types of questions they didn't ask, which had come up a lot in practice tests.

I expected to use the ASHRAE handbooks as backup references, but ended up using them for the majority of the questions. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it felt like with some of the questions they were looking for gaps in the MERM and pushing those topics to force you to use the ASHRAE books. After counting up the questions I wasn't feeling great about, I'll probably be pretty close. Going to try and forget about it for the next month.

 

[KEEZ315]

I concur with the above.  I studied 200hrs+, did MERM review, 6MS, PPI, ENG Pro, NCEES, all about 3x each.  I felt very confident going into the test.  Morning was a little dicey, not too bad, I thought I guessed on 4-5.  Afternoon was miserable, very odd questions, questions that required ALOT of Ashrae look ups.  I think the Ashrae book were needed for 25-40% of the afternoon.  Some of the questions were not covered by any of the above references, or reviews.  I felt confident in 50-60% of the afternoon, educated guesses on the rest.  I hope the cutoff is low this year.

 

[BT in CT]

Yeah, there were a couple of questions that seemed to intentionally be structured differently than what all the practice exams had on them. Given a general topic area, if you did all the practice problems in the commonly available practice tests (several times!) you didn't necessarily answer the actual exam question correctly. Which is fine, but at some point the question is posed in such an odd way that most reasonably prepared engineers are going to be thrown off by it. For a few of the questions I was definitely in that camp. Just couldn't make my way from the information in the problem statement to a solution path that made sense to me.

 

[mcc515]

Ditto. I felt very prepared going into the exam, and very uncertain coming out. PM session went more smoothly for me than the AM. The PM section had unfamiliar questions at first glace, but I at least had the time to find the solutions or approach in the ASHRAE books for the most part. I felt completely scatter-brained for the AM section. A handful of questions I didn't know how to approach, and a few more I worry I made silly mistakes on. I was also surprised by some of the types of questions that weren't on the exam, but heavily focused on in the practice materials. The wait is so long...

 

[gomeybear]

The funny things is if I dont pass this go round, I dont know what else to study.  It seems like I worked through every recommended reference and solved all problems in each of them.  I suppose there is always reading every section in each of the 4 ASHRAE books (only read what I felt were the core sections). 

 

[Enginerd7]

The funny things is if I dont pass this go round, I wont know what else to study.  It seems like I worked through every recommended reference and solved all problems in each of them.  I suppose there is always reading every section in each of the 4 ASHRAE books (only read what I felt were the core sections). 

I couldn't agree more... hoping for the best!!

 

[BT in CT]

In the middle of the night I woke up thinking about one of the non quantitative questions. So deceptively simple, I'm sure I got it wrong. Nothing to latch onto key-word wise that would allow me to find some direction in my references, so I just hunched the answer. Who knows. Given how I feel coming away from the exam, a couple of those breaking the wrong direction would be enough to sink me this go around.

 

[Dream Boy]

I thought the test was fair.  Not easy, but fair. Some of the questions I was not prepared for, but I guess that will happen on any version of the test that you get.   I only needed the 4 ASHRAE Handbooks - I brought MERM but only opened it once or twice during the test.  My best piece of advice for those who are going to take the test in the future is do practice problems.    The practice exam by NCEES is the best bang for your buck.   I also bought 100 Questions to Pass the PE: HVAC on Amazon. 

 

[RBHeadge PE]

In the middle of the night I woke up thinking about one of the non quantitative questions. So deceptively simple, I'm sure I got it wrong. Nothing to latch onto key-word wise that would allow me to find some direction in my references, so I just hunched the answer. Who knows. Given how I feel coming away from the exam, a couple of those breaking the wrong direction would be enough to sink me this go around.

Welcome to phase 3.

 

[BT in CT]

Just got my results - such a relief to have passed! Best wishes to all the test takers