NCEES Pass Rates Are Up

[MGX]

Just be glad you're not nuclear!

Ouch! 35% & 0%!

I'd go full ****** if I had to take that.

 

[Supe]

To Homer it is, but not to NCEES it's not!

Besides, I'm just a little ol' fossil welding guy. Our company just hired a nuclear weld engineer, and based on the fact that we're not even remotely close to mobilizing any of our nuke projects, he's probably doing less work than I am right now at 3x the pay!

 

[Road Guy]

I do somewhat agree that for people that do site design there really isnt an ideal afternoon slot to fit in, It would be hard to choose between transpo and water resources, they should have a section that has water, grading plans, erosion control, and some basic transportation / surveying to fit in with those who do mostly site design. I dont know if the new construction depth would be a closer fit for site design or not?

At the time I took the exam I did road design, and there was a lot of stuff I had to study for that I never did on a daily basis. But I think the problem is more so that civil engineering has become way to specialized to fit in any one exam discipline, except for maybe structures?????

 

[KOMAR]

I do somewhat agree that for people that do site design there really isnt an ideal afternoon slot to fit in, It would be hard to choose between transpo and water resources, they should have a section that has water, grading plans, erosion control, and some basic transportation / surveying to fit in with those who do mostly site design. I dont know if the new construction depth would be a closer fit for site design or not?
At the time I took the exam I did road design, and there was a lot of stuff I had to study for that I never did on a daily basis. But I think the problem is more so that civil engineering has become way to specialized to fit in any one exam discipline, except for maybe structures?????

I work mostly in site design...construction depth was not even close to what I do on a daily basis. I ended up taking transpo to avoid the environmental part of the water resources. As it turns out site development has just about stopped and I am now working on design for 5 miles of roadway. Funny how things turn out, but just studying for the PE has helped me greatly from a professional aspect. Hopefully I passed and it will all come together.

 

[MiamiBeachStructural]

I was thinking are the pass rates for some exams lower because of the number of people who take it? The lowest pass rates are for Nuclear, Structural I, Fire Protection, and Metallurgical and Materials. I would guess that these tests have significantly less people taking as opposed to Civil or Mechanical.

I was just thinking that a larger pool of people might help bring the pass rates up. Just a thought.

 

[weeze]

Unfortunately they put all the enviro stuff in with WR... which wasn't good for a lot of water folks.

 

[IlPadrino]

Unfortunately they put all the enviro stuff in with WR... which wasn't good for a lot of water folks.

There's a compelling argument that the combination made it easier for BOTH... the really hard WR and Environmental questions were taken out. Frankly, I think the WR questions should be reasonable for *any* engineer to learn in a few weeks. Maybe Environmental is a little harder given the qualitative questions.

 

[Jtiger]

Just to get it out there, the NCEES pass rates for October 2008 are up.
http://www.ncees.org/exams/pass_rates/

I see the the SEII results are still pending.

I also see that the PE Civil exam has a somewhat lower pass rate this season. Was it a hard exam this time around?

Please help me understand what they mean but 69% first time pass but only 29% repeat takers? Does that mean of those that are repeat takers only 29% of those passed? Surely that can't be right.

 

[kevo_55]

^^ You are right. A lower percentage is usually seen for a pass rate for repeat takers.

 

[Mike in Gastonia]

Please help me understand what they mean but 69% first time pass but only 29% repeat takers? Does that mean of those that are repeat takers only 29% of those passed? Surely that can't be right.

Here's a good explanation from a while back:

Here's the best explanation I have seen (from someone else, not me):
Short answer:

Repeat takers, by definition, tend to be people who aren't good at taking PE exams. The people who are good at it tend to pass on the first try.

Long answer:

Consider a "pool" of first-time exam takers. These people are not all alike: they have different "passing probabilities". Some are relatively smart and well prepared, so they have high "passing probabilities". Some are less smart and poorly prepared, so they have low "passing probabilities". Most people are somewhere in the middle.

After the exam has been administered, some people pass and leave the pool. Others fail and enter the "repeater pool". But the selection process is not random. People with high "passing probabilities" tend to pass and to exit the pool. People with low "passing probabilities" tend to fail, and to become repeaters.

So the "repeater pool" has a very different distribution than the "first-timer pool". The repeater pool has more people with low passing probabilities, and fewer people with high passing probabilities. So the pass rate for the repeater pool is lower than that of the original first-timer pool.

I think this one makes sense.

Ed

 

[krenim]

Please help me understand what they mean but 69% first time pass but only 29% repeat takers? Does that mean of those that are repeat takers only 29% of those passed? Surely that can't be right.

That's exactly what it means. It seemed wrong to me at first too. If you consider that there are a lot of people who take it more than 2 times, and there must be some who never pass, it seems more plausible to believe that only about 1/3 of repeaters pass any given test.

 

[krenim]

Here's a good explanation from a while back:

Beat me to it, and a better response too...dang.

 

[GA Tech]

I passed the CA Civil PE exam on my first attempt and was wondering if there's anyway to tell how many people passed all 3 modules in Oct. '08? Statistically, it would have to be less than 755...

http://www.pels.ca.gov/applicants/oct08stats.shtml

 

[benbo]

I passed the CA Civil PE exam on my first attempt and was wondering if there's anyway to tell how many people passed all 3 modules in Oct. '08? Statistically, it would have to be less than 755...
http://www.pels.ca.gov/applicants/oct08stats.shtml

I don't see how. More than that, I don't see why. Who cares?

But, you're right, it has to be less than 755.

You could see how many new licensees they add, but even that won't tell you because there could be people that passed only their remaining exams this time.

So, unless you have an inside connection, I don't know how.