NCEES practice test results - what now?

[Anutka2]

I'm taking the MD depth in about a month and finished reviewing the MERM a few weeks ago. I went through all the the 6MS (full MD and just breadth of HVAC and T/F) and have been a little overwhelmed with the difficultly of some problems.

I decided to take the practice NCEES (2011) test this weekend to get a better feel for what difficulty of problems I should expect. I did this as a real practice test, giving myself 8 hrs total. I found that the morning session was a lot easier than I expected - it was such a relief! The afternoon session was more difficult and I skipped maybe 6 or 8 problems altogether and ran out of time. The results were much more disappointing - I got sometime like 25/40 for morning and 23/40 for afternoon.

I spend the day yesterday going through the problems again and figuring out where I went wrong. I feel a little better now knowing that my mistakes for the morning portion were generally pretty stupid and could've been avoided if I was more focused. For the afternoon though, I don't think I could've done much better. I haven't been using Shigley at all and didn't have time to dig though it during my practice test. I can figure out those problems now that I've gone over them, but unless the real test asks those particular types again, I think I'll be lost/out of time to really dig in and solve them

I have the Lindeburn Practice Test and 101 Solved Problems. I definitely want to go through the Practice Test even though those problems are more difficult. Don't know if I'll have time for 101 Solve Problems. I don't have the 2001 NCEES practice test (unless anyone is willing to sell theirs ???) so I won't have a chance to do another run-through of the full test unless I do 2011 NCEES again. Any suggestions on what I should do with just a month left to go??

 

[Anutka2]

Lindeburg**

 

[tmacier]

Rework the all of the problems again and again.

I bet I took the NCEES practice exam 8 times from start to finish.

Tim

 

[Anutka2]

Thanks, that's what I'll do!

 

[mizzoueng]

just keep doing problems and maybe try problems in the MERM as well. I am trying to do as many as I can.

I took the MD test last October and it kicked my butt, I am taking T/F this time. I can tell you that the MD test covers a LOT of stuff.

 

[andreyshka]

What is 'Shigley'? is the study material.

Also, many people say they index MERM. What does that mean?

 

[ongreystreet]

What is 'Shigley'? is the study material.

Also, many people say they index MERM. What does that mean?

Index probably means put tabs in. I tabbed and red tabbed everything, including my practice problems.

 

[Anutka2]

Any "Mechanical Engineering Design" by Shigley should be fine. I read a lot of people use old versions. This is the one I used on the test: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0072921935/ref=wms_ohs_product. Be sure to study with it, not just bring it. The book is loaded with equations and you should know the several sections that may come in handy for the test.

The MERM index is a separately printed index, so that you can use it without flipping that massive book. I had it bound and highlighted any terms that I looked up. It was very useful during the test. You can either photocopy this from your MERM or get a clean pdf print from ppi2pass.com (I think). Be aware that the index that is currently downloadable is for MERM version 12. I had the 11th version and most of the appendix pages were off, along with a few others. I corrected these during my studying.

Hope that helps and good luck!

 

[Anutka2]

Just found the index pdf: http://ppi2pass.com/Docs/bookInfo/MERM/MERMindex.pdf