Note organization

[youngmotivatedengineer]

For this 2nd round, I am trying to prepare myself more and use additional resources to help get ready for the test. For those of you who have used multiple review courses, did you find it better to keep the notes separate by provider or combine them and sort by topic?

 

[ptatohed]

For this 2nd round, I am trying to prepare myself more and use additional resources to help get ready for the test. For those of you who have used multiple review courses, did you find it better to keep the notes separate by provider or combine them and sort by topic?

I never did take a review course so please feel free to disregard, but my thought is I would keep them separate.  I would treat each set of course notes as its own separate resource.  Almost as separate authors, if you will.  Just like you wouldn't combine Goswami Ai1 with Lindberg CERM (not that you easily could), I would think it would be better to keep different course notes separate.  More importantly is to know your resources (notes, books) inside and out.  Ex. if you see, say, a partially full pipe flow question, in your head, you should immediately know where to go in your resources.   

 

[Irap]

I did not take a review class, but I created my own notes based on the exam specifications and references I have. It condenses everything. 

 

[youngmotivatedengineer]

My 1st round I kept everything separate  ( looked online for general PE exam references and some specific topics) but didn't know if it would be better to combine so I thought I look in 1 place for multiple resources on same topic. I do agree that doing it that way could be a headache when trying to reuse the resources after the exam with everything being mixed around. Two things I'm doing this time is studying based on the test specifications, and creating a spec and refer guideline so I'll know exactly where to find the various topics when needed. For April I think I was just overwhelmed and just followed the direction of my resources without constantly following the specs to avoid wasting study time on topics not covered. 

 

[RickJames]

First two time i used a self built reference.

This time found a review book that covered/linked to 50% of the problems.  Had the class notes..tldr.

  For the others i dug but i taped indexes/problem lists to the front and back of large references.  Worked much better.

 

[KatyLied P.E.]

My 1st round I kept everything separate  ( looked online for general PE exam references and some specific topics) but didn't know if it would be better to combine so I thought I look in 1 place for multiple resources on same topic. I do agree that doing it that way could be a headache when trying to reuse the resources after the exam with everything being mixed around. Two things I'm doing this time is studying based on the test specifications, and creating a spec and refer guideline so I'll know exactly where to find the various topics when needed. For April I think I was just overwhelmed and just followed the direction of my resources without constantly following the specs to avoid wasting study time on topics not covered. 

Similar to the way I approached things.  GA Tech was my only review course.  The class provided a huge 3 ring binder with each subject tabbed.  As a result of adding additional material (internet stuff, sample test problems, etc.) I ended up expanding the one binder into two.  I carried those two binders along with other materials in  (CI sample tests, Spinup, Graffeo, etc).  In each section I also added a sheet of paper showing the location of sample test problems (NCEES, CI, Spinup, etc.) that were relevant to that section.  Basically a cross reference. 

 

[leggo PE]

The first time I took the P.E. exam, I self-studied. The second time, I took PPI's course. The third time, I took EET's breadth and depth classes.

I kept all of my materials separate between these three times. When I finally got to the EET stuff, I tried to consolidate everything for that class that I could in the two binders they gave me. This meant that I would put all of my solutions and printed out solutions to the practice problems in the binders also in the binders, even if it made my depth binder barely close. Part of the reason I did this was because I knew it would be more difficult to have to go to a separate binder to find the answer to a problem, and also that it would take a lot longer than having the answer right there would.

I pretty much disregarded all of my prior study materials save the CERM, a few textbooks, and the NCEES practice exams that I had. I bought into EET so hard, and really made sure I knew their resources. It worked for me.