Oct 18 PE Exam

[RadioBox]

By any chance, can the cut off for passing be 50 or less than 50? What do you guys think? I'm new to the forum

Nope. I wish I could tell you other wise.

But it’s safe to assume 75% is passing. So, you can miss 20 questions and pass.

 

[Enginer282]

What do you guys realistically think the cutoff score is? 

 

[Drewism]

Pretty much the morning and afternoon sessions were the same for me.

A few WTF type questions which I expected. Some straight forward, others were educated guesses and the others were complete guesses. I would say I knew about 3/4 of the exam material. The other 1/8 were educated guesses and the other 1/8 were complete guesses. This is pretty spot on to what others have said with previous exams.

For the straight forward questions, my muscle memory kicked in but still confirmed it with some references like Wildi, Graffeo and Eng Pro Guides. Educated guesses were made based on reading reference material and eliminating choices. My most used references were NEC, Wildi, Graffeo, EngProGuides and NESC in order of importance. A few uses of my IEEE Green Book and Power Systems Analysis book but not that much. My school of PE notes were kind of useless. They were too generic based on the questions asked.

Lots of qualitative questions and not so much quantitative. I feel 50/50 about it. 50% I passed and 50% I failed. It can go either way.  I guess time will tell. I'm just disappointed most of what I studied really wasn't covered. That's all I can say about that. Just don't give up hope people. It isn't over until it's over.

 

[DLD PE]

Pretty much the morning and afternoon sessions were the same for me.

A few WTF type questions which I expected. Some straight forward, others were educated guesses and the others were complete guesses. I would say I knew about 3/4 of the exam material. The other 1/8 were educated guesses and the other 1/8 were complete guesses. This is pretty spot on to what others have said with previous exams.

For the straight forward questions, my muscle memory kicked in but still confirmed it with some references like Wildi, Graffeo and Eng Pro Guides. Educated guesses were made based on reading reference material and eliminating choices. My most used references were NEC, Wildi, Graffeo, EngProGuides and NESC in order of importance. A few uses of my IEEE Green Book and Power Systems Analysis book but not that much. My school of PE notes were kind of useless. They were too generic based on the questions asked.

Lots of qualitative questions and not so much quantitative. I feel 50/50 about it. 50% I passed and 50% I failed. It can go either way.  I guess time will tell. I'm just disappointed most of what I studied really wasn't covered. That's all I can say about that. Just don't give up hope people. It isn't over until it's over.

Very close to my experience, even on references. I definitely did better on the morning session though.

 

[Invisible]

Finally someone spoke what I felt. Even I felt that first and second half were equally difficult for me. In fact I felt second half was better than the first half which I felt was really bad. But was surprised to c everyone saying otherwise. For some reason, I didn't count the questions I answered confidently. So unable to get an estimate of how much I may score. But honestly not having a huge hope on the exam. But I have seen everyone telling that the exam was difficult and they have no hopes on passing but still end up passing the exam. Hope the same thing happens to me

 

[ellen3720]

There are several questions I can't stop thinking about and I still can't figure out what the right answers would have been... 

 

[Drewism]

Finally someone spoke what I felt. Even I felt that first and second half were equally difficult for me. In fact I felt second half was better than the first half which I felt was really bad. But was surprised to c everyone saying otherwise. For some reason, I didn't count the questions I answered confidently. So unable to get an estimate of how much I may score. But honestly not having a huge hope on the exam. But I have seen everyone telling that the exam was difficult and they have no hopes on passing but still end up passing the exam. Hope the same thing happens to me

Yes same here. Afternoon was slightly easier for me. I just want to pass. These days I rarely want anything out of life. This would be one of the biggest things I want. I don't want to go through the whole procedure again.

 

[DLD PE]

I thought the morning was a little better but they were pretty close.  The afternoon session started great but then the questions got tough real quick. Luckily a huge chunk of the end of both sections was relaying/protection stuff which I know like the back of my hand because that’s what I do for work. 

I’m kicking myself because I know I got 5-6 questions wrong having looked up the answers afterwards or noticing something during the afternoon session that shedded light on a morning question.  Qualitative questions, of course.  In addition, I flat out guessed on 2-3.  The rest are a spectrum of totally confident to somewhat confident.  I feel pretty good about getting more than 56 right which from what I’ve read should be good enough but we’ll just have to see.  This isn’t graded on a curve so hoping the best for you all!

If it's not graded in a curve, then why is there no set passing score?  If there was a set passing score/%, it would make sense to run the answer sheets through a computer (scantron) and we would have our results in a day or two.  There would be nothing to analyze. 

 

[Invisible]

If u r expecting More than 56 and you'll pass dude. I'm expecting something around 50 or 51 and if lucky 52-55. Not more than 55 at any cost. And I'm still expecting to pass Lol. Just thinking being positive and having faith may give a lot of good things in life. Hopefully I come back after the results and say that I passed(though the chances don't look as of now . I know people may think I'm funny. But I'm hoping for a miracle. I've heard that people can pass with 51. Btw. If v gonna get results after 42 days, v have already gone past 1 day. And guys just relax. This exam could heavily change my career too since I'm working in a field where going up the ladder highly relies on this exam. But still, this is not the end if the world. So don't stress out a lot. 

 

[BirdGrave]

What do you guys realistically think the cutoff score is? 

Seems to hover around 56 correct answers.  Sometimes a little more or less depending upon the difficulty of the exam.

 

[Invisible]

What do you guys realistically think the cutoff score is? 

I guess its gonna be 50.My intuition is mostly right in many things.Let us see after 6 weeks if I am  right.Remember my name if I am right

 

[Szar]

I guess its gonna be 50.My intuition is mostly right in many things.Let us see after 6 weeks if I am  right.Remember my name if I am right

Your name is not Baconator.  You do not pass go. 

You drift slowly into the dark realms of ambiguity, this post forgotten and discarded like a politician's pre-election promise, never to be uttered again in light of day.

 

[ME_VT_PE]

If it's not graded in a curve, then why is there no set passing score?  If there was a set passing score/%, it would make sense to run the answer sheets through a computer (scantron) and we would have our results in a day or two.  There would be nothing to analyze. 

Just calm down buddy...

 

[Phenomenon083]

I studied for about 7 months. Took a review course, took 9 practice tests, basically studied a lot.I was feeling very prepared going in to the test. 

The morning was ok, felt unsure of about 6-8 questions. 

Afternoon was tough. Felt unsure of about 9-10 questions. 

Now I feel a little discouraged. 

Based on your experience what do you think how to prepare best for a April 2019 examinee?

 

[RBHeadge PE]

If u r expecting More than 56 and you'll pass dude.

Most likely. We've seen a cut score about 56 a couple times before though.

From what I can gather, the final cut score is determined after evaluating all the results to find things like errors, bad question wording, or multiple correct answers.  Speculating a bit, I would wager a tentative cut score is set prior to the test based on how PE’s do on it (or whatever criteria) but they still want to do their due diligence with all the results data available to adjust that if appropriate.  Hell, maybe this happens after the test as well since it takes so damn long to get our results back. 

Welcome to Phase 2-A! The thread below should provide some decent background for everything you described:



The EE exams already had their cut score meetings. So unless things are wildly off (don't bet on it), the EEower isn't the cause of a 'delay'.

Seems to hover around 56 correct answers.  Sometimes a little more or less depending upon the difficulty of the exam.

See thread above. For background only: we've seen cut scores from ~52/53 to 57, from after the fact posts. Since we don't have hard data for every test we can't do the statistics, but anecdotally the mean, median, and mode is below 56. Rarely is it ever 56 or higher. Take all of this with a huge grain of salt.

I guess its gonna be 50.My intuition is mostly right in many things.Let us see after 6 weeks if I am  right.Remember my name if I am right

See above.

 

[Invisible]

Most likely. We've seen a cut score about 56 a couple times before though.

Welcome to Phase 2-A! The thread below should provide some decent background for everything you described:



The EE exams already had their cut score meetings. So unless things are wildly off (don't bet on it), the EEower isn't the cause of a 'delay'.

See thread above. For background only: we've seen cut scores from ~52/53 to 57, from after the fact posts. Since we don't have hard data for every test we can't do the statistics, but anecdotally the mean, median, and mode is below 56. Rarely is it ever 56 or higher. Take all of this with a huge grain of salt.

See above.

Ya buddy. I'm not making a blind assumption. Texas gives u percentage. And NCEES gives a diagnostic report if you fail. The number I gave you was from what I heard from someone who failed at Texas last time. I've seen some posts in this forum too. And still. V will know in 40 more days. 

 

[RBHeadge PE]

Texas artificially curves the reported percentage to a passing score=70. So if the passing score is, hypothetically, 54, it gets reported as a 70%, and not 67% or 68%.

But yes, based on past observation, getting above 56/80 has always been a pass.

 

[Engineer7]

Based on your experience what do you think how to prepare best for a April 2019 examinee?

I started off with Zach Stone's course. Made a custom binder for myself organized with the course materials. Tabbed the NEC book, and obtained the remaining code books (didn't tab those). Then started practice tests. 

 

[DerekJeter]

I am also kind of surprised how many people were saying the morning session went well. For me, the morning session was a massacre and the afternoon session was so much easier. I guarantee I was at least 10 questions more correct on the afternoon session than the morning. I'm also kicking myself knowing a few questions I answered incorrectly and highly doubtful I passed but there's not much I can do about it now. 

Also, when others on this board are saying a "cut score" of 56, are they referring to a hard cutoff pass/fail for 56/80 or 56/100?

 

[JohnLee]

I am also kind of surprised how many people were saying the morning session went well. For me, the morning session was a massacre and the afternoon session was so much easier. I guarantee I was at least 10 questions more correct on the afternoon session than the morning. I'm also kicking myself knowing a few questions I answered incorrectly and highly doubtful I passed but there's not much I can do about it now. 

Also, when others on this board are saying a "cut score" of 56, are they referring to a hard cutoff pass/fail for 56/80 or 56/100?

56/80  70%