DenverEngineer
Member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2016
- Messages
- 19
- Reaction score
- 2
Seriously, either we were all smart as hell this time, or they really lowered the cut score for us. Either way, I'll take it!
October 2016 Pass rates
- Thread starter Kam
- Start date
Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:
Andrew Reynolds
Member
I somehow passed the test with the lowest first time pass percentage. I'm a historically poor test taker, so I am somewhat surprised.
InternetUser
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2015
- Messages
- 48
- Reaction score
- 3
hjg7715
Well-known member
It is and is one of the reasons why I was a little disheartened when I learned I failed the first time. However, in analyzing the statistics and if you really talk to people who take the exam multiple times, you come to realize that people typically fail for 1 of 3 reasons. #1 They didn't adequate prepare or study, #2 they don't have sufficient knowledge or experience with the breadth and/or depth or #3 they're just poor test takers. And most often, lack of preparation is the main reason. Actually, I think you can overcome #2 and #3 with adequate studying and preparation. And even though a lot of people who are part of this forum will solicit advice and adjust their preparation before retaking the exam, there are a lot of repeat test takers not connected to networks of people like this who won't make any adjustments or put in the time needed to prepare and is the reason why that percentage is low. That's why forums like this are so beneficial so that people can connect with other people, get good advice and make the necessary adjustments in their preparation.
leggo PE
Straight Waffle-izer
G
Guest
.
Last edited:
G
Guest
.
Last edited:
hjg7715
Well-known member
As a 1 time repeater I can tell you why. People tend to only skim the subjects that they did well in based on their diagnostic results and spend more of their time on subjects and question types they did poorly with. What they don't understand is that a lot of the questions they struggled with wont be on the next test and they should have done a better job refreshing up on the subjects they did well in the first time. I would imagine that the majority of the repeat takers that pass are the ones taking it for the 3rd or fourth time...they've learned this valuable lesson by then.
wirelessengineer21
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2013
- Messages
- 80
- Reaction score
- 4
becuase "high performers" are removed from the pool for repeat takers. Your just left with the "average to below average performers.
wirelessengineer21
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2013
- Messages
- 80
- Reaction score
- 4
listen, i am a repeat taker. This is my 4th time taking it. I consider myself a high performer at work. I have been acknowleded by one at work. I have no shame in saying that if you pass this exam on your first go, you know your ****. No disputing that.
I didnt say you werent bright or smart etc if you failed once or more, i simply said you are not a high performer when t comes to taking this exam
leggo PE
Straight Waffle-izer
NM_Brown_Trout
Member
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2015
- Messages
- 23
- Reaction score
- 6
I managed to slip into the 62% for ENVE. Stoke is still high!
You have to remember that some of these tests, such as nuclear have an incredibly low sample size. For instance, there were 10-total nuclear repeat test takers. Not sure how many took it last cycle where there was a 0% pass rate, but its likely it was in the single digits. With such a small sample size, a few results one way or another can massively skew pass rates which is likely a huge reason behind seeing such volatility in some of the results from cycle to cycle.
People who are high performers *on the PE exam* are removed from the pool of test takers. Doesn't mean they're all high performers on other things although some of them will be. There are test takers who are very good at test taking. I'm not one of those people but I do always manage to pass. Both types are removed from the pool of repeat takers. There are then the people who just almost made it and I think there are quite a few of them from seeing the scores people are posting. They realize it, take a review course (or take one again) and pass the 2nd time. Then there are people who are not so good at taking exams. They take it a 3rd or 4th time. If you think about it the people on the border between passing and failing who fail the first time but pass the second mean that there are people who take 3 or 4 times to pass remaining in pool. This all acts to pull down the retake pass rate.
Another reason is people take exams completely outside their university major. It seemed to be content from my last 2.5 years in university. Need to take a review course and be very serious about it if the exam is completely outside your major, this would sort of be like going back to school and seems like this is what Power exam is like for a lot of people. Although 35% of my exam was outside my education and experience I could still solve most of the questions in that area by looking at how similar problems were solved in the practice exam, having my 2 references I needed the most (I brought others but only used 2 of them and Engineering Unit Conversions by Lindeburg is key for the PE exam across disciplines), and making educated guesses.
I studied around 4 hours for this exam on plane the night before. I've never studied more than around 8 hours for an exam. I wanted to take the review but couldn't. I've spent far far far more time worrying about the results and lurking on here!
Similar threads
