OCTOBER 2017 PE EXAM

[M.HILFI]

Good morning 

I have taken HVAC exam last Friday, can you tell me how was it if anyone took it

from point of view the exam was more complicated 

please write your opinion here and score the exam from 1 to 10 how was hard 

 

[enfinity]

I took the TFS exam on friday.

Obviously we can't go into specifics, but I felt that I did way poorer than I thought I would.  I had a false sense of security from the NCEES official practice exam for TFS, which I was able to smoke easily and finished super early in my practice runs.  Maybe I had just gotten used to those types of problems, that's probably my fault.

For the actual exam, again not being specific, but I felt there were a decent number of problems that were unexpected to show up.  They seemed more "peripheral" to TFS to me, and instead popped up a decent amount.  Even the easy "gimme" questions weren't as gimme as the practice exams.

I probably answered 52 questions with confidence (probably got 90% of those correct, the ones being wrong being something stupid).  I did "educated guessing" on about 10 questions (probably hit 40-50% of those), and then complete random guessing on 18 questions due to time constraints (25% by standard chance).  That is really not good.  I'm hoping for a low cut score.

 

[ezzieyguywuf]

I took the MDM exam last friday. Not sure if anyone else on here took that exam, but my thoughts are that I felt pretty well prepared, though there were a few questions that caught me off guard. More specifically (while not being too specific) there were two questions on the morning exam (is the morning exam common to all mech exams?) which I felt were altogether too ambiguous. I wasn't feeling so bad about the morning exam. On the afternoon exam, though, I felt there were a number of questions (at least two) that either did not have sufficient information or where the information provided was misleading - what I mean by this is that the question seemed straightforward enough, I solved the problem and found that my solution would be off my an order of magnitude from what was presented. This means that either I solved the problem completely wrong (which is possible, but I literally solved some of these 5 times) or that something is amiss with the answers provided.

Overall I would say I feel goodish about the exam, but I'm a bit concerned regarding the afternoon exam due to the number of problems I had "issues" with, only a handful of which I would attribute to my own shortcomings.

 

[namod65]

I took HVAC and I think I did pretty well. Skipped one question in the morning, and skipped one in the afternoon. Answered all the "general knowledge" questions that didn't require any calculation, but circled a few to come back and revisit. Finished both sessions with over an hour left and had plenty of time to revisit the ones I circled. Only 2 questions out of the 80 I didn't arrive at an answer that was one of the four choices. So here's to hoping I didn't get "tricked" 15 to 20 times lol.

I thought the NCEES practice tests were a good representation of the exam. Now of course the questions didn't ask you the same exact things the practice exam did, but if you actually knew the topics well, and not just memorize how to solve the practice exam, then you could easy figure out that they're asking you something slightly different and you need this variable instead of this one, etc...

I'll post a lengthy review of my study process and what were the best review materials in the main thread once I get confirmation that I passed. Fingers still crossed until then lol.

 

[andy10889]

I took HVAC and I think I did pretty well. Skipped one question in the morning, and skipped one in the afternoon. Answered all the "general knowledge" questions that didn't require any calculation, but circled a few to come back and revisit. Finished both sessions with over an hour left and had plenty of time to revisit the ones I circled. Only 2 questions out of the 80 I didn't arrive at an answer that was one of the four choices. So here's to hoping I didn't get "tricked" 15 to 20 times lol.

I thought the NCEES practice tests were a good representation of the exam. Now of course the questions didn't ask you the same exact things the practice exam did, but if you actually knew the topics well, and not just memorize how to solve the practice exam, then you could easy figure out that they're asking you something slightly different and you need this variable instead of this one, etc...

I'll post a lengthy review of my study process and what were the best review materials in the main thread once I get confirmation that I passed. Fingers still crossed until then lol.

I had the same experience. Guessed on two questions total. Got answers on all the rest. I felt it was easier than the SMS practice test and about on par with the NCEES test.

 

[Feras]

I took the TFS exam on friday.

Obviously we can't go into specifics, but I felt that I did way poorer than I thought I would.  I had a false sense of security from the NCEES official practice exam for TFS, which I was able to smoke easily and finished super early in my practice runs.  Maybe I had just gotten used to those types of problems, that's probably my fault.

For the actual exam, again not being specific, but I felt there were a decent number of problems that were unexpected to show up.  They seemed more "peripheral" to TFS to me, and instead popped up a decent amount.  Even the easy "gimme" questions weren't as gimme as the practice exams.

I probably answered 52 questions with confidence (probably got 90% of those correct, the ones being wrong being something stupid).  I did "educated guessing" on about 10 questions (probably hit 40-50% of those), and then complete random guessing on 18 questions due to time constraints (25% by standard chance).  That is really not good.  I'm hoping for a low cut score.

I had a very similar experience, the exam had couple of questions that you didn't expect to see in TFS.  The morning session was easier than the afternoon one.  A good part of the exam was something relatively similar to the NCEES newest practice exam (with a bit of tweaking).  

The exam was harder than I was looking for.  Wating for the results

All the best to you all! 

 

[EngineerGirlPE]

I also felt almost exactly the same way about TFS.  I did not feel good about the afternoon session at all and thought it was just me.  Thank you all for sharing your stories!  Hope we all pass!  Wishing everyone all the best! 

 

[csievers915]

I took the TFS exam on friday.

Obviously we can't go into specifics, but I felt that I did way poorer than I thought I would.  I had a false sense of security from the NCEES official practice exam for TFS, which I was able to smoke easily and finished super early in my practice runs.  Maybe I had just gotten used to those types of problems, that's probably my fault.

For the actual exam, again not being specific, but I felt there were a decent number of problems that were unexpected to show up.  They seemed more "peripheral" to TFS to me, and instead popped up a decent amount.  Even the easy "gimme" questions weren't as gimme as the practice exams.

I probably answered 52 questions with confidence (probably got 90% of those correct, the ones being wrong being something stupid).  I did "educated guessing" on about 10 questions (probably hit 40-50% of those), and then complete random guessing on 18 questions due to time constraints (25% by standard chance).  That is really not good.  I'm hoping for a low cut score.

I also took TFS and also did a lot poorer than I expected.  I felt confident going into the exam based on my studying and having taken a review course (Dr. Toms), but the test really caught me of guard with the level of difficulty. Based on the number I answered with confidence, and the number I guessed on, there is no way I passed. I'm very disappointed.

 

[enfinity]

I had a very similar experience, the exam had couple of questions that you didn't expect to see in TFS.  The morning session was easier than the afternoon one.  A good part of the exam was something relatively similar to the NCEES newest practice exam (with a bit of tweaking).  

The exam was harder than I was looking for.  Wating for the results

All the best to you all! 

I also felt almost exactly the same way about TFS.  I did not feel good about the afternoon session at all and thought it was just me.  Thank you all for sharing your stories!  Hope we all pass!  Wishing everyone all the best! 

I'm glad to hear this... not that I"m glad that you guys did "poorly", but that others also thought the test was hard as well.  I was afraid I'd be the only one.

I found the exam to be definitely (not slightly, but much) harder than the practice NCEES exam. Did anyone else feel the same way?

 

[sbrookef]

This past Friday, I took MDM. Morning for me was easier than afternoon (blindly guessed on about 3-4 questions). Afternoon exam I think I had more time management issues, or perhaps the questions were harder, and I wound up guessing on about 5 of the problems (some were educated guesses). Even though the pass rate for the exam is 75%, for instance, I was not under the impression you needed a 75% of the questions right to pass. I thought that proctors or PEs of some sort took the PE exam and then questions that were "unfair" got thrown out. I thought I also read on this forum that people that got around 50 or 55 questions right had passed, and that is certainly not a raw score of 75%. In any case, no matter how the grading is, we all won't find out for another 8-10 weeks about our passing score and I'm going to try to forget about it as much as possible so I don't stress myself out waiting for the results that are no longer in my control. Best of luck! 

 

[goast55]

This past Friday, I took MDM. Morning for me was easier than afternoon (blindly guessed on about 3-4 questions). Afternoon exam I think I had more time management issues, or perhaps the questions were harder, and I wound up guessing on about 5 of the problems (some were educated guesses). Even though the pass rate for the exam is 75%, for instance, I was not under the impression you needed a 75% of the questions right to pass. I thought that proctors or PEs of some sort took the PE exam and then questions that were "unfair" got thrown out. I thought I also read on this forum that people that got around 50 or 55 questions right had passed, and that is certainly not a raw score of 75%. In any case, no matter how the grading is, we all won't find out for another 8-10 weeks about our passing score and I'm going to try to forget about it as much as possible so I don't stress myself out waiting for the results that are no longer in my control. Best of luck! 

I took the MDM exam last friday. Not sure if anyone else on here took that exam, but my thoughts are that I felt pretty well prepared, though there were a few questions that caught me off guard. More specifically (while not being too specific) there were two questions on the morning exam (is the morning exam common to all mech exams?) which I felt were altogether too ambiguous. I wasn't feeling so bad about the morning exam. On the afternoon exam, though, I felt there were a number of questions (at least two) that either did not have sufficient information or where the information provided was misleading - what I mean by this is that the question seemed straightforward enough, I solved the problem and found that my solution would be off my an order of magnitude from what was presented. This means that either I solved the problem completely wrong (which is possible, but I literally solved some of these 5 times) or that something is amiss with the answers provided.

Overall I would say I feel goodish about the exam, but I'm a bit concerned regarding the afternoon exam due to the number of problems I had "issues" with, only a handful of which I would attribute to my own shortcomings.

I feel the same way.  Not really sure what to expect, but I guess all we can do is enjoy life and see how it turns out.

 

[glowe]

I took HVAC and I think I did pretty well. Skipped one question in the morning, and skipped one in the afternoon. Answered all the "general knowledge" questions that didn't require any calculation, but circled a few to come back and revisit. Finished both sessions with over an hour left and had plenty of time to revisit the ones I circled. Only 2 questions out of the 80 I didn't arrive at an answer that was one of the four choices. So here's to hoping I didn't get "tricked" 15 to 20 times lol.

I thought the NCEES practice tests were a good representation of the exam. Now of course the questions didn't ask you the same exact things the practice exam did, but if you actually knew the topics well, and not just memorize how to solve the practice exam, then you could easy figure out that they're asking you something slightly different and you need this variable instead of this one, etc...

I'll post a lengthy review of my study process and what were the best review materials in the main thread once I get confirmation that I passed. Fingers still crossed until then lol.

I also took the HVAC exam. I thought the morning was very straightforward, and  the afternoon was more challenging but not too hard. The last two problems of the afternoon session seemed like the same problem, just different numbers and a slightly different description. I thought it was odd to have almost the exact same problem twice...

 

[andy10889]

This past Friday, I took MDM. Morning for me was easier than afternoon (blindly guessed on about 3-4 questions). Afternoon exam I think I had more time management issues, or perhaps the questions were harder, and I wound up guessing on about 5 of the problems (some were educated guesses). Even though the pass rate for the exam is 75%, for instance, I was not under the impression you needed a 75% of the questions right to pass. I thought that proctors or PEs of some sort took the PE exam and then questions that were "unfair" got thrown out. I thought I also read on this forum that people that got around 50 or 55 questions right had passed, and that is certainly not a raw score of 75%. In any case, no matter how the grading is, we all won't find out for another 8-10 weeks about our passing score and I'm going to try to forget about it as much as possible so I don't stress myself out waiting for the results that are no longer in my control. Best of luck! 

To add some insight.  I failed at 49 correct this April.

 

[sayed]

Ok! so the consensus is: hvac was the easy one and everyone should have taken that one

the only difficult thing about the exam was the chart look ups. I killed so much time because of them. When i was half way done in the morning i felt good and was about to use the restroom, except the proctor told me we had an hour left :blink: . i rushed and ended up guessing at least 5 questions

afternoon was easier. maybe guessed 3 and had about 25 minutes extra.

i'm glad i brought my ashrae handbook set. i needed them for about 5 question look ups

 

[cetavion]

I left my post on general PE thread and copy it to here:

I took thermal and fluid. I also looked through and solved every problem on NCEES sample exams -2001,2008,2011, and 2016, but I felt the actual exam is pretty harder than the sample problem sets. I am not sure I am able to make 70% mark... The morning session was okay compared to the afternoon. I think I guestimated 5 problems, but there should be some mistakes other 35 questions. For the afternoon session, that's just an OMG. After going through all problems in the afternoon, I have left 14 problems which I did not have a good clue at all. I was able to find answers to 5 problems by looking at RM, but overall I left random answers on 9 problems. Of course, there should be some mistakes on other 31 problems in the afternoon. I am leaning toward more pessimistic on my result.... 

Thermo fluid was so hard... Some of the problems are no clue to take an engineering guess... 

 

[namod65]

I also took the HVAC exam. I thought the morning was very straightforward, and  the afternoon was more challenging but not too hard. The last two problems of the afternoon session seemed like the same problem, just different numbers and a slightly different description. I thought it was odd to have almost the exact same problem twice...

I will agree with you about those last problems. I felt like there were a few more repeats as well. A few other times I was reading the question and thinking to myself, "this can't be right, they already asked me this question before?" Maybe it's just the luck of the draw with how they randomly select 80 questions from their archive of exam questions?

 

[justdoitNG]

I also took the HVAC exam. I thought the morning was very straightforward, and  the afternoon was more challenging but not too hard. The last two problems of the afternoon session seemed like the same problem, just different numbers and a slightly different description. I thought it was odd to have almost the exact same problem twice...

I agree, AM section was easier than the afternoon section in HVAC test. Overall I think I guessed on about 5-6 problems total..I am sure I will make few other mistakes..this was my 2nd time around..I did feel better this time come out..I hope I pass..ASHRAE handbooks were super helpful..this was one of the ref material I did not take last time (Apri)!!..keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[namod65]

I agree, AM section was easier than the afternoon section in HVAC test. Overall I think I guessed on about 5-6 problems total..I am sure I will make few other mistakes..this was my 2nd time around..I did feel better this time come out..I hope I pass..ASHRAE handbooks were super helpful..this was one of the ref material I did not take last time (Apri)!!..keeping my fingers crossed.

Unless you are very experienced HVAC consulting engineer (like my bosses who can pull random design facts out of their ass since they've been doing it 40 years), there's no way you would do well on many of the questions without all 4 ASHRAE books. I took it for the first time Friday and now I can absolutely understand how hard of a time you had the first time without them.

 

[enfinity]

I left my post on general PE thread and copy it to here:

I took thermal and fluid. I also looked through and solved every problem on NCEES sample exams -2001,2008,2011, and 2016, but I felt the actual exam is pretty harder than the sample problem sets. I am not sure I am able to make 70% mark... The morning session was okay compared to the afternoon. I think I guestimated 5 problems, but there should be some mistakes other 35 questions. For the afternoon session, that's just an OMG. After going through all problems in the afternoon, I have left 14 problems which I did not have a good clue at all. I was able to find answers to 5 problems by looking at RM, but overall I left random answers on 9 problems. Of course, there should be some mistakes on other 31 problems in the afternoon. I am leaning toward more pessimistic on my result.... 

Thermo fluid was so hard... Some of the problems are no clue to take an engineering guess... 

Honestly it sounds like you passed.  From your description, you confidently answered 61 questions well, guesstimated on about 10, and random guessed on 9? That should clearly take you over the 70% mark (56 questions correct) in my opinion.  For comparison, I answered 52 questions confidently, guesstimated 10, and random guessed on 18.

I am relieved to hear everyone has thought that TFS exam was tough, and it's not just me.  Maybe the cut score will be lower. 

So, since you took the 4 NCEES sample exams, you would confirm that you thought this exam was more difficult than any of those sample exams???

 

[sayed]

Unless you are very experienced HVAC consulting engineer (like my bosses who can pull random design facts out of their ass since they've been doing it 40 years), there's no way you would do well on many of the questions without all 4 ASHRAE books. I took it for the first time Friday and now I can absolutely understand how hard of a time you had the first time without them.

there were only a handful of ashrae questions. 90% of the test was number crunching and conceptual.

One may still do well without the handbooks... at least this time around