For the duplicate question, to me it looked like one was in a final format and one was in a preliminary format. In one question, a couple words were bold, there was an additional clarifying phrase added, and the question was in a separate paragraph below the paragraph with the problem information.
Those were my exact thoughts when I saw it. IIRC, the few bolded words could be changed to make any one of the four answers correct. And as was previously mentioned, I spent more time than necessary flipping back and forth to check to find the difference between the two questions. It legit took me ~4 more minutes to answer the same question the second time as it did the first. There's absolutely no chance that it was intentional, as there was only one question separating the two. If one was in the morning session and one was in the evening, then there would at least be a (weak) argument that it was intentional.
As for the exam in general, count me in among the relatively few that found the AM portion to be tougher than the afternoon. The PM was heavy on code and I use the NEC for work, so that was the only portion of the exam that I was fresh for when I started studying. I had 70E with me, which was good as there were ~3 questions on that. Work didn't have a copy of the NESC to steal, which cost me 1 or 2 questions and potentially $350 + hours more of studying.
I thought that Wildi's book would be a sufficient emergency reference for anything that came up, but if I failed (I'm 50/50), then I will definitely bring more in depth motor and especially power systems. Wildi did help me answer at least one question correctly, maybe 2 or 3. My go to reference was printouts of all of Zach Stone's lessons (I know that he reads all of this, so I'll finish this post answering his feedback email as I think that it will be useful for future test takers, whether or not they purchase your product):
-Caught off guard/unprepared for questions: I assumed that the NESC and 70E would make up, at most, 2 questions, with the NEC taking up the other ~10 code questions. They took up 4 or 5. I don't want to flirt with giving too much information, but transformer loss questions did not use terminology that I was familiar with. Maybe I missed it in Zach's material, but I didn't find it in Wildi's book either. That's another thing that additional reference books would have helped with.
-Subjects that I was overprepared for: I don't recall any quantitative equivalent circuit type questions for motors or xfmers. There were a handful qualitative questions., so it was much more important to understand what was happening moreso than solving problems. I was a bit under-prepared for that. Not that I was ignorant or lazy in understanding motors/xfmrs, but they had a few pretty deep questions. I don't recall any lighting questions. Not as much economics stuff as I expected, only 1 or 2 questions I believe.
-Major surprises: already covered. Definitely bring a copy of 70E and NESC. I will say that the questions asked that required these references were easy. I work in the MEP field, focusing on 277/480V and 120/208V systems, only dealing with 13.8kV+ on a few campuses and high rises, and bossman kind of handled those aspects. Despite my ignorance, I am confident on the 70E questions. I guessed on the 1 or 2 NESC questions. Simply bring these references and you'll do well.
-What would I do differently: As mentioned, bring NESC and more focused motor/power distribution references. I also procrastinated studying, put in a few hours here or there but didn't REALLY start until a month before the PE. Biggest regret was not taking the PE as soon as I could have after graduating. After 4 years working in the field, I was much more prepared the NEC stuff, but rusty on literally everything else. I can't emphasize this enough: if your state allows you to take the PE anytime after passing the FE, then take a shot ASAP. I know that it sucks to potentially lose out on $350 early in your career when you're probably not making a ton of money and have student loan debt, but I really think it's worth it. If it doesn't go well, then so be it, take it again when you're closer to your 4 years experience.
-How to improve Zach's product: Include a section and video about bus schemes. It's not something people have to be an expert on, but they need to be familiar and have a reference. There were two questions referring to the same scheme (one of the schemes mentioned in the following link) that I guessed on because I was only VERY vaguely familiar with from having briefly covered it in a power class ~7 years ago.
https://testguy.net/content/256-electrical-substation-bus-schemes-explained
Good luck everyone. Not to keep pushing Zach's material, but it's definitely worth paying for 1 month of his service even if just to print out his lessons. Those were my go-to references and his "Key formulas" at the end of each section are enough to solve almost all quantitative questions on the exam.
