October 2020 Post Exam Wait Period - Welcome to the Suck

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I propose a new Phase 7, @RBHeadge PE.  Frantically checking NCEES, even though you've already passed/have stamped things, terrified that they're somehow going to delete your exam and it was all a farce and you need to re-sit for the exam because you're not really an engineer:

View attachment 19118

*existential dread rises as I wait for this to be modified somehow*
This is exactly me. Even though it's been an entire year since I passed, I periodically still log on to NCEES just to make sure that the passed result is still there and I didn't hallucinate it all somehow. 

 
*phew*

50537922701_8e73c04597_z.jpg


 
hopefully it's gets quicker as more disciplines transition to CBT?
The SE in April 2022 is going to be very odd, especially in Iowa, if they keep offering it.  2 people in the whole state each day. And this year on Day 2, both of us were from the same area. 3 hours from the exam site.

 
The period of suck is real. Took the WRE depth and have been waking up thinking of things I did wrong and random problems I missed. Hopefully did well enough to never have to do that again though! Since we’re all sitting stuck in the period of suck, does anyone know the grading difference between the paper exam and the CBT exams? How do people who take a discipline with CBT get their pass/fail back so fast? I though NCEES did some crazy statistics, analysis, and wizardry behind the scenes and that’s what takes so long? Not that fact that they have to feed thousands of scantrons through a machine. 

 
does anyone know the grading difference between the paper exam and the CBT exams? How do people who take a discipline with CBT get their pass/fail back so fast? I though NCEES did some crazy statistics, analysis, and wizardry behind the scenes and that’s what takes so long?
I don't think anyone here knows or is in a position to say exactly what happens behind the scenes. But if you use a little knowledge of security, logistics, and QM/QC you can sort of make some educated guesses.

The P&P exam requires:

  • physically collecting, scanning, and manually grading tens of thousands of exams sheets from over a hundred locations internationally
  • For security purposes they also have to retrieve and account for all of the test books and other sensitive materials 

    investigate and determine what to do if things are missing

[*]investigating and adjudicating incidents of potential cheating

  • like looking though all confiscated materials: books and notes page-by-page; electronic scanning can be more involved 

[*]all exams results of a given administration are released on the same day. e.g. twice a year

[*]scoring metric is 1 pt for each correct answer, total points compared against the cut score for that exams administration

The CBT:

  • No physical materials to collect, transport, account, process, etc
  • security is done locally on site, so less to investigate
  • all exams results are released on the same day usually on Tuesdays(?) the week after the exam is administered
  • scoring metric is 1 pt for each correct answer, total points compared against the cut score for that exams administration
green=same; red= different

 
The SE in April 2022 is going to be very odd, especially in Iowa, if they keep offering it.  2 people in the whole state each day. And this year on Day 2, both of us were from the same area. 3 hours from the exam site.
Same with VT, there was maybe 1 person each cycle I witnessed (so 9 times including proctoring). VT has a small test pool anyway - it was 15-24 people last time I took it (the times blur together lol)

 

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