Opinion: OCT '12 Electrical Power Exam

[ndekens]

Well another test has come and gone....how many? I dont know I have lost count after 11 or so.

Anyway, this OCT exam I took the coveted approach of not studying on dang bit! Im talking I never even looked at my notes and books!

However the strangest thing happend during the exam; I felt like it was too easy! I mean I came up with an answer for each question and all the stuff I have studied for in the previouse exams was right at my fingertips.

Now I dont want to jynx myself by saying this but I really do feel like the exam this fall was a lot tamer then last April's exam.

What do you guys think?

 

[Gaussy]

I took EE-Power too (first time). The exam had a few topics I hadn't reviewed. I think I spent the better part of two months covering topics that weren't on the test. Maybe I should've tried your approach.

It did seems like most of the questions were 2-4 minute types, rather than the expected 6 minute types. Let's see if my score reflects that.

 

[ee1234]

First and foremost, I will say that the PE Power exam was nothing like I was expecting! I did the Spin-Up and NCEES sample exam books multiple times and in my opinion very few problems on the PE were representative of what I prepared for.

I found the afternoon questions to be EXTREMELY easy. The morning questions were a bit trickier I thought, even if they were more conceptual than mathematical. I was prepared for a more 'math-based' exam, and not concepts questions. I think I did 15-20 actual calculations on the exam.

The results of the AM questions will definitely determine whether or not I passed. We'll see...

Best of luck to everyone! Now we wait.

 

[danderson]

Just shows how people have different ideas on things. After the morning, I felt I was sitting pretty good. The afternoon was absolutely brutal for me. It just didn't follow along with what I studied. I finished the morning in about 2 hours. Afternoon took about 3 and a half, but I ended having to swag about half the afternoon problems.

It just didn't seem to follow the format they provided. I could work the NCEES problems and all 4 of the complex imaginary exams as well without much trouble. Way too much stuff I flat did not study appeared on the test. I have a fortune tied up in reference material, so to say I am disheartened would be an understatement.

 

[jayache80]

I thought the afternoon was much easier than the morning.

 

[Lielec11]

Just shows how people have different ideas on things. After the morning, I felt I was sitting pretty good. The afternoon was absolutely brutal for me. It just didn't follow along with what I studied. I finished the morning in about 2 hours. Afternoon took about 3 and a half, but I ended having to swag about half the afternoon problems.

It just didn't seem to follow the format they provided. I could work the NCEES problems and all 4 of the complex imaginary exams as well without much trouble. Way too much stuff I flat did not study appeared on the test. I have a fortune tied up in reference material, so to say I am disheartened would be an understatement.

I'm with you, I felt like the afternoon was tough. I found myself "guessing" on a bunch of them, and without much of an "educated" input either. I definitely had much more trouble witht he conceptual problems. Some I couldn't even rule out a single answer. Hopefully I picked it up enough in other parts to pass.

 

[LHarKSUCat]

I definitely breezed through the morning session and thought the afternoon session was much more difficult. 3 people took the power test from my company, 2 of us are in the T&D department (both thought the morning was much easier) and one from our generation department (who thought the afternoon was easier.

It all just depends on your focus in the power engineering world with your day to day job. The afternoon session had a lot more generation/motor questions, so those of us that focus on T&D found it more difficult than those that focus on those topics.

This is my 2nd attempt, and I do feel better coming out of the test this time than I did in the spring.

 

[kona311]

This was my 1st attempt at the PE exam. I studied the CI and NCEES sample exams, brought in a bunch of popular reference books with me. I'm 50/50... won't be surprised if I passed or failed. I agree that I thought the exam was MUCH different from the sample exams. Things that came up a lot on sample exams were almost non-existent on the actual exam.