PE Electrical Study Materials

[thecityofjoy]

Please post here for PE Electrical study materials .

Here is list of what I used (all books from amazon.com) :

Electrical Engineer's Guide to Passing PE (Graffeo)

Complex Imaginary Volume 1-4

NCEES Practice Exam

Electrical Machines and Drives by Wildi (read some chapters; not whole book)

Spin-up for PE Exam

NEC Code Handbook 2011

 

[eportn02]

I passed the E&C Power exam in MA with the following materials:

-NEC Handbook 2014

-NESC Handbook

-Ugly's Electrical References (This is truly the best little book ever!)

-School of PE review notes and practice problems

-NCEES practice exam

-Introduction to Power Electronics by Daniel W. Hart (since School of PE material didn't touch on any power electronic devices)

I had a few other books in my suitcase just as emergency references but wound up not even picking them up on exam day.

 

[lisfs]

I used the following for the EE Power Exam:

Electrical Engineer's Guide to Passing PE (Graffeo)

Complex Imaginary Volume 1-4

NCEES Practice Exam

Notes collected from E.B.

NEC Code Handbook 2014

NESC Handbook 2012

I thought I had the material down very well, but found myself struggle quite a bit during both morning & afternoon exam.  The code questions really threw me off and some others I've never come across in my studying.  How did you all think of the EE Power exam on the scale of 1-5 with 1 being the easiest and 5 being the most difficult? 

 

[eportn02]

On your scale of 1-5, I'd give it somewhere between a 3 and 4 for myself. I thought I was pretty well prepared too, and for the most part I think I was, but there were some questions that I'm still not sure how to answer, such as an out of the blue reference to a particular IEEE standard with which I am completely unfamiliar. 

Interesting that both of you used similar materials and I've never heard of most of them. 

 

[JLRITH]

Power Reference Manual for the ELectrical and Computer PE Exam - John A. Camara, PE

The Electrical Engineers Guide to Passing the Power PE Exam - Alexander S Graffeo

NCEES Practice Exam

NEC 2014 with tabs

Uglys reference

Power System Analysis and Design.  Glover & Sarma

The Guide to Passing the Power PE Exam was by far the best.  Spot on for problems and an excellent exam reference.  I made sure to tab sections and highlight relevant equations as the book is not well structured.  

Ugly's was useless for the exam, but a nice reference. 

The Power Reference Manual was useful on 2 problems.  Great reference though.  

Used the Power System Analysis and Design book for 2 problems.  

NCEES practice exam was spot on as well.  

I give the PE test a 1.  I spent 2 hours in the morning and 1.5 in the afternoon session.  

 

[eportn02]

Ugly's was useless for the exam, but a nice reference. 

Interesting, I used Ugly's a number of times during the exam. I remember at least two questions concerning power factor correction and instead of doing the lengthy calculations, I just grabbed the factor from Ugly's and saved a few minutes. (I went back after when I realized I had more than an hour remaining and checked this, but Ugly's always got me there). To each their own though; congrats.

 

[lisfs]

Interesting, I used Ugly's a number of times during the exam. I remember at least two questions concerning power factor correction and instead of doing the lengthy calculations, I just grabbed the factor from Ugly's and saved a few minutes. (I went back after when I realized I had more than an hour remaining and checked this, but Ugly's always got me there). To each their own though; congrats.

Thank you for the tips.  I brought the Ugly's reference book with me too, but I didn't use it at all.  Unfortunately, I used the long way to calculate thinking that I will get the correct answer for sure instead of second guessing.  If the Ugly's is good for look up of certain problems, then that's great.  I guess I didn't know how to look up the Ugly's reference.  If I fail this time, I'll spend more time looking at the Ugly's and learn how to use it more efficiently. 

 

[thecityofjoy]

Key to passing the PE exam is practicing problems ... as many as you can . Reading theory will not help . I probably put in far less effort than lot of people on this forum but managed to pass -- main reason is I did mainly problems 95% of the time. I did as many practice exams as I could (about 500) and wrote down both the question and solved answer . I did this in a 3 ring binder which I used as reference for the exam. Make sure to do one problem at least for every topic listed on NCEES syllabus for Power PE exam . This is the key to passing . Finally, make a cheat sheet of all the formula needed (do this week before exam) -- similar to Graffeo's book and tab the formula based on the topics. Review all the problems you worked on highlighting the equation used and write in the margin certain tricks to watch out for                                        (think of ways examiners could change question in the actual PE) .

Last but not least if there is only one word you can remember it is this : PROBLEMS -- practice as many as you can from Complex Imaginary, Spin up , Wildi ....

And practice problems that take maximum 6 minutes to solve ... forget the long convoluted ones -- there is not enough time in PE exam to solve them . Focus on 1 or 2 step problems requiring 6 minutes to solve ... easy!!

 

[sunguy]

Here's my study and reference material for oct 15 exam:

-School of PE review notes and practice problems (My main reference for exam. Some of their review material is basically taken from books like Wildi, Grianger so I didn't use these books)

-NEC Handbook 2014 (I focused on topics like cable calcs, motor circuits, ground cable sizes, OCPDs, outlets, lighting, hazardous locations, working clearances)

-NESC Handbook (Didn't use for studying but got familiar with the table of contents)

- Electrical Machines by BL Thereja (Excellent book for transformers, motors with great practice problems)

- Short circuit analysis MVA Method

- NCEES practice exam (Give this a try at early stages of studying to get a feel of the actual exam questions so that you can study accordingly)

- Complex imaginary all sets (The CI problems are easy and few are tricky but will help you familiarize the concepts)

I would  recommend to start studying the "Circuit analysis" first to get familiarized with PU, base, symmetrical components, etc..

 

[greenpunisher]

PE Electrical and Electronics. First time passer

- School of PE review notes and practice problems (My main reference for exam. Highly recommended and well worth money spent)

- NCEES PE practice exam

- Kaiser Practice Tests