PE Exam Gotchas

[EdinNO]

Anyone have anything unexpected (other than specific exam questions) that caught them on the exam?

Here are mine:

1) The lighting was dim. Halfway through the am session, I could only read the exam questions but not any of my reference materials (smaller print). I began just trying to whittle down the choices. After about 45 minutes of this, I remebered I had a second pair of glasses. I tried to use the secod pair as a magnifying glass in my left hand, read the references, write and type on the calculator with my right hand. This didn't work. Eventually I put the second pair on over the first pair, which actually helped to my surprise!!! It magnified the dimly lit words in my references. Ifinished the rest of the am and all of the pm session this way. Man, I felt weird and a few proctors gave me some oddball looks, but it worked!

LESSON: Have extra reading or ey glasses or even possibly a table top, battery operated lamp. I have to admit though, that until recently I was using too strong non-prescription reading glasses and kind of ruined my eyes. A while back, I scaled back to a lower magnification, but my eyes still aren't right yet. They are also very sensitive to low light conditions.

2) My nerves got the best of me. My stomach was cramping so bad in the am session, I had to run to the bathroom- not sure if to throw up or what! I wasted so much time on this. I'm not sure how I could have gotten around this though.

Anyone esle have any "gotchas" they can post that might help others?

Ed

 

[TouchDown]

My main "holy crap" moment was during the 2nd half of the day when I was doing HVAC and i was wishing I had updated reference books. I brought an older version that a friend loaned me and I think I could have gotten another 3-4 questions easily if I had the newer versions???

The stress and stomach thing I'm sure is pretty real with many of the takers. I was extremely nervous before I went into the exam, but since it was my first time I didn't know what to expect, I'm sure I'd have calmed down significantly the 2nd time around.

The night before I got into town where they were doing the exam so I didn't have to worry about traffic and the 2 hour drive the morning before the exam. I treated myself to a nice dinner and didn't stress too hard on studying, just chilling in the room and watching some TV (which I had given up for the prior 7 months).

Either way, taking this exam still felt like::: :tone:

 

[moodyj2000]

I will second bringing a complete, up to date set of ASHRAE books to the exam. I left off the refrigeration and it cost me a couple of times.

As far as the pre-test prep on the night before, mine was incredible. The exam was given at the Greater Richmond Convention Center and there was a Marriott attached. I drove in, checked into my room, and relaxed on the feather bed while watching tv. I ate good, caught a good movie, and went to bed early. That morning I got up at 5 am (as I normally do) and went down to the gym. I was suprised to find out that they had an indoor pool and I went for a swim. At this point I was totally calm and after a good breakfast I went to the exam room. All the relaxation helped because I was never once nervous during the exam and I felt great when it was over.

I really believe that a lot of problems with passing the exam are related to test taking skills. During the exam I watched as others scrambled frantically through their references, pulled their hair, and let out multiple gasps. These same people were ones that before the exam I noticed pacing about with worried looks on their faces.

I know the exam means a lot but I have two rules to test taking, 1)never get nervous because it acts to cloud your reasoning ability, and 3)never second guess yourself. Spend the time to make the best decision possible and then walk away. You will screw yourself more times than not by second guessing.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

I was also happy with my night before strategy. The test was an hour from home so I got a room near the site.

I left work early the day before and headed up. I scoped out the building location and parking situation, and clocked how long it took to get to the motel. I checkd in around 5, meaning I had plenty to time to kill that evening. The only "studying" I was going to do was double check to make sure my calculator, references, admission ticket, etc. were all present and accounted for.

It was a nice evening, and I was right outside Montpelier (capital of VT), so I drove to town and just walked around the city for a couple hours to blow off some steam. I came back around 7, had a beer, and ordered myself a feast for dinner. I deserved a treat I thought. In hindsight however, I should not have went to an Indian restaurant on a nervous, queasy stomach. It came back to haunt me the next day.

I was feeling a little sleepy, and gave into it at 9. Slept like a baby and woke up at 5 AM. Cleaned up, ate, and drove to the site. I was there by 7:50. Next thing I should have done differently: bring a rolling suitcase for my references. I had to park on a hill a little ways from the building, and carrying a heavy duffel bag sucked.

During the actual exam I was at my calmest. It was just like sitting at my desk working practice problems. I too decided not to second guess my answer once I arrived at one. I'd recheck the math and make sure I filled in the right bubble, but not second guess my assumption.

I really wish I had some food with me in the room. By 10 AM, a buffet table, or at least a power bar would have helped. Thinking burns calories I guess.

The only other gotcha moment I had was at halftime. I felt so good about the morning, better than expected, that I started to get excited and think "I'm gonna pass!" and start daydreaming about what I wanted to do after the test, since it was only a few more hours away. I had to take a walk and consciously gather my thoughts and refocus on the aftenooon.

Oh, and if I ever had to do it again, I wouldn't wait to get home to break out the beer, I'd just keep a cooler in the trunk!

 

[rleon82]

The Central Florida exam was in a not so nice part of Town. Previous tests were held at the Tupperware Center which is somewhere next to nowhere. I prefered the old location, I was up all night at the hotel thinking someone was going to break into my truck.

I actually commented on the location of choice to ELSES, a car was broken into in the parking lot during the test. WTF ELSES?

Bring earplugs to the exam if you can. I was surrounded by runny noses and people tapping their feet. That was very annoying. The earplugs helped a lot.

Oh yeah, there was that guy that kept crapping himself during the test. Come on man, take care of that before the test.

 

[Seajay]

I found a hotel within walking distance of the test site. I arranged my references and kept trying to study...eventually I was like "screw this" and walked down to a pub and had a double Jameson and water on the rocks. That helped The biggest thing that distracted me during the exam was this one proctor that would lean over me while I was TRYIN TO TAKE MY FRIGGIN TEST. His breakfast burrito was not agreeing with him. It like took him 5 minutes to figure out if I was using and approved calculator. He put a little happy face sticker on it ? :true:

 

[OR_CE]

I have to say that the accomdations for the Oregon exam were pretty nice. Lots of room, good evnironment. Proctors were decent.

The guy sitting behind me was nearly screwed by the proctors. His NCEES pencil malfunctioned two minutes prior to the end of the test. Time expired by the time they got him a new one. Luckily, they let him finish marking his answers.

Moral of the story is don't wait until the last minute to mark your answer sheet!

 

[redrum]

I will most certainly stay at a Holiday Inn Express on October 26th!~

 

[benbo]

I saw some "gotchas" on the EE exam. First of all, the schematics look like they were done in prehistoric days. They look like the kind of drawings you would make if you were drawing schematics without a CAD and trying to use word or power-point. Second, they love to make the problems simpler than they look by putting things in "extremes." In other words, they may bias some device into cutoff or saturation. You could start out doing all sorts of calculations, but if you noticed the thing was in cutoff, it would save a lot of time. Another thing was putting devices in strange places, or "backwards" according to what you would expect from normal engineering drawings. Hooking a ground somewhere that wouldn't be typical, etc. I hope this hasn't been too specific.

 

[NSEARCH]

I injured my back while playing rugby when I was in school and as you would have it while I was getting out of my truck to walk up to the sign-in I pulled/stressed that area again :suicide: I found the first girl I could and asked to have some Alieve/aspirin since I didn't have any.

Bring Tylenol/Alieve or whatever, sitting in those cheap ass chairs for 8+ hours will put a working on your body.