SpudTheDog
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I took the PE Mechanical HVAC exam on 2/14 and received notice that I passed on 2/23 at 8 AM CST. I talked with a few coworkers about my general experience and thought I would post it hear as well while it is still semi-fresh.
PREPERATIONS
I took an online refresher course through School of PE. Generally, I think that the course does a good job of touching on all different subjects that could be on the exam but because they went through almost every single equation in the handbook, they do a very poor job of emphasizing the proper topics that are on the exam. I still think the course was beneficial but it mostly covered the fringe questions you may get on the exam. School of PE has a few hundred practice problems that you could work through. I did a few questions from each topic to get a gauge of any topics that I was completely lost on. I also bought the ex over zero practice exam book. The ex over zero book had a wide variety of difficulty within the problems. I would say that generally, the problems were harder than the actual test problems. Some problems had 5 or 6 steps which is not the case with any exam problem. My biggest frustration with both review materials was that they both reference outdated reference handbooks that are inaccessible. A solution might say "reference page 492 in the handbook" but 492 in the handbook would cover a completely different topic. I did probably 2 test worth of questions on School of PE before the problems started repeating. I did probably 2.5 tests in the ex over zero book. The most important study information as you've likely heard, is the NCEES practice exam. I was feeling really good about the test. I was getting probably 85-90% on my School of PE problems and 75% on the ex over zero problems. I was two weeks out and took the NCEES exam and got a 63.5% which was jarring. There were vital overall concepts in psychro and refrigeration cycles that were barely covered in the other tests that I did not understand. These concepts were not difficult comparatively to the other concepts I had learned but they were surely more important. I took the next two weeks to apply the new concepts as much as possible. I did do the entire NCEES test two more times being sure to cover every problem in depth. The weekend before the test, I did a quick run through without numbers of how to solve each NCEES practice problem. I also went through the handbook twice to make sure I knew where different tables were. I felt solid going into the test.
FORMAT
As mentioned, the test was computer based testing (CBT). The format was different than I thought though. There was no page search so the page numbers I memorized didn't help. They do provide a table of contents and a ctrl+f which is generally reliable. If a problem uses a psychrometric chart or refrigeration table, there will be a button on the problem that brings up a chart that you can draw on. The line tool, which is covered in the tutorial before you take the exam, is not perfect but it is better than trying to finger your measurements on the screen. The biggest thing I wish I knew was that the exam time is 8 hours and 80 questions total with roughly 40 questions on each half. You can spent 7 hours on the first half if you wanted which I did not know. I thought there was a hard cutoff at 4 hours for each section.
TEST ITSELF
The test questions were quite similar to the practice exam as you have probably heard. If you can conceptually do the practice exam, you will feel very comfortable with actual test. I would recommend taking a minute or two and skipping the first few questions until you see a few in a row that you are comfortable doing. I had two problems in a row that I did not understand on first read through and it put me on edge right away but after getting in a grove, the first half went really well. Out of the 39, I got an answer I felt good about on 36 and was iffy on 3. I figure I got around 32 right and felt really good going into the second half. I did not review much of anything from the first half because I was almost at the 4 hour mark when I finished. I had no general knowledge questions on the first half. The second half scared the shit out of me. The math problems were similar to the practice test again but there were so many more general knowledge questions than I was prepared for. I felt confident that I got 18 out of the 41 right putting me right on the border. Out of the remaining 23 on that section, I probably did get ~10 right but I wouldn't bet money on any of them. Since the second half had so many general knowledge questions, I actually finished two hours early. For the next hour I ran through pretty much every problem twice to make sure I had my best answers in. I wish I had spent 30 minutes to review my first half. I'm sure that varies person to person. Doing that may have stressed me out a bit going into the second half. Hindsight is 20/20 yada yada.
TAKEAWAYS
The math problems were very similar to the NCEES exam. If you are struggling with the practice exam concepts/math problems, don't bother taking the test. Wait until you are comfortable doing the NCEES problems. If you are good on the problems, you should feel comfortable on the test. There will be some problems you won't know how to do. I would skip those and work back to them. I recommend studying until you feel comfortable with whatever problems you are using (DO NOT START WITH THE NCEES EXAM). At that point, take the NCEES practice exam and fill any holes that you have. I was not prepared for the number of general knowledge questions. I didn't read the MERM and don't know how much that would have helped. Some of the questions I had run across while at work but some of the questions are not anything my company has ever worked on. I wish I could know my score just to see whether or not I got the answers to some of the questions but that isn't possible. That's all I have though. Good luck to those who are preparing to take the test!
PREPERATIONS
I took an online refresher course through School of PE. Generally, I think that the course does a good job of touching on all different subjects that could be on the exam but because they went through almost every single equation in the handbook, they do a very poor job of emphasizing the proper topics that are on the exam. I still think the course was beneficial but it mostly covered the fringe questions you may get on the exam. School of PE has a few hundred practice problems that you could work through. I did a few questions from each topic to get a gauge of any topics that I was completely lost on. I also bought the ex over zero practice exam book. The ex over zero book had a wide variety of difficulty within the problems. I would say that generally, the problems were harder than the actual test problems. Some problems had 5 or 6 steps which is not the case with any exam problem. My biggest frustration with both review materials was that they both reference outdated reference handbooks that are inaccessible. A solution might say "reference page 492 in the handbook" but 492 in the handbook would cover a completely different topic. I did probably 2 test worth of questions on School of PE before the problems started repeating. I did probably 2.5 tests in the ex over zero book. The most important study information as you've likely heard, is the NCEES practice exam. I was feeling really good about the test. I was getting probably 85-90% on my School of PE problems and 75% on the ex over zero problems. I was two weeks out and took the NCEES exam and got a 63.5% which was jarring. There were vital overall concepts in psychro and refrigeration cycles that were barely covered in the other tests that I did not understand. These concepts were not difficult comparatively to the other concepts I had learned but they were surely more important. I took the next two weeks to apply the new concepts as much as possible. I did do the entire NCEES test two more times being sure to cover every problem in depth. The weekend before the test, I did a quick run through without numbers of how to solve each NCEES practice problem. I also went through the handbook twice to make sure I knew where different tables were. I felt solid going into the test.
FORMAT
As mentioned, the test was computer based testing (CBT). The format was different than I thought though. There was no page search so the page numbers I memorized didn't help. They do provide a table of contents and a ctrl+f which is generally reliable. If a problem uses a psychrometric chart or refrigeration table, there will be a button on the problem that brings up a chart that you can draw on. The line tool, which is covered in the tutorial before you take the exam, is not perfect but it is better than trying to finger your measurements on the screen. The biggest thing I wish I knew was that the exam time is 8 hours and 80 questions total with roughly 40 questions on each half. You can spent 7 hours on the first half if you wanted which I did not know. I thought there was a hard cutoff at 4 hours for each section.
TEST ITSELF
The test questions were quite similar to the practice exam as you have probably heard. If you can conceptually do the practice exam, you will feel very comfortable with actual test. I would recommend taking a minute or two and skipping the first few questions until you see a few in a row that you are comfortable doing. I had two problems in a row that I did not understand on first read through and it put me on edge right away but after getting in a grove, the first half went really well. Out of the 39, I got an answer I felt good about on 36 and was iffy on 3. I figure I got around 32 right and felt really good going into the second half. I did not review much of anything from the first half because I was almost at the 4 hour mark when I finished. I had no general knowledge questions on the first half. The second half scared the shit out of me. The math problems were similar to the practice test again but there were so many more general knowledge questions than I was prepared for. I felt confident that I got 18 out of the 41 right putting me right on the border. Out of the remaining 23 on that section, I probably did get ~10 right but I wouldn't bet money on any of them. Since the second half had so many general knowledge questions, I actually finished two hours early. For the next hour I ran through pretty much every problem twice to make sure I had my best answers in. I wish I had spent 30 minutes to review my first half. I'm sure that varies person to person. Doing that may have stressed me out a bit going into the second half. Hindsight is 20/20 yada yada.
TAKEAWAYS
The math problems were very similar to the NCEES exam. If you are struggling with the practice exam concepts/math problems, don't bother taking the test. Wait until you are comfortable doing the NCEES problems. If you are good on the problems, you should feel comfortable on the test. There will be some problems you won't know how to do. I would skip those and work back to them. I recommend studying until you feel comfortable with whatever problems you are using (DO NOT START WITH THE NCEES EXAM). At that point, take the NCEES practice exam and fill any holes that you have. I was not prepared for the number of general knowledge questions. I didn't read the MERM and don't know how much that would have helped. Some of the questions I had run across while at work but some of the questions are not anything my company has ever worked on. I wish I could know my score just to see whether or not I got the answers to some of the questions but that isn't possible. That's all I have though. Good luck to those who are preparing to take the test!
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