ranking questions

[Road Guy]

Do any of you plan on doing this? (See Below)

or did you do it the last time?

During the first fifteen minutes of each session, read all questions very carefully. Mark the questions 1(easy), 2(medium), and 3(very hard). First do all questions you have marked 1(easy), then do all questions you have marked 2 (medium). After you have have finished all questions you have marked 1 and 2, then and only then, attempt the problems which you have marked 3(very hard). Every question is worth only one point. Initially, never waste time on hard questions.

 

[GTScott]

To me, that seems like time that could be spent other places. I personally like the idea of flipping to your depth section and knocking those questions out. I will then go to my next best topic and end with the worst (Str then Env I imagine). That being said, if I find stuff I can't do in my depth section in the morning...then I may panic.

 

[Mike1144]

If I did that, I'd save a few easy ones for the last hour. If I did all the easy ones up front, I'd get discouraged towards the end not knowing anything. If I get stumped on a tough one, I'd work an easy one as a little confidence booster.

 

[MetroRAFB]

I initially planned to do that, but changed my strategy when I took the practice test. It made more sense to me to read problems until I found one I knew I could do, then do it. I was keyed up before the practice exam and ready to attack the first problem I knew I could do. None of the first few problems were that hard so I wound up working through the test in order until I hit one I knew I'd have to put some real thought into. I'd skip those anytime I encountered them and worked the rest pretty much in order. Then I came back to the one's I had skipped. I skipped roughly 7-9 problems in the morning and 10-12 in the afternoon.

So I pretty much broke them down into:

1) problems I knew how to do right away and,

2) problems I would have to figure out.

I decided to do it this way because I didn't want to spend all the time up front it would take to read all 40 problems before working any of them. I figured that would mess me up, being 15 minutes into it or so and having no problems actually completed yet. Jumping on the easy problems as soon as I read them helped build my confidence, and prevented me from forming any preconceived notions about the entire session before I had actually worked a problem. What if you read them all and say "Damn, this thing's really hard!" Then you've got that mental monkey to get off your back before you even start working problems.

Either way would work though, everyone's different. In hindsight, time wasn't an issue for me in the morning or the afternoon, I would have had plenty of time to read everything up front.

 

[Road Guy]

I have had several people that passed tell me they used it, personally It seems like a waste of time.

last time I wasnt crunched for time that bad, if I couldnt instantly recognize a solution, I skipped it, but figuring that I got around 50 / 80, maybe if I went back through all the "1's" and rechecked my math the last 30 minutes, it might have given me another point or two, I know with that crappy HP33 that I fat fingered a calc or two..

I like the idea of doing your strongest section first, I think I ended up doing that subconcioulsy last time, TRA, STR, WR, then "those other 2"

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

Seems like a waste to me. That's 15 good minutes of problem solving you're losing that way.

 

[Road Guy]

15 minutes :w00t:

 

[MetroRAFB]

I know with that crappy HP33 that I fat fingered a calc or two..

I hate that F#%*ing thing! I didn't know HP made such a piece of ****. The "zero" key sticks on mine all the damn time, I'm forever getting answers that are exactly one order of magnitude off. The only thing it's got going for it is RPN. The stack sucks, number display sucks......

I appreciate my 48s SO much more now.

 

[Road Guy]

i hate that ******* thing to

HP 33S :dddd:

 

[EdinNO]

I did the ?read and rate each question? thing. I wasn?t planning on it, but had heard about it. I was gonna do what Metro suggests. Then, I noticed the guy next to me flying through the pages (out of the corner of my eye). It instantly made me realize he had to be using the method. In my state of low confidence, I decided to go ahead and do it as well. It worked, I suppose, because I did pass.

On the PM session, it helped tremendously (but also used up a whole lot of time) because I wasn?t sure which section to take- HVAC or machine design. I read through all (or maybe just some, can?t remember) of the machine design questions first, as it was my first choice. Man, it looked so difficult, I said ?Let me try the HVAC?. I scanned through them and actually began working a problem or two. It turned out HVAC was even weaker in my mind, so I switched back to machine design. That killed my time, but at least looking thoroughly through each helped me to go with the right depth module.

As far as working the AM problems in your preferred depth topic, they were not partitioned by topic, but were scattered all over the place. In ME, the HVAC and the fluids/thermal questions were very similar and had crossover in some ways. So you may have to scrutinize to pick out your depth questions in the AM.

I can tell you that in the last hour or so, I was bouncing all over between difficult questions that were left. I would try one, run into a road block, move on, try others, finish or move on, back to another one, etc? I had heard that your subconscious might continue on to recall formulas or methods even after you pull off of a difficult problem and begin working on a different one. When you return to the difficult one, you might come up with something you didn?t come up with before.

Ed

 

[NSEARCH]

RG - I ranked my questions exactly the way they describe it there and I found it to be a huge advantage. Couple reasons:

1. After quickly scanning and ranking them I started off with all the "Ones" and they were easy to solve or gimmies. This boosted my confidence.

2. Once I finished with all the "twos", probably 50% or more of what I orginially thought were "threes" fell out into "ones" and "twos". Sometimes I laughed because I orginally marked the question as a three and it was reallyeasy.

I viewed this process like riding a bike and approaching a LARGE hill. At the bottom of the hill are you going to start off at your highest gear? Hell no (unless you're Lance Armstrong) you're going to start in your lower gears and move up.

I honestly believe that this method helped me in passing the exam.

 

[SCPE]

I would end up screwing up the rank system.

Do the easy ones first to build cofidence.

It will be an iterative process.

Work problems, getting answers close, moving on.

keep doing that throughout the 4 hours until the majority of the problems you are cofident in.

Bottom line.... do easy low hanging fruit first. Dont get stuck on a problem.

Sometimes after leaving a hard problem and coming back to it you will come up with a trick to solve it.

 

[GTScott]

RG...you did 50/80 and failed? Ohhhh crap.

 

[Road Guy]

best I could tell from my breakdown I either got 49 or 50 out of 80.

This time I would just like to be.... cut score :+1:

 

[flyingfishes]

another $.02

I didnt rank, just worked problems, but if it looked bad, or i didnt have a clue, i just skipped it and marked it for re-visit. maybe 10-12 morning and afternoon each. when i came back i found some of them werent as hard as they looked (str. especially) and some i could not get.

it seems to me there were a lot that could be answered in the same time it would take to rank them (or seconds longer) those are the ones you make up time on, 30 seconds, dont have to come back.

i spent most all of the time working problems, had :45 or so to go back after the ugly ones and check answer sheet etc.

 

[civengPE]

I walked into the exam with the intention of doing the ranking system, but quickly changed plans. After looking at the first few questions, I swithched to just skipping the problems I had no idea how to do. For the most part, they were very straight forward.

Just be careful of your UNITS. That is the biggest thing, IMHO, that kills people.

 

[rleon82]

I had planned to do the ranking system for the PM WR portion. The problem was, I was able to answer every question that popped up. Before I knew it, 30 minutes had gone by and I was on problem #11.

Units, Units, Units should be your #1 concern. Use the inside cover of your CERM. There is only 4 hours to answer 40 questions watch those units.

Please stop bashing the hp 33s, if not for RPN and Stacking, I would still be typing brackets into my calc. If your fingers are too fat to push the buttons, try a hot dog eating circuit.

 

[DVINNY]

Here is my ranking system.

1. I know it.

2. I don't know it.

 

[MetroRAFB]

Please stop bashing the hp 33s, if not for RPN and Stacking, I would still be typing brackets into my calc. If your fingers are too fat to push the buttons, try a hot dog eating circuit.

As soon as the passing letter comes in the mail I'm going to take my HP 33s, and the rifle you see to your left, and blow it to hell and gone. :dddd: :true: I did the same thing with my Latin book in High School. :true:

It's a total piece of **** compared to the 48s. I agree that the RPN makes it a better choice than the other toys listed in the NCEES calculator policy but that doesn't change the fact that the HP 33s sucks. Finger diameter doesn't affect the function of the calculator in my experience.

It's just a matter of what I'm used to. I've used the HP 48s since 1991 almost every day, so switching to a less capable model has been annoying.

I'll get over it though. As soon as the passing letter comes!!! ;guns; :dddd: ;guns; :dddd: :dddd: