I too am on exam attempt #3, so I'm desperate for anything to give me an edge. But I want to be sure it's worth the money, and they aren't just repeating the problems from the practice problems manual.
Serious 'how to pass PE exam' strategy advice needed
- Thread starter WDWA 2018
- Start date
Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:
Mr. Zane
P.E., PMP, LEED AP
I think PPI is restructuring its course, I had a chance with a payment to review their previous courses. Good for refreshing but not very great for exam.prep.
One thing i dislike was one lecturer taught everything for morning session.
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Good to know. After dishing out 5k for this so far, want to be sure my money is well spent..
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Mr. Zane
P.E., PMP, LEED AP
youngmotivatedengineer
Well-known member
Having 1 lecturer is not bad if he knows his stuff. EET construction depth was all Samir and I would not hesitate to take a course again if he was teaching it. He was well organized, knew the material and was able to answer questions even for information not right in the slides.
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Bg88
Don’t get down on yourself man. It happens, failure is part of life.. what matters is what you do next. I took the construction and it wasn’t easy but doable.; passed it on 2nd attempt. The construct PM is lots of reference material stuff and geotech. Just take a mental break and hit it again. You got it. Do make a bigger deal if it than it already is. Also have an exam strategy. I found ranking the questions very helpful
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GuestMHFlorida
First time taker of the construction depth April 2018, passed. If your background is heavy civil take the construction afternoon, it’s more similar to the civil morning than you would think. I spent about 2 months studying, 8 hours both sat and Sunday and about 5 hours total between Monday and Friday. I knew the ncees practice exam inside and out and I also used the 2 civil morning exams from goswami. I didn’t do any ppi or eet review classes. Don’t waste time watching videos or trying to study the cerm. Know how to use it for reference, but you need to pour yourself into practice tests. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on review courses. Bring all of the books ncees calls out on the syllabus, practice your scheduling, estimating, OSHA, etc. practice the topics that the ncees breakdown shows. I walked out of the test feeling like the morning was prob 25/40 and afternoon 30/40. It was iffy but if I failed I knew it would be close. And I passed. Hopefully that helps.
Mr. Zane
P.E., PMP, LEED AP
In the PM it wont be bad since its within one of the concentrations. SOPE has the same thing.
wow, that really sucks. I think in my state you only have to submit it and that's it. No need for board review (unless maybe you failed multiple times... but i actually don;t think so)
i would definitely recommend doing loads of easy questions rather than those ridiculous PPI questions which are 20-60 minutes long (they usually indicate how long each should take)
You have to remember, the NCEES test questions are 6-minutes on average to solve. That means they could ONLY be easy or tricky. Since no one could review their exams, one could only assume people are getting tricked.
yes i do. Those are like 15second - 1 minute problems. When i used it, i think it had like 800 questions for the discipline i needed it for.
Luck of the draw. Sometimes the professor is boring and doesn't really explain much making it a waste. (power exam)
Sometimes professor goes over reference manual problems yet goes into so much detail it really fills in the gaps. (hvac exam)
Thanks so much, Sayed. Did you do the video add on as well, or just the problems generator? I'm thinking of doing it. I need all the help I can get at this point
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smmoreno88
I took the civil structures for the 2nd time. 1st attempt i got a 52 and failed with ~ 60 hrs of studying. This time I passed with ~ 120 hrs of studying. I took an asce civil class that covered the morning portion. It gave 12 - 2 hr long videos along with slides. My friend worked at a large company and a group of people signed up to take it and split the cost ~ $140 for all the videos/ slides. It also had an overview of the afternoon which was nice to have. This was great and covered only important items / was a good place to find equations quickly. Afternoon I used the CERM and read very thoroughly through my depth section. I tried reading it for all sections but it was too in depth I believe for the morning general sections. I had NCEES 08/ 11/ 14 practice exams (20 + 40+40 morning/ 20+40+40 afternoon) form a friend and purchased Civil PE problems (60 morning/ 30 afternoon) and Civil Engineering Academy problems (80 morning/ 40 afternoon). The Civil Engineering Academy problems were difficult and really prepared me. The Civil PE was ok but i found it easier. I reviewed timber in the SERM. Lastly I made sure that I heavily tabbed all my codes. The codes with large index, I tabbed the index to make it easier to search. This time around I have a 1 year old so I felt like my studying was very focused and anything I studied had to be 100% worth it. My last thing I didn't was to re-review all the problems I did just so that I'd know if there was a familiar one to practice when taking the exam.
Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions. I would love to help anyone pass this exam!!!
Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions. I would love to help anyone pass this exam!!!
used the ppi ondemand videos for hvac and absolutely needed it (helped me comprehend concepts very well) didnt takenthe time to do the exam cafeThanks so much, Sayed. Did you do the video add on as well, or just the problems generator? I'm thinking of doing it. I need all the help I can get at this point
watched about half ppi ondemand for power and honestly think it was a waste. exam cafe was really good in my mind. it did have concepts i didnt know how to answer before using that
i’d like to say exam cafe would be good regardless of discipline....
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My short story: how I passed ME Machine Design exam.
2015 first attempt to pass FE - fail, almost no preparation, just NCEES practice exam.
2016 second attempt to pass FE - fail, Coursera & Lindeburg manual (results were lower then on the first attempt)
2017 passed FE - TestMasters classroom course in Houston - I would recommend to everyone!
2018 passed PE - TestMasters classroom course in Houston - I would strongly recommend!
To be honest i did not do any homework at all when i was taking TestMasters classes, still was enough to pass FE & PE.
2015 first attempt to pass FE - fail, almost no preparation, just NCEES practice exam.
2016 second attempt to pass FE - fail, Coursera & Lindeburg manual (results were lower then on the first attempt)
2017 passed FE - TestMasters classroom course in Houston - I would recommend to everyone!
2018 passed PE - TestMasters classroom course in Houston - I would strongly recommend!
To be honest i did not do any homework at all when i was taking TestMasters classes, still was enough to pass FE & PE.
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Abraham5G PE
Active member
I took WRE... failed my first try last Fall and passed my second this Spring. I definitely understand that you feel discouraged but do not give up. I changed my studying approach between exams and it helped a lot. I would even say that i spent less time studying the second try than i did the first (oddly enough this was the case when i failed/passed my FE as well). Its all about making the right adjustments and not repeating the same old studying habits. If you don't change your approach, you can likely expect the same results. Here are a few things i would recommend...
- As many others have suggested... take an study course if you havn't already done so. I took School of PE and, for the most part, it was very helpful. Some lectures were better than others but i am glad i made the investment.
- With that being said... the big mistake i made the first time that i failed was that i convinced myself that watching every single minute of the online course would pretty much guarantee that i would pass. The class was easy to listen to. I got comfortable just sitting in front of a lecture thinking that it was actually helping me. It was not. In order for something to truly stick in my mind i need to actually do the problems myself on paper... and that is what i did wrong. I didn't do enough sample problems. I would get angry/nervous if i did one and got it wrong... so i avoided them because i didn't want to get discouraged. The second time around i hardly watched any of the lectures again at all... maybe half. I bought a bunch of sample questions and sample exams and did ALL of them. Even if i got a problem wrong or didn't quite understand it, i still now had that type of problem in my arsenal of problems that i was familiar with. I brought the sample exams/questions with me and above/below each problem i wrote in large letters "FIND 'X' GIVEN 'Y...'" so i knew exactly what each one was asking for and if i could use the formula associated with that problem on the one on the exam. Long story short... do sample problems, then do more sample problems. Build and arsenal of sample problems so you are less likely to get thrown off by a question you were not expecting.
- I printed out all the lecture notes from the School of PE and brought a separate binder for each topic. I tabbed my notes like crazy. I also tabbed my sample problems/exams that i worked through to reference the most common types of problems (especially for the AM) so that i could quickly reference them.
- As for switching for the depth portion... its a tough call but i would probably recommend sticking with Transportation now that you have taken it a few times and are familiar with it. I took Water Resources/Environmental and i primarily do stormwater management type of work so the environmental portion (wastewater treatment) was a bit of a challenge for me, but, again, familiarizing myself with the types of problems ended up making it less scary the second time around. I have a background in survey/construction as well and considered switching to construction for my second attempt but i am glad that i did not.
- It might seem obvious, but make sure you focus on nailing the AM portion of the exam. You will start to notice patterns of the types of topics that they want you to understand. Don't overthink the AM questions. Keep an eye out for simple unit conversion mistakes or that type of thing.
- Try to be relaxed. I went into the second exam way more relaxed despite there being a lot more pressure for me to pass. I know its kind of weak advice but... try to relax.
I hope some of this helps. Best of luck on your next attempt.
I took Machine design and Materials.
One more suggestion:
During the morning session i guessed 10 questions, the least common answer on the problems that i solved was "B", so all 10 guessed questions got "B".
During the afternoon i guessed 6, so the least common letter was "C", all guessed questions got "C".
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W
woody_pe
I took the PE last October (2017) in Civil Transportation. I was 10 years out of college and had a degree in mechanical engineering. I was only working in transportation for 1 year prior to taking the PE. I passed on my first attempt.
My strategy was reading and tabbing the CERM completely. I then read the HCM, and the Green Book, and tabbed the MUTCD. I didn't do practice problems until maybe 2-3 weeks before the exam. I didn't take any sample exams nor did I take any classes. I did however, catelogue the problems in the reference materials by type so I could use them as quick look-up examples during the exam.
If I would have failed, I would have devoted more time on the sample problems for practice and taken an online course. Tahnkfully I didn't need to take it more than once.
Good luck OP, you will get it eventually.
My strategy was reading and tabbing the CERM completely. I then read the HCM, and the Green Book, and tabbed the MUTCD. I didn't do practice problems until maybe 2-3 weeks before the exam. I didn't take any sample exams nor did I take any classes. I did however, catelogue the problems in the reference materials by type so I could use them as quick look-up examples during the exam.
If I would have failed, I would have devoted more time on the sample problems for practice and taken an online course. Tahnkfully I didn't need to take it more than once.
Good luck OP, you will get it eventually.
J
JRaider
Civil-Structural. First time taker and I passed. My BS was Architectural and MS was Structural but I've been in sales for 6+ years and hadn't touched engineering since graduation. I took the Dr. Tom's course and it was very helpful, especially for the morning breadth. I was learning several of the topics from scratch and the Dr. Tom's course is focused on mastering what is likely to appear on the test, not all the possible subjects. I spent 2-3 hours every night for 4 months with lessons/practice problems/study. Also CERM was very helpful for the oddball questions and terminology I wasn't familiar with. Good luck in October!
