All I can do is give you what worked for me and hope that you find some use in this...
I see that you are a civil? I am going to assume this is true and would expect you are taking the civil PM exam as well, just as I did.......
First thing is first, do not stress out too much. I know I was beginning to get a terrible case of anxiety as time approached closer to the exam, making studying helpless. I would read a sentence that I thought was important and think to myself, "I know I will forget this when tested, I bet I will do it a wrong way instead of this correct way" and I would proceed to purposefully mess up the process in my head. Do not do this if possible. When studying, try to shut out the mental chatter and focus 100% on what is in front of you (way easier said than done). When I took the exam, i came across a couple of questions that I did this to myself for and all I could think of was "Why Zach, why didn't you just study the material." All I could process of was my incorrect way to solve the problem and not the correct method. Maybe this is not a problem for you but it was surely my greatest pitfall.
I studied for about 1.5 months before the exam and solely used three materials: NCEES Reference Manual, NCEES Practice Exam (Civil), and the Texas A&M videos online. I tried using Lindberg's study guide, I really did, but that damn book is more trouble than it was worth to me. I need someone in front of me making me pay attention. If left to my own free will to study by reading a textbook, god help us all. My mind wanders aimlessly and I have to re-read each paragraph countless times before I can move on.....Use this website and watch every video:
http://engineeringregistration.tamu.edu/ta...ws/FEreview.htm
I cannot speak highly enough of the professors at Texas A&M, they have created a series of study videos for free that will definitely help you during the exam. They are just technical enough to refresh your memory and provide enough examples for every topic to really help blow the cob webs out of your mental archives. My one tip when using these videos is to NOT print out the supplied PDF review sheets. MAKE YOUR OWN REVIEW SHEETS while watching the videos. There is something to be said about hearing the material, seeing the material, and re-writing the material. Three methods of studying and everyone helps and builds on top of the others.
While watching these videos and writing your own review sheets, have the NCEES reference handbook by your side. When the professor talks about a specific item he is going to review, open up the manual and find the exact section. While writing the review sheets, pause the video and find exactly what they are talking about in the manual, this was the only way I was fully able to understand where in the manual to look for information. During the exam, time wasted aimlessly flipping through pages looking for the section you need is time that could be spent rechecking solutions. Lastly, regarding this study method, use the index in the back of the manual as frequently as possible. It is an unknown lifesaver that a lot of people forget exists.....
RECAP:
watch videos, write your own study sheets while watching videos, constantly refer to reference manual while watching and writing.....If you know you are not going to do well in a certain area (for me it was electricity and magnetism), don't even bother studying it. Better get points you know you can get correctly than try and teach yourself a semesters worth of information in a few weeks. Don't stress it on the exam either, just skip those questions and come back to them at the end if time allows.
You want some test taking tips? If so, read on. If not, god speed to you. If you are confident in yourself, you will do just fine.
RELAX!!! This website was one of the biggest helpers to me when I was getting ready to take the exam, not solely because of useful information, but because I got to read people's stories about the exam and what their experience was like during. The only pitfall with this is that I was expecting to see an exam that was nearly indefeatable, there are too many stories of people who failed on here, and not enough of the people who passed. Remember that most people do pass this exam; once they pass they forget about this website and move on with their lives. They do not come back here and tell their success stories which only leaves the repeat test takers to continually post failing stories and experiences. As much as I would like to say it is not the case, I believe this website (especially the EIT/FE section) is heavily influenced by the test taking failures. Do not let these stories get the better of you. You know this information, it is somewhere stowed away in your head and all questions asked during the exam can be solved with something useful in the reference manual.
Maybe I have an undiagnosed case of ADD but my biggest problem is while working on a question, my mind always drifts off to other things, be it the constant nose sniffer behind me, the pacing of the Stalin-like assistants, the fact that I am taking an important exam, etc. I had to constantly crack my own whip during the exam to stay focused on what I was doing. Work the exam one problem at a time...If at first glance you know you might have trouble with it, skip it. I remember the last question during both the AM and PM sections of the exam was a freebie. If you worked through the exam the 'one question after the next' mthod you may have not had enuogh time to make it to the end and see the low hanging fruits there. Also in line with this, if you are working on a problem, dive into it. Do not have lingering thoughts of the previous problem in your head, it will only cloud your mental clarity. Once you mark an answers on the sheet, leave it in the past and do not ask the "what ifs." Let those little questions fester while you are waiting for the exam results and turn into soul eating monsters once you are done, not during the exam.
UNIT ANALYSIS! We as engineers are taught that units are king. I spend four years of my life learning some of the most ridiculous math imaginable, but subliminally taught that units mean more than the numbers. They WILL try and trick you during the exam. A problem that seems so simple (a basic plug and chug) will most likely require a closer examination. There were countless problems (especially in the Civil PM) that needed a few givens converted into a different unit. If you did not convert the givens, and just plugged in all supplied numbers to the necessary equation, the answer that would have been calculated was a possible choice to select. Don't let this happen to you, before you mark the answer sheet, check one more time that all units were converted to the required units for the equation (the reference manual is pretty good about letting you know what the units for each varible needs to be, just follow those and you're golden).
Finally, the most important thing is.......take a few breaks! Every now and then, take three minutes and put your pencil down. Look around the room and take some humor in seeing 100s of other kids in a neanderthalish type position grunting away just like you. Look at the furthest object ahead of you for a moment and let your eyes focus on something at a different distance then the 2' away the test is. 8 hours of focusing solely on objects 2' away from you will take its toll, the headaches and blurriness will set in towards the end. Don't fall victim here. It is not a test designed to punish for you a lack of mental recollection, but how quickly you can use common sense to narrow down the possible choices. Once you have read through the problem prompt, imagine in your head the problem in action. Use a little common sense and try to guess what the answer should be (poitive or negative to begin with). Then once you calculate your answer you can see if something does not quite line up.
