Hello all!
I am going in for the T/F section in Oct & wanted to check about the additional books that I should buy
Right now I have the MERM & the practice problems. I am thinking about getting ppi2pass T&F package fincluding SMS & NCEES.
Do you recommend getting Quick Reference & PE Sample Examination as well? Also is there any way of getting old NCEES books?
Thanks a lot.
Going to keep in real. The book you will use during the exam the most is the MERM. Forget any Quick reference book or shortened version of anything. When you want answers, you want to get them from the source. Not some Cliff Notes worthless version that doesn't even explain how to use the formulas in the first place (like finding COP or efficiency and using C or F for degrees). Don't get scared the day of the exam when you see people carting in libraries to the test or suitcases like they are traveling around the world. No exaggeration, this past April I was looking at everyone and thought I was not prepared enough. These same people were taking the test for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, x times and they saw their solution as to being to bring even more books to the exam. I had a back pack of a reference binder from prep class I didn't use, a couple of 0.5" binders of practice problems I did, calc, ruler, and the MERM.
How to prepare:
1) Do problems over and over. The more the better. NCEES sample exam is the best. In fact, doing problems would be better than reading the concepts if you had to choose only one IMO.
2) Tab the key sections in the MERM that you use the most when doing these practice problems.
3) Know everything in the MERM book. I mean know from cover to cover! You have 6 minutes per question and during the test you don't have time to go through the index and look up where topics are. At the very least you should know exactly what chapter to go to when given a question. That way if you do flip through pages, you have about 20 pages to scan instead of 1000+ pages.
4) Take a day off from work the day before the exam and sleep the entire day. You will realize why this is important at 12pm the day of the test.
Reference Book that will help a lot outside of MERM:
1) Unit Conversion Book (I didn't have this for the test as I created my own bootleg version but I wish I had bought one)
Good luck!