The effective time to prepare for PE exam

[Chunhui Jiang]

Hi, I got one question, how long is the effective time in hour to prepare for PE exam in order to pass it?

I think the time such as "three months" is not a specific time because we could study 1 hour per day, or 8 hours per day, so using hours is more scientific.

I have graduated for more than 2 years, and I have already forgotten lots of theoretical knowledge.

I heard some people said 300 hours should be a effective time length.

Thanks

 

[TWJ PE]

What field?

 

[scatsob]

I have been out of school and not practicing engineering in my career field (active duty military) and I studied for 2 hours per day for about 200 days and was well prepared for the exam. I took the thermal and fluids afternoon of the ME test. I started by just reading the MERM boom to refamiliarize myself with the material, then worked the example problems, then the PPI practice problems, then the 6 minute solution problems, then the PPI practice test, and finally the NCEES practice test. Found that seemed to work for me. The PPI problems can be a little ridiculous ( really hard) but they do a good job of forcing you to understand the material to the point where when you try the NCEES test it all seems so simple. That said the real test is good at tripping you up and you just need to be slow and methodical and you will start to see the trips and chuckle to yourself when you find them. 

 

[jijir83]

I've heard 300 as well. People have all sorts of study logs and timelines. I think what matters is what works for you.

Personally, I put in over 400 hours. I'm waiting for the results but at least I felt prepared for the PM Geotech and over-prepared for the AM. Let's hope that translates to a PASS. If I fail, I'll have to wait a year because I have no clue what I would do differently.

It takes me some time to get going so as soon as I sent in the application, I sat on the ASCE webinars in September. They were free through work. That got me thinking about what I knew how to do, what I knew but would be slow doing accurately and what I didn't know at all. Then, I started collecting references and loads (LOADS!) of problem sets. I used a few sets as a pre-test to see what I need to focus on and then started going through the references based on that. I may have put a few hours on weekends doing that. Unfortunately, we have the Seismic and Survey exams in California so my time was split. I didn't start really studying until January. I put in about 36 hrs per week after work and on weekends for 11-12 weeks. The majority of the time, I was doing problem sets. If there was one problem I couldn't do or I got wrong, I went back to it later to learn the theory, why I went wrong, and made a note to myself on my cheat sheet to never do that again. I started out with one reference book and added others as I went along if something was missing. My main goal was to be very familiar with one or two references and to be exposed to so many problems that I wouldn't be surprised.

I started 7 months ago but I put in over 400 hours studying and doing problems in the last 3 months. Some topics I didn't bother to study. No way I would have learned them properly in the hope of scoring one or two questions. I'm over 5 years out of grad school with 10 years field experience and limited conventional design experience and a bit specialized. I must say though that the experience made a lot of the questions much easier. This test was skewed towards geotech. No complaint 

 

[DuckFlats]

I studied just under 300 hrs, including the 80hr School of PE course. I started in December just reading through notes and then in January began problem solving and working through the references. I can't say if that was effective yet, since I won't know my score for another 8 weeks...

 

[John QPE]

I put in about 500 hours over the course of 1 year, with the first 6 months really just building references, highlighting and tabbing the CERM (which I didn't use once on the exam). Then probably about 100 hours preparing for the EET review course, and then easily 200+ hours on the EET review course and all the associated homework.

I'm pretty sure I scored 80/80 on the exam.

 

[matt267 PE]

Remember, it's quality over quantity.

Like John QPE, I put in many many many hours over the course of 12+months (lots of quantity, limited quality). Luckily, I decided to take the EET review course (lots of quality). I'm was very happy to have passed.

 

[starquest]

Took the ME MD exam last week.   12 years since my Masters, almost 20 since Bachelors, and I haven't applied much of my schooling within my profession over the years.    I prepared for 275 hours in a 12 week period.  No prep course; used PPI prep material (6MS, MERM PP), NCEES practice exam, and several problems/videos that I found on the net.  I felt confident going into the exam.  I knew how to approach almost every problem on the test and achieved a solution for all but a few.   We'll see how it results in two months...but I'm not sure how much more I could have given it.  

Regards,

Kevin 

 

[RBHeadge PE]

I started studying 3 months out. Spent 1-3 hr/day 5 day/wk until two weeks before the exam. I studied 5-6 hr/day for the duration. I estimate it was around 300 hr total by the day of the exam. It was the nuclear exam, so there wasn't much in the way of formal classes. I mostly read powerplant references, did undergrad textbook problems, the NRC SRO exam bank questions, and the ANS PE Exam study guide problems. I *might* have overstudied some areas, and understudied others, but it was enough to pass the test with a (in retrospect) comfortable margin.

 

[Audi Driver P.E.]

So many factors involved in what can affect the study time required.  I don't know that this can be positively answered.

 

[ptatohed]

Hi, I got one question, how long is the effective time in hour to prepare for PE exam in order to pass it?

I think the time such as "three months" is not a specific time because we could study 1 hour per day, or 8 hours per day, so using hours is more scientific.

I have graduated for more than 2 years, and I have already forgotten lots of theoretical knowledge.

I heard some people said 300 hours should be a effective time length.

Thanks

Use 300 hours.  When you are at, say 150, reevaluate.  Have you covered 50% of your material?  Adjust accordingly. 

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

What field?

My major is petroleum

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

I have been out of school and not practicing engineering in my career field (active duty military) and I studied for 2 hours per day for about 200 days and was well prepared for the exam. I took the thermal and fluids afternoon of the ME test. I started by just reading the MERM boom to refamiliarize myself with the material, then worked the example problems, then the PPI practice problems, then the 6 minute solution problems, then the PPI practice test, and finally the NCEES practice test. Found that seemed to work for me. The PPI problems can be a little ridiculous ( really hard) but they do a good job of forcing you to understand the material to the point where when you try the NCEES test it all seems so simple. That said the real test is good at tripping you up and you just need to be slow and methodical and you will start to see the trips and chuckle to yourself when you find them. 

So totally around 400 hours

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

I've heard 300 as well. People have all sorts of study logs and timelines. I think what matters is what works for you.

Personally, I put in over 400 hours. I'm waiting for the results but at least I felt prepared for the PM Geotech and over-prepared for the AM. Let's hope that translates to a PASS. If I fail, I'll have to wait a year because I have no clue what I would do differently.

It takes me some time to get going so as soon as I sent in the application, I sat on the ASCE webinars in September. They were free through work. That got me thinking about what I knew how to do, what I knew but would be slow doing accurately and what I didn't know at all. Then, I started collecting references and loads (LOADS!) of problem sets. I used a few sets as a pre-test to see what I need to focus on and then started going through the references based on that. I may have put a few hours on weekends doing that. Unfortunately, we have the Seismic and Survey exams in California so my time was split. I didn't start really studying until January. I put in about 36 hrs per week after work and on weekends for 11-12 weeks. The majority of the time, I was doing problem sets. If there was one problem I couldn't do or I got wrong, I went back to it later to learn the theory, why I went wrong, and made a note to myself on my cheat sheet to never do that again. I started out with one reference book and added others as I went along if something was missing. My main goal was to be very familiar with one or two references and to be exposed to so many problems that I wouldn't be surprised.

I started 7 months ago but I put in over 400 hours studying and doing problems in the last 3 months. Some topics I didn't bother to study. No way I would have learned them properly in the hope of scoring one or two questions. I'm over 5 years out of grad school with 10 years field experience and limited conventional design experience and a bit specialized. I must say though that the experience made a lot of the questions much easier. This test was skewed towards geotech. No complaint 

Thanks for your suggestions

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

I studied just under 300 hrs, including the 80hr School of PE course. I started in December just reading through notes and then in January began problem solving and working through the references. I can't say if that was effective yet, since I won't know my score for another 8 weeks...

As you took the courses, so that is more effective.

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

I put in about 500 hours over the course of 1 year, with the first 6 months really just building references, highlighting and tabbing the CERM (which I didn't use once on the exam). Then probably about 100 hours preparing for the EET review course, and then easily 200+ hours on the EET review course and all the associated homework.

I'm pretty sure I scored 80/80 on the exam.

WOW, that sounds great!

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

Remember, it's quality over quantity.

Like John QPE, I put in many many many hours over the course of 12+months (lots of quantity, limited quality). Luckily, I decided to take the EET review course (lots of quality). I'm was very happy to have passed.

Is that expensive?

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

Took the ME MD exam last week.   12 years since my Masters, almost 20 since Bachelors, and I haven't applied much of my schooling within my profession over the years.    I prepared for 275 hours in a 12 week period.  No prep course; used PPI prep material (6MS, MERM PP), NCEES practice exam, and several problems/videos that I found on the net.  I felt confident going into the exam.  I knew how to approach almost every problem on the test and achieved a solution for all but a few.   We'll see how it results in two months...but I'm not sure how much more I could have given it.  

Regards,

Kevin 

That is really specific, thanks.

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

I started studying 3 months out. Spent 1-3 hr/day 5 day/wk until two weeks before the exam. I studied 5-6 hr/day for the duration. I estimate it was around 300 hr total by the day of the exam. It was the nuclear exam, so there wasn't much in the way of formal classes. I mostly read powerplant references, did undergrad textbook problems, the NRC SRO exam bank questions, and the ANS PE Exam study guide problems. I *might* have overstudied some areas, and understudied others, but it was enough to pass the test with a (in retrospect) comfortable margin.

That is good enough.

 

[Chunhui Jiang]

So many factors involved in what can affect the study time required.  I don't know that this can be positively answered.

Well, yes, so just a estimated time length.