Took the latest NCEES practice exam...

Took the NCEES practice exam this weekend, Thermal and Fluids depth. I ended up getting a 68% in the breadth and a 68% in the depth. I had to guess on about 10 problems on the depth portion because I ran out of time. I feel pretty good overall with the the exercise, I definitely need to work on my pacing for the harder depth questions.

I know its been asked and answered before, but how does this practice exam compare to the "real thing"? Do you think the real exam is going to be slightly easier? or harder?

I'm concerned that after all my studying and preparation, I may still be "on the bubble" if I get a similar score on the real exam.

JAdams said:

Took the NCEES practice exam this weekend, Thermal and Fluids depth. I ended up getting a 68% in the breadth and a 68% in the depth. I had to guess on about 10 problems on the depth portion because I ran out of time. I feel pretty good overall with the the exercise, I definitely need to work on my pacing for the harder depth questions.
I know its been asked and answered before, but how does this practice exam compare to the "real thing"? Do you think the real exam is going to be slightly easier? or harder?

I'm concerned that after all my studying and preparation, I may still be "on the bubble" if I get a similar score on the real exam.

Click to expand...

I passed the T&F last April. Although I never took the NCEES practice exam for time, I think I probably would have scored in the same range as you. I'm pretty sure I was "on the bubble." You probably are too. The real exam is pretty close to the practice exam. Keep studying! Only a few days left!

JAdams said:

Took the NCEES practice exam this weekend, Thermal and Fluids depth. I ended up getting a 68% in the breadth and a 68% in the depth. I had to guess on about 10 problems on the depth portion because I ran out of time. I feel pretty good overall with the the exercise, I definitely need to work on my pacing for the harder depth questions.
I know its been asked and answered before, but how does this practice exam compare to the "real thing"? Do you think the real exam is going to be slightly easier? or harder?

I'm concerned that after all my studying and preparation, I may still be "on the bubble" if I get a similar score on the real exam.

Click to expand...

I did worse than you on my timed T&F NCEES practice exam, but I kept reviewing until I knew all of them cold. I think the real exam was harder than the NCEES practice, but then again there are no solutions printed in the back of the real exam! I passed last October on my first try, so I'm sure you will do well--best of luck!

Every exam is different so don't think of it as "I wont do well on THE exam" just think of it as "I didnt do well on THIS exam". Keep studying and understand what common things you miss, whether it's conceptual or careless errors. You will never understand or remember every concept, so dont stress over that.

I agree, just keep practicing, I also did the NCEES practice exam and scored around 80% total. I passed the first time.

One thing that really helped was I worked the Sample exam multiple times as well as working in some problems from the MERM. So my final studying days were just working on getting fast and catching my errors and being able to quickly check answers for accuracy.

JAdams said:

I know its been asked and answered before, but how does this practice exam compare to the "real thing"?

Click to expand...

I thought it was a pretty realistic practice test, FWIW.

As for easier/harder...each test is different, so there's no way to tell.

navyasw02 said:

Every exam is different so don't think of it as "I wont do well on THE exam" just think of it as "I didnt do well on THIS exam". Keep studying and understand what common things you miss, whether it's conceptual or careless errors. You will never understand or remember every concept, so dont stress over that.

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This is really good advice.

Another gauge you can use for these practice tests is how much time you spent hunting for the correct information/equations in your reference books. Your score after grading the practice test is only part of the story. If you spent a lot of time hunting for information, a little more organization might help you more than drilling through more practice problems.

If you spend enough time studying you will know MERMs inside and out.

I really did not even need tabs.

Kephart P.E. said:

I agree, just keep practicing, I also did the NCEES practice exam and scored around 80% total. I passed the first time.
One thing that really helped was I worked the Sample exam multiple times as well as working in some problems from the MERM. So my final studying days were just working on getting fast and catching my errors and being able to quickly check answers for accuracy.

Click to expand...

I agree as well. The NCEES practice test was a fair representation of the actual test with respect to difficulty. I took the practice tests and then worked the areas that I had trouble in using the MERM and passed first try.

mill75 said:

The NCEES practice test was a fair representation of the actual test with respect to difficulty. I took the practice tests and then worked the areas that I had trouble in using the MERM and passed first try.

Click to expand...

This is what I did as well. Took a practice test 3 weeks before the exam. Took 1/2 Saturday and 1/2 Sunday. I tracked which ones I guessed on. If I guessed and got it I didn't count it in my score.

Based on my score I could see that I would be close to passing the actual test (assuming it would be similar). Then I studied hard on my weak areas for the last 3 weeks.

That did the trick for me.

Prior to the last 3 weeks I had also gone through all of the recommended chapters in the MERM, all 6MS books and all of my other references.

since you're all talking about taking the PE here, i'm fairly confident all of you have dealt with the application process...

i'm sort of stumped on one aspect of the engagement record form, would anyone mind checking out my question in the "anything PE" forum?

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showtopic=16200