My Experience With the Power PE Exam

Good morning all.  I received the green "Pass" for my Power PE exam this morning, so I'm ready to release the write-up of my experience.  I will reply to this with an attached PDF for those who want a simple 2-page print-out (the site isn't letting me attach it here).  Hoping this is a help to you future test-takers!  As a side note, I took (for the first time) and passed the FE exam earlier this year.  I have a write-up for that in the FE forum.

My Therapist Said I Should Do This for Closure (Joking)

I did a lot of research before prepping for the Power PE exam, and many of my resource choices came from input of others in this forum.  Thanks everyone!  For you future Power PE exam takers prepping, here is an overview of my resources, study plans, and experience (don’t worry – no prohibited exam info in here):

Resources

• Custom 4” binder (had this out and used for ~70% of questions on the exam)
  
  
  Printouts from all sections in Electrical PE Review premium course.
  
• Handwritten and typed additional notes and formulas
  
• Random articles I expected to be useful (including FE Handbook sections)
  

[*]GRAFFEO’s book (out a few times during the exam)

[*]2014 NEC (whichever version applies to your exam is a must-have)

[*]PRM (Camara) (used a few times on the exam)

[*]2017 NESC (no brainer, even though it makes up a small percentage of the exam)

[*]Electrical Machines and Drives (Wildi) (fantastic book – out a few times during the exam)

[*]Power System Analysis and Design (Glover) (may not be the best book, but I used it in school and it has some helpful sequence network, 3-phase analysis, and transmission model information) (out a few times during the exam)

[*]Power System Analysis (Grainger) (usually my go-to for power flow and sometimes transmission)

[*]NCEES Practice Exam (was helpful for exam prep)

[*]CI volumes 2-4 (was helpful for improving exam-style question speed – does not cover all topics)

[*]Spin-Up (was somewhat helpful for exam prep – very simplified questions)

[*]I took some extra references with me to the exam, but did not include them on the list since I didn’t use them or see them as worthwhile. 

Study Plans

• 6 Months Out:
  
  Started researching resources and other engineers’ experiences with study prep.  I mostly did this on forums and with engineers at work.
  

[*]4 Months Out

• 
  Avoided any practice exams.
  
• Purchased and went through Graffeo’s book (except exam).
  
• Started typing out custom notes/formulas pages broken down by the NCEES “Power Exam Specifications.”  I used Graffeo and PRM as my primary sources for this.
  
• Hit rotating machinery and realized a class might be a good idea.
  
• Previewed some rotating machinery notes from Electrical PE Review (EPR)…decided to go with that as my class.  Signed up for the premium class at the end of the month.
  

[*]3 Months Out

• 
  Created binder tabs for each section in the EPR course.  Pre-printed everything so I could highlight and take notes as I went through the course and videos.  This was a good move…by the end of the course, I generally knew right where to go in my custom book for common formulas and question types.
  
• I probably made it through the course in ~100 hours (others would be much faster/slower depending on what they intend to get out of it).  There are 100’s of pertinent quiz questions and many helpful videos.  I feel like I saved weeks of my life by not having to create more formula sheets and not having to run through tons of questions that would not have been pertinent to the exam.
  

[*]2.5 Months Out

• 
  Started taking one practice exam per weekend:
  
  Complex Imaginary (CI)
  
• Graffeo
  

[*]2 Months Out

• 
  Took the NCEES Practice Exam…didn’t cry (high 80’s)
  
• Fell into a big project at work that consumed most of the rest of the next two weeks
  
• Worked Spin-Up problems here-and-there.
  
• Tabbed the heck out of my references.
  

[*]1.5 Months Out Through Test Day

• 
  Breezed through all the EPR courses again.
  
• Started over on the ‘1-practice exam per-weekend’ cycle.
  
• Watched and/or participated in the EPR live classes.
  
• Printed articles and just tried to patch holes in my knowledge.
  

Test Day Experience

• Got a hotel room the night before for fear of a flat tire keeping me from making it on time.
  
• Packed a lunch the morning of the exam and packed in coffee and a couple of CLIF bars.
  
• Got to the exam site 30 minutes before doors opened (I was not the first there).
  
• Took the morning section and found it played to my weaknesses.
  
  Had most questions done in 3-hours.  Spent the remaining time on a few of the harder questions and checking answers. 
  
• I use the multi-pass testing approach.  For me, this means: with exception of NEC questions, do all questions requiring minimal or no look-ups on first time through (~60%); do all NEC questions on second time through (~20%); do hardest questions 3rd/4th time through (~20%).
  
• Felt pretty confident on 30/40.  I’m guessing I got 75-85% on the morning.
  
• Side Note - I recommend not going in dehydrated – plan for one restroom break.  It cost me less than 5 minutes.
  
• Had lunch in my car and just hung out until the doors opened for the afternoon section.
  

[*]Took the afternoon section and found it played to my strengths.

• 
  Had most questions done in 3-hours.  Spent the remaining time on a couple of harder questions and checking answers.
  
• Felt pretty confident on 35/40.  I’m guessing I got 80-90% on the afternoon.
  

As I write this, that experience was yesterday…I won’t know if I passed for several weeks.  I will say I felt fairly well prepared.  For what it is worth, I feel like a better engineer for the study and experience; now I am ready to move on! 

Hope not to see any of you in six months…then this really is closure!  Good luck in the future, everyone.

As promised above, the PDF is attached.  I also included a small pic of my favorite resources.

View attachment My Experience with the PE Exam1.pdf

I'm surprised that you didn't use the NEC at all and instead ONLY used the NEC Handbook. 

Great write up! I followed a very similar schedule and used most of the same resources. The Electrical PE Review course ended up being my go-to resource and helped bring some structure to my studying. I was very happy to find out that I passed (first attempt) on Monday. Congrats on passing!

Passed on second try. I did almost this exact same schedule, references and EPR.

brianm said:

Great write up! I followed a very similar schedule and used most of the same resources. The Electrical PE Review course ended up being my go-to resource and helped bring some structure to my studying. I was very happy to find out that I passed (first attempt) on Monday. Congrats on passing!

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Stephen2awesome said:

Passed on second try. I did almost this exact same schedule, references and EPR.

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Thanks and congrats to you all, too!

electricalPickles PE said:

I'm surprised that you didn't use the NEC at all and instead ONLY used the NEC Handbook. 

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The handbook is just the code with additional comments and pictures/diagrams, so I didn't see the need to own/bring both.

Congrats! Well done for all that passed. If you didn't, hang in there and use the stuff mentioned on this page. 

Thank you to the original poster @itismakingme and the others in this thread: @brianm, @Stephen2awesome. For mentioning our review course Electrical PE Review (EPR) and study material for the electrical PE exam. 

For anyone wondering about Electrical PE Review, Inc. (EPR), at this time we are still letting users sign up for the free version of the course,  a feature that we will probably be closing off in the future.  The free course is a condensed version of our premium course and consists of chapter lessons, HD videos, practice problems, and quizzes with full-length solutions taken straight from the paid version of the premiums course for the electrical pe exam. 

You can sign up for it at: 

Electrical PE Review (EPR) - Free Course for the Electrical Power PE Exam

all you need to register is a valid email address. 

Congrats again on your accomplishment of passing the PE exam! I'm glad we were able to help. 

Thanks for posting.  I'm starting my journey into this tonight!

Hi,

I am contemplating on purchasing the NESC 2017 book. Do I really need it since it is $200 ? But I think my company would pay for it.

reema_suresh said:

Hi,

I am contemplating on purchasing the NESC 2017 book. Do I really need it since it is $200 ? But I think my company would pay for it.

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I will recommend NESC with you during exam, there are  2-3 easy questions from this. If your company pays, go for new one, else according to me any older version will work, Not many changes are there in general for exam purpose between the editions.

rg1 said:

I will recommend NESC with you during exam, there are  2-3 easy questions from this. If your company pays, go for new one, else according to me any older version will work, Not many changes are there in general for exam purpose between the editions.

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Thank u!

itismakingme said:

Thanks and congrats to you all, too!

The handbook is just the code with additional comments and pictures/diagrams, so I didn't see the need to own/bring both.

Click to expand...

Agreed!  The handbook is all I used too.

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