Is Graffeo Exam way too easy?

roy167 · Dec 17, 2018

I just finished reading Graffeo book, it is a concise summary of various topics. I'm taking an exam in the back of the book and find it quite easy. Did everyone feel it this way? Graffio also has practice problem book. Are the practice problems similar to what is in his book? If real exam is anything like Graffio it would be sweet, but I'm thinking it is not going to be that easy.

DLD PE · Dec 17, 2018

I found both the NCEES and Eng Pro Guides to be more difficult than the Graffeo exam.

chaosNJ · Dec 17, 2018

Graffeo, NCEES, and Camara practice exams (the only three I did) are far too easy compared to the real exam.

roy167 · Dec 17, 2018

On Graffeo and Camara practice exams:

Did you do them from their books or you bought their practice exams?

For e.g. Graffeo have examples during the chapters and then morning and afternoon session at the end of the book. Not sure about Camara reference book yet as I have not studies from it.

chaosNJ · Dec 17, 2018

roy167 said:
On Graffeo and Camara practice exams:

Did you do them from their books or you bought their practice exams?

For e.g. Graffeo have examples during the chapters and then morning and afternoon session at the end of the book. Not sure about Camara reference book yet as I have not studies from it.

From Graffeo's book and bought the Camara one (borrowed it from a colleague).

Matt PSE · Dec 17, 2018

In my opinion, Graffeo is easy because (with the exception of a few questions) you've just reviewed everything in his book and know where to find it. The difficulty of the Graffeo exam and NCEES practice exams are similar, and fairly similar to the PE test....the difference is that there is a fair amount of topics on the PE test you didn't practice for in Graffeo (i.e. the code, practical applications, definitions, etc.)

I did not purchase anything else of his besides the main book but it probably couldn't hurt if you're looking to stay sharp.

EE2PE · Dec 17, 2018

Yes, Graffeo practice exam is easier than Eng Pro Guides and NCEES. If you are looking for good practice exam check out Eng Pro Guides Full exam as well as their Code Reference exam. Solutions for couple of questions are wrong but overall the quality of questions is good.

LyceeFruit PE · Dec 17, 2018

Don't waste your money on the Camara exams

roy167 · Dec 17, 2018

Graffeo, ProEng guide, they cover the same material, when you take these references in exam, do you get confused as to which one to look up if you do need to look up.

Do you print the relevant pages instead of printing 450 page proguide manual along with other books. I am just thinking this shouldn't overwhelm you when you want to find something. quality information is better than ton of information from which you can't find stuff.

EE2PE · Dec 17, 2018

Graffeo was one of the first books I bought when I started studying. I bought Eng Pro Guides couple of months before the exam. By then I was already familiar with Graffeo, so ended up using that as my main reference. But I still printed the formula sheets at the end of Eng Pro Guides Study Manual and took it with me to the exam. I found Eng Pro Guides Practice Exams more useful than their actual study manual.

I won't recommend buying both of them, since they are so similar. I will recommend buying Graffeo and Eng Pro Guides practice exams, this way you get best of both.

Invisible · Dec 19, 2018

Graffeo had some good protection problems. Other than that, the paper was very ordinary.

roy167 · Dec 19, 2018

Does EngProGuide and Compex Imginary both have NEC code drill manuals? For code problems, what resource do you guys recommend?

EE2PE · Dec 20, 2018

EngPro Guide covers both NEC & NESC while Complex Imaginary only covers NEC. Complex Imaginary has 300 Practice questions, while EngPro Guides has only 40. Quality of questions in EngPro Guides is way better than Complex Imaginary. I did not like the quality of Complex Imaginary's practice questions, but you can use that to practice your technique of using NEC and finding relevant sections quickly and getting familiar with NEC code-book.

justin-hawaii · Dec 20, 2018

EE2PE said:
Yes, Graffeo practice exam is easier than Eng Pro Guides and NCEES. If you are looking for good practice exam check out Eng Pro Guides Full exam as well as their Code Reference exam. Solutions for couple of questions are wrong but overall the quality of questions is good.

Thank you for the comments. Can you let me know which problems you found to be incorrect? I will gladly revise the problems and will greatly appreciate the feedback.

EE2PE · Dec 20, 2018

I think your solution for the first question on the Full Practice Exam had one error. In the solution when converting the line voltage to phase voltage you divided it by √3 but did not consider the angle difference between line and phase voltage in a Y system. In a Y system Phase voltages lag Line Voltages by 30 Deg. If you consider the angle difference as well and divide Line voltage by √3∠ 30 rather than just √3 then you get option B as the correct answer instead of option A. Both option A & B give you total load of 500kVA because when you convert them to Polar form, their magnitude is same just the phase angle is different. I am open to an explanation on why angle difference was not considered when converting from line to phase, but I think it should have been considered.

Second error was with some NEC question from your Code Reference Exam. I have to look at my notes and see if I wrote it down somewhere.

justin-hawaii · Dec 20, 2018

Yes, I believe you are correct for Problem 1. Thank you.

roy167 · Dec 20, 2018

On question 1 the answer should be 295.8 -j 183.4 ohms. So I think they just missed the minus sign.

On a question like this I have a question.

A 3 phase 500 KVA load is served by a 13.2 KV line. Unless specifically mentioned we have to take given voltage line to line. so 13.2 KV is line to line. The question doesn't tell us whether load is Wye connected or delta connected. In this case how do we know whether to use √3 or not? The question then does ask what is line to neutral impedance. Is this a clue that load is wye connected?

DLD PE · Dec 20, 2018

I would say yes since a delta does not have a neutral.

roy167 · Dec 20, 2018

Question 5 solution is also wrong.

Once you choose Generator voltage as a base then the base voltage for motors would be 120V because of 480/120 v transformer therefore the answer should be 0.6 PU and that choice is not available.

justin-hawaii · Dec 20, 2018

roy167 said:
Question 5 solution is also wrong.

Once you choose Generator voltage as a base then the base voltage for motors would be 120V because of 480/120 v transformer therefore the answer should be 0.6 PU and that choice is not available.

I do see what you are saying and I agree, thank you. We tried to make the problem a little bit more tricky and to have the reader use the value of 480 V as the base voltage for the entire circuit and to override what is normally done. Thank you for the input, I will revise the solution.

Is Graffeo Exam way too easy?

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