Posted: 5/13/2015 9:19:49 AM EDT
|
I'm taking the FE mechanical on Friday. I know there's a bunch of engineers in here, so is there anything you wished you had known going in? This will be the computer-based test.
|
| Took my tests about 30 years ago. What worked for me was to have my uncle express confidence in me, that I could do it, and also to concentrate first on the problems I knew, then come back to the ones that were more difficult for me. Also prayer, always have believed in that help in life's hardest problems. |
|
Quoted:
Took my tests about 30 years ago. What worked for me was to have my uncle express confidence in me, that I could do it, and also to concentrate first on the problems I knew, then come back to the ones that were more difficult for me. Also prayer, always have believed in that help in life's hardest problems. Always, no matter what the test. Get the scored for what you know as quickly as you can then burn time on the brain busters. |
| It sucks. They give you a small white board to do your work on, no scrap paper. Make sure you know where all the equations in the manual are, try not to waste time searching for them. I took the civil, but they do a bunch of stupid unit conversions, that wasted a bunch of time as well. Also don't get depressed when you see people coming and going, including the proctors while you are still there doing the test. Good luck. |
|
Also, they like to throw in answers that are arrived to by making some of the common mistakes one would make when solving that problem, so if you stumble your way through a problem and happen to come up with an answer that matches one of the choices, don't think that means it is the correct one.
|
| I took the new computer based FE exam (although for EE) about 3 weeks ago. I am a little over a year out of school. I brushed up on some Signals and Systems I had forgotten (studied about 2 days) and took it. I passed. It wasn't bad. Know how to navigate the PDF book. |
|
Just think...
You go to school for 4+ years to be an engineer. Then you take an 8 hour test to prove that you're worthy to be considered an engineer in training for a minimum of 4 more years. At this point, you take another 8 hour test. Upon passing, you have only proven that you meet the MINIMUM requirements to practice engineering. |
|
Quoted:
Just think... You go to school for 4+ years to be an engineer. Then you take an 8 hour test to prove that you're worthy to be considered an engineer in training for a minimum of 4 more years. At this point, you take another 8 hour test. Upon passing, you have only proven that you meet the MINIMUM requirements to practice engineering. On top of that, you have to get licensed engineers to sign statements on your application verifying your 4-years of engineering experience in order to be admitted to sit for the PE exam. So it's important to find a job that has licensed PEs on staff that can vouch for you if you plan to take the second test. |
|
Quoted:
I took the paper test for civil about 6 years ago, just remember it's a marathon not a sprint... Don't get twisted up if you don't have any idea how to work a problem when you get to it, skip it and come back later. But try to answer every question. Good advice. Get a good night's sleep. Bring some water with you. I took it 15 yrs ago. I'm a mechanical, but took the general in the morning and general in the afternoon (took mechanical PE, of course). If you have a copy of an old formula book, then familiarize yourself with where things are so you're not flipping around during the test trying to find stuff (assuming they still give you a book for the test). Read the question and then read the answers before trying to solve a problem. Sometimes the answer is obvious so you don't have to waste time solving the problem (like on moment problems). |
|
Hopefully, you won't have some chronic throat clearers, coughers and hackers disrupting your chi.
I was talking somebody the other day who said when he took his PE exam they were having a bass-off car audio contest next door. The walls were shaking the entire time. |
|
Thanks guys.
Quoted:
Hopefully, you won't have some chronic throat clearers, coughers and hackers disrupting your chi. I was talking somebody the other day who said when he took his PE exam they were having a bass-off car audio contest next door. The walls were shaking the entire time. Fuck that. The NCEES website says they'll give you noise canceling headphones if you ask for them, but hopefully I won't need them. |
|
Quoted:
Just think... You go to school for 4+ years to be an engineer. Then you take an 8 hour test to prove that you're worthy to be considered an engineer in training for a minimum of 4 more years. At this point, you take another 8 hour test. Upon passing, you have only proven that you meet the MINIMUM requirements to practice engineering. Within your area of knowledge... |
|
I remember spending a few nights working through practice tests to study for it. I don't remember much of the test except that it was a blur. Shortest 7 hours of my life. By the end of it I didn't care if I passed or not. I was done taking tests! LOL Good thing I passed. That was 10 years ago. Now I'm thinking I need to go for the PE but it hurts to even think about studying for it. |
|
Study the basics of every subject before mastering any of them. There is some low hanging fruit and easy points there.
If you can guess the order of magnitude and direction, you can narrow down the answers to a 50-50 sometimes. Manage your time smart. Do the easy questions from each subject, again, low hanging fruit. Better to grab that stuff than get bogged down on tricky problems from a topic you're good at. |
|
Quoted:
I remember spending a few nights working through practice tests to study for it. I don't remember much of the test except that it was a blur. Shortest 7 hours of my life. By the end of it I didn't care if I passed or not. I was done taking tests! LOL Good thing I passed. That was 10 years ago. Now I'm thinking I need to go for the PE but it hurts to even think about studying for it. I don't think you can study for the PE. At that point you either know it or you don't. I never took the FE right out of school, but at the time I could take the FE right before the PE. I took the two tests back to back over several days. Got a stamp to prove it. 
|
|
Quoted: I don't think you can study for the PE. At that point you either know it or you don't. I never took the FE right out of school, but at the time I could take the FE right before the PE. I took the two tests back to back over several days. Got a stamp to prove it. Quoted: Quoted: I remember spending a few nights working through practice tests to study for it. I don't remember much of the test except that it was a blur. Shortest 7 hours of my life. By the end of it I didn't care if I passed or not. I was done taking tests! LOL Good thing I passed. That was 10 years ago. Now I'm thinking I need to go for the PE but it hurts to even think about studying for it. I don't think you can study for the PE. At that point you either know it or you don't. I never took the FE right out of school, but at the time I could take the FE right before the PE. I took the two tests back to back over several days. Got a stamp to prove it. Huh? Everyone I know that took the PE studied for it. There's no way you can retain all of that information after being out of school for years. |
|
Everyone I know that has followed this advise has passed the test-
Studying is for the weeks before, NOT the night before The night before, go for a long run, hike, bike ride or something physical. The night before you need sleep more than any single thing on earth. You need a calm mind. Relax and take the test. A relaxed mind will be fine. |
|
Quoted:
On top of that, you have to get licensed engineers to sign statements on your application verifying your 4-years of engineering experience in order to be admitted to sit for the PE exam. So it's important to find a job that has licensed PEs on staff that can vouch for you if you plan to take the second test. Quoted:
Quoted:
Just think... You go to school for 4+ years to be an engineer. Then you take an 8 hour test to prove that you're worthy to be considered an engineer in training for a minimum of 4 more years. At this point, you take another 8 hour test. Upon passing, you have only proven that you meet the MINIMUM requirements to practice engineering. On top of that, you have to get licensed engineers to sign statements on your application verifying your 4-years of engineering experience in order to be admitted to sit for the PE exam. So it's important to find a job that has licensed PEs on staff that can vouch for you if you plan to take the second test. In Nevada there's an option to take the PE exam early, before you get experience. You still can't become licensed until you get the 4 years experience under a licensed PE, however. http://www.nvboe.org/licensure-applications/professional-engineer-early-exam/ |
|
Quoted:
Huh? Everyone I know that took the PE studied for it. There's no way you can retain all of that information after being out of school for years. Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
I remember spending a few nights working through practice tests to study for it. I don't remember much of the test except that it was a blur. Shortest 7 hours of my life. By the end of it I didn't care if I passed or not. I was done taking tests! LOL Good thing I passed. That was 10 years ago. Now I'm thinking I need to go for the PE but it hurts to even think about studying for it. I don't think you can study for the PE. At that point you either know it or you don't. I never took the FE right out of school, but at the time I could take the FE right before the PE. I took the two tests back to back over several days. Got a stamp to prove it. Huh? Everyone I know that took the PE studied for it. There's no way you can retain all of that information after being out of school for years. I've got a friend who remembered the stuff from school really well and passed the first time without studying. The rest of us studied. We work in a niche industry that doesn't use the ASCE or IBC codes, so we have to remember how to do all the 'normal' stuff that is pretty common with most civil engineers. A guy who uses that stuff all the time should walk out of the test with a few hours left and do very well. |
|
Quoted:
Find the best calculator that is allowed and become very familiar with it. Right now it's the TI 36x Pro. It does integrals, derivatives, imaginary numbers, matrices, pretty much anything a graphing calculator can do without the graphing. Edit: and it's less than $20 |
|
Quoted:
I've got a friend who remembered the stuff from school really well and passed the first time without studying. The rest of us studied. We work in a niche industry that doesn't use the ASCE or IBC codes, so we have to remember how to do all the 'normal' stuff that is pretty common with most civil engineers. A guy who uses that stuff all the time should walk out of the test with a few hours left and do very well. Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
I remember spending a few nights working through practice tests to study for it. I don't remember much of the test except that it was a blur. Shortest 7 hours of my life. By the end of it I didn't care if I passed or not. I was done taking tests! LOL Good thing I passed. That was 10 years ago. Now I'm thinking I need to go for the PE but it hurts to even think about studying for it. I don't think you can study for the PE. At that point you either know it or you don't. I never took the FE right out of school, but at the time I could take the FE right before the PE. I took the two tests back to back over several days. Got a stamp to prove it. Huh? Everyone I know that took the PE studied for it. There's no way you can retain all of that information after being out of school for years. I've got a friend who remembered the stuff from school really well and passed the first time without studying. The rest of us studied. We work in a niche industry that doesn't use the ASCE or IBC codes, so we have to remember how to do all the 'normal' stuff that is pretty common with most civil engineers. A guy who uses that stuff all the time should walk out of the test with a few hours left and do very well. I had a newborn and worked 70+ hours a week when I wasn't on the road (in the air). I didn't study and passed the first time. Not something I would recommend. Luckily I'm really, really smart. 
|
|
Quoted:
Always, no matter what the test. Get the scored for what you know as quickly as you can then burn time on the brain busters. Quoted:
Quoted:
Took my tests about 30 years ago. What worked for me was to have my uncle express confidence in me, that I could do it, and also to concentrate first on the problems I knew, then come back to the ones that were more difficult for me. Also prayer, always have believed in that help in life's hardest problems. Always, no matter what the test. Get the scored for what you know as quickly as you can then burn time on the brain busters. On the PE I worked some of the compressible gas problems assuming STP and then looked at the answers. Using the conditions in the problem and the STP answer you could exclude some or all but one of the answers. If that didn't work I started working the problem. |
|
Quoted:
Thanks guys. Fuck that. The NCEES website says they'll give you noise canceling headphones if you ask for them, but hopefully I won't need them. Quoted:
Thanks guys. Quoted:
Hopefully, you won't have some chronic throat clearers, coughers and hackers disrupting your chi. I was talking somebody the other day who said when he took his PE exam they were having a bass-off car audio contest next door. The walls were shaking the entire time. Fuck that. The NCEES website says they'll give you noise canceling headphones if you ask for them, but hopefully I won't need them. Weak. Drive on. |
|
Quoted:
Weak. Drive on. Quoted:
Quoted:
Thanks guys. Quoted:
Hopefully, you won't have some chronic throat clearers, coughers and hackers disrupting your chi. I was talking somebody the other day who said when he took his PE exam they were having a bass-off car audio contest next door. The walls were shaking the entire time. Fuck that. The NCEES website says they'll give you noise canceling headphones if you ask for them, but hopefully I won't need them. Weak. Drive on. 
|