I had a full time, Monday to Friday job while studying. This meant heavy emphasis on weekend studying in my situation. The ‘weeks’ in the PE Exam study method below start on Saturdays (for me), but consider them as more of a guideline and modify them as needed for your personal situation.
Week 1: Collect & Assemble Resources
Step 1: Spend Money
I made a separate page with a list of all of the resources I bought, and what I thought of each one. These resources are Power PE specific. I also bought two calculators (I chose the Casio fx115ES-PLUS). Purchase and start using your calculator from day one. Take the effort to learn how to do complex/imaginary math within the calculator (hint: find a youtube video). You should not be doing polar/rectangular math or conversions by hand on this exam. Figure out what your calculator can do, and exploit it.
Regardless of which PE you are taking, you also need a 4’’ D-ring binder, loose leaf paper, ‘A-Z’ tabs, and those colorful page tab stickers (get the kind you can write on). I listed the practice exams that I bought on my resources pages, but regardless of discipline, you need to get your hands on 4 or 5 practice exams (get the NCEES one they offer you when you register).
I recommend just hitting ‘go’ on all of this right away. Just buy it all. Try to find it used if you can, or borrow it, but get it all up front. It will be expensive, but the way I looked at it was that the most expensive part of this whole thing is your time. If you are pinching pennies on the resources, and fail because of it, the ‘lost resource’ is your time investment. If you are writing a discipline that isn’t the Power PE, there are lots of sites that list recommended resources for each discipline. Decide which ones you want and order them up front.
Step 2: Build your Binder
This binder is by far the most important resource for the PE Exam. You have to build it yourself. You will start now, and continue to build it as you go.
First – create your table of contents (TOC). Start with the NCEES topics breakdown for your discipline. I created mine by combining a variety of resources into sections that made the most sense to me. I focused on ‘types of questions’ in my breakdown, rather than breaking down by theory/topic. It was a really crucial part of my studying. It took me several weeks to refine, but it would have been much more useful to have upfront, so I’m sharing mine with you.
I printed the Engineering Pro Guides Power PE Textbook (see resources page) and parsed out the pages/chapters into each of my sections. I had to split up several chapters into different sections to match my TOC. A page of relevant formulas should be placed at the beginning of each section of your binder. I used the ‘formula sheets’ from Chapter 11 of the EngProGuides Textbook. You will have to print multiple copies of some of the sheets as there is crossover between the sections. I used those colorful stick-on tabs to separate sub-sections within the ‘A-Z’ sections, such as the ‘start of practice problems’ or similar.
Congrats! You have completed your first week of studying. Good job.
Week 2: Diagnostic Practice Exam
Step 1: Set up your space
You should now have all of your resources you ordered, and a ‘skeleton’ for your binder. Next up in the PE Exam study method: set up a table to do your first practice exam. The table I had when I took the actual exam was about 4’ long but not very ‘deep’ – maybe one and half textbooks deep. I kept a box on the floor next to me with my resource books in it. My binder lived on the exam table, along with the exam itself, and the ‘scratch booklet’ provided. I kept my binder out at all times, and pulled out additional resources from the box as needed. The space you have to take the exam may be different from this, but you can use this as a guideline to get yourself familiar with the ‘space’ you will likely be in when sitting for the exam.
Step 2: Take an Exam!
That’s right – do a practice exam. This is diagnostic in nature. Let’s see how bad it really is. (I got 38% on my first one). I wrote one of the PPi2Pass Practice Exams first. For this first one, be extremely forgiving of yourself. Exercise your muscles for ‘educated guessing’ and learn your way around the indices for your resources. (Hint: the indices from your various resources are very valuable). You will probably fail this exam catastrophically, that is fine. If you pass this first diagnostic exam, you are already way more prepared than I was for the exam.
I wrote a separate page for “taking a practice exam” as this is a step that is repeated several times throughout this PE Exam study method. Read this page for details about how I approached each practice exam.
Step 3: Build your solutions
Use some computer skills and get yourself a stack of 80 sheets of paper, where each sheet holds one question from the practice exam. I accomplished this by scanning the exam, then using a PDF editor to chop it up so there was only one question per sheet. Bonus points if you can convince someone who loves you to do this part for you. The remainder of this week should be spent on building solutions to this exam.
Read the first question. Look at your scratch paper to see what you did during the practice test, check if you got it right.
(a) If you got it right: make sure you didn’t just get lucky. Re-do the problem but this time write out the steps for yourself. Make sure you understand how you got to the solution. Check it against the solution provided, and see if they differ. If they differ, is it a difference in method? Or are they just skipping steps? I was generally disappointed by the solutions provided with practice exams and found myself writing much longer solutions. However, there were a couple of times where I found that, though I got the right answer, my method would not have worked for a similar question because I was missing a key step or concept and was just ‘lucky’ that it didn’t mess up the solution to this particular problem.
(b) If you got it wrong: try again! With time on your side, see if you can get it right. Spend a little time working on it and see how you do. If you get it right this time, see (a). If you still can’t get it, look at the solution. Spend time making sure you follow each step of the solution, and which sections of your resources have information on this type of problem. Directly on your solution sheet, write which resources /sections /pages have the information.
Note for ‘word’ problems: (as opposed to calculation problems) – (a) and (b) are similar, except that you won’t be writing out ‘steps’ – in these cases I wrote out key statements related to the topics, and annotated why the three wrong answers were wrong. This is because the ‘wrong’ answers are usually almost right, but are ‘off’ slightly (to try to trip you up). I also often scanned, printed, and pasted the provided solution directly onto my solution page, as it was often a nice summary of the topic. Lastly, I wrote out which resources and page numbers contained information on the topic.
Identify which section (A-Z tabs) each problem falls into. Write two or three key words in the top right corner of the page. For example, “DC motors, theory, starting’’. This will help you find the problems later when you are flipping through your binder.
Don’t be lazy on this step! You will be using these solutions in the exam, and you will be trying to use this solution to solve a similar (but not identical) problem. Make sure it makes sense! By the end of this exercise, you will now have 80 sheets of paper, each with an individual ‘worked problem’ on them. Sort these into the appropriate ‘A-Z’ sections of your binder.
Congrats! Your binder just got 80 pages better!
For the first exam, this process may take longer than a week. Forgive yourself for that. After all, you didn’t even study yet! You were just winging it. There is lots you didn’t know.
Week 3: Finish Exam #1 Solutions; Identify Weaknesses
As I said, you may be finishing up your Exam #1 solutions. That is fine. When they are done, move on to identifying weaknesses. Were there particular sections of questions that totally threw you off? Are there a bunch of questions that you aren’t even sure where they belong in your binder? Were there words you had never even heard of before?
For questions that you aren’t sure where to put them, set them aside for now. It will become clear where they fit as you move through the process. Now, spend some time on google. Google the words you don’t know. Look for youtube videos with key words from the sections that you did the worst in. Youtube is your best friend in this process. I made a separate page that lists every youtube video I watched. If you watch a video, take advantage of the ‘pause’ button. Write yourself a nice set of notes while you watch, and work the problem on paper while the video shows the steps. Boom! Another piece of paper that you can put in your binder, right next to that pesky problem that you got wrong.
Another resource here is practice problems. If a resource book has an example problem, work it out yourself on paper. Make sure you understand each step. This has a habit of exposing what it is you aren’t following about a certain topic. I used the Engineering Pro Guides Power PE Textbook practice problems often at this stage. Aside from those, I found that youtube videos of worked problems were more valuable than the PPi book of practice problems I bought, but your experience may differ.
Continue this effort until the start of Week 3, then cut yourself off. It is important not to get too focused on digging in at this stage – you need to get your next exam in. Each exam is 80 new problems which may clarify some of your questions.
Week 4: Exam #2, & More Solutions
Step 1: Take Another Exam!
Here we go again! Same process as last time. For my second exam, I did the one found in the back of The Electrical Engineer’s Guide to Passing the Power PE by Graffeo.
Step 2: Build your solutions!
Same process as above. This should go a little faster this time, as there should be more questions that you got right, and fewer questions you’d never heard of. Try not to get bogged down on ‘learning’ during this process. Cut yourself off if there is a question you really don’t understand. Set it aside for next week (identifying weaknesses) to make sure you get through all 80 questions this week.
Week 5: Identify Weaknesses
Same process as above. Start with any questions that totally stumped you on Exam #2. Find the relevant chapters in your favorite reference manual, find relevant practice problems, use youtube.
Again, you need to cut yourself off at the end of the week. You can flag anything that is still stumping you for now.
Week 6: Yes – another practice exam, and more solutions…
You should be picking up on the pattern by now…
Step 1: Take (Yet Another) Exam!
Here we go again! Same process as last time. For my third exam, I did the one provided by the NCEES. I spent considerable time trying to decide if I should take this exam now, or wait for one more iteration. I wanted to be as prepared as possible before doing this one so it would be as representative as possible of the ‘true’ exam. However, I also wanted to know if there were subjects being missed by the exams I had already taken, and I wanted enough time to address them if this was the case. In the end I was happy with my choice as there were a few things that came up in a certain way on the NCEES exam that threw me off, and I was able to ‘fill those holes’ with ample time before the true exam.
Step 2: Build your solutions!
Same process as above. Again, this should go a little faster this time, as there should be even more questions that you got right, and even fewer questions you’d never heard of. Make sure you get through all 80 solutions this week.
Week 7: Identify Weaknesses (again)
Same process as above. (see Week 4).
Again, you need to cut yourself off at the end of the week. You can flag anything that is still stumping you for now. As you move through this PE Exam study method, hopefully there are fewer and fewer of these ‘stumpers’ each time.
Week 8: Speed it up
Take your 4th exam and build your solutions. There should be fewer weaknesses by now. Any spare time you have during the week can be spent on weaknesses. I used the second of the PPi2Pass Practice Exams I bought for this week.
Week 9: Last one!
Take your 5th exam, build your solutions. I used the Engineering Pro Guides Power PE Exam for this week. Any weaknesses at this point, be honest with yourself, are probably a lost cause. That is OK. You don’t need to get 100% to pass. I actually didn’t ‘take’ my 5th exam as a simulation of the real thing. I chose instead to start with my stack of 80 individual questions, and work through them at my own pace over the course of the weekend. This meant that, by Monday, I had a full set of solutions I could sort into my binder. I took Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off from studying, and the exam was Friday. If you feel you need the simulation setting to practice your ‘taking an exam’ skills, you should probably do it that way this week. I felt comfortable with me ‘speed’ during my simulated exams and chose to do it this way to save a little time on the ‘review and solutions building’ step.
That’s all folks!!