How to Pass the Professional Engineering Licensing Exams (FE and PE):
Fall 2008
By Dennis Dahlquist, P.E.
It’s time to get ready for the
professional engineering exams again and time to review some strategies for
passing the Professional Engineering examinations (Fundamentals of Engineering,
FE and Professional Engineer, PE). The
following are some of the strategies that many people have found useful in
preparing for and taking the exam.
If you are interested in taking the
Professional Engineering exams, contact the state board of the state in which
you want to be licensed (in California; California Board of Engineers and Land
Surveyors www.pels.ca.gov ). To find the state board contact information, refer
to National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) web
site, www.ncees.org NCEES has a listing of all the state
licensing boards (http://www.ncees.org/licensure/licensing_boards/
). You may also consider taking a review
course before the exam. Check around. There are many for the FE and some for the PE’s
(CE, ME, EE, etc.). To find review
courses, check with NSPE, www.nspe.org, to
find the state society of interest.
The professional licensing examinations
require review. They are not to be taken
lightly. The State Board of Registration
has the latest data on the previous exams; however the pass rates (number of
people passing) are in the range of 20% to 50% (National data, 70% to 80%, www.ncees.org/exams/pass_rates). This varies from exam to exam and year to
year. The passing data can be confusing.
Looking at the national passing data,
the passing rates look much higher. Keep
in mind however, that these passing scores are averaged with many other states.
It is probably best to check with the
state board in the state you are going to take the exam in for the best data on
the exam passing rates.
The exams are not easy and this is by
design. The exams are designed by
engineers, for engineers. The key point
here is that the exam is a multi-level test of one's engineering ability. To pass the exam, you must engineer your way
to the exam and through the exam. You
engineer your way to the exam by studying and reviewing the necessary material,
and engineer your way through the exam by using good engineering technique. The bad news is that you need to take a
different approach to the exam than the old college way (especially if you
crammed the night before exams). The
good news is that the approach you need to take for the exam is an engineering
approach (one you are more familiar with now).
Exam Format
The first of the licensing exam series is the Fundamentals of
Engineering (FE). It is a
multiple-choice, closed-book test (however, a reference book is provided, www.ncees.org/exams/study_materials/fe_handbook/). The exam includes a morning of general
engineering problems and is followed by the afternoon section where you have
your choice of a general or a discipline specific exam. The second test of the series, The Professional
Engineer exam, is discipline specific.
It is also a multiple choice exam, but is an open-book exam with a
combination of breath (morning) and depth (afternoon) of the discipline. You qualify to take this exam after passing
the FE and completing some years as a practicing engineer (this varies somewhat
state to state, but usually ranges from 2 to 4 years, check with the state
board).
Becoming
a P.E. (short version)
Acquire
a good education, a Bachelors (BS) or a Masters (MS) engineering degree from an
ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology www.abet.org) accredited school. This will save you some qualifying time for
the exams. Take the FE while you are
finishing school (if not, take a review course tailored for people who have
been out of school for some time). Work
in your discipline for the number of years required by the Board, (this varies
based upon education, discipline, and state), and take the PE exam in your
discipline. Upon passing the exam you become a Consulting Engineer, also known
as a Licensed Professional Engineer (and you can now legally put P.E. after
your name).
I am signed up for the exam what do I do now? How do you
engineer your way to the exam? Seek out
review courses near you or online (exam help seminars and review courses both
face to face and online are available at: http://pe.quartzvalley.com/
). Find others who are planning to take
the exam and form a study group. Work
problems, problems, problems. Obviously,
you have other obligations; however, you want to make a commitment to yourself
to pass this exam. Set up a schedule for
studying. You are preparing yourself for
a mental marathon. Just as you wouldn't
try to run 26 miles without training for it, you can't expect to pass the exams
without studying. The more problems you
work, the better. However, you don't
want to just work on the problems you like.
Working on the other problems expands your ability to work a larger
range of problems.
Materials
You Will Need
When
working practice problems in preparation for the exam; use the same materials
that you will be using on the exam, calculator(s) and reference books. You want to be very familiar with your
tools. Reference books: For the FE your FE Reference Handbook
will be provided to you (so prior to the exam you want to be familiar with
it). The PE is open book, so you can
take what you want. But, you had best
know the references you are planning to take into the exam, because there is no
time during the exam to read books. Calculators: No computers or any calculator with
communication capability are currently allowed during the exam. To find out the latest information on
calculators allowed on the exam, check out NCEES Calculator Policy. Also make sure to check with the state board
for the current rules on what is acceptable in the exam.
Exam
Preparation and Performance
While
you are doing your practice problems, try to not use you calculator very
much. "What do you mean? This is engineering;
you HAVE to use the calculator!"...you might say. However, remember that the exam is a test of
your engineering ability, not how well you use a calculator. This is an engineering exam, not a math
test. Calculator time is
"dead" time. Every time you
use your calculator it is time you are not spending "thinking" about
(engineering) the problem at hand. Yes,
you will need to use your calculator, just use it wisely. How does one calculate without using a
calculator? Use your brain, it is much
faster! For example, what is the common
log of 1000? Before you reach for your
calculator, think about it. What is the
power of ten representation of 1000? 1000 is ten to the third power. What is the log of 1000, it is 3! See you can do it without a calculator. Fine you say, but what about the log of
2,354? Well, you can come up with a
close approximation of 2,354. You know
the log of 1,000 is 3 and the log of 10,000 is 4, so the log of 2,354 is
between 3 and 4, and closer to 3. This
may be enough information to isolate an answer in a multiple-choice question or
at least throw out some answers.
Try to
check your answers as much as possible.
I realize that you are under time restrictions; however, you want to at
least estimate your answer. Under the,
"stress of test" you can hit extra keys on the calculator (or maybe
make a calculation error) and by mentally estimating or doing an alternate
solution, you will be able to catch these errors.
Study hard and study well. You want to practice exam conditions when
solving the practice problems. This
means you probably will not have a TV (or computer) during the exam, so don't
study with the TV. On the other hand,
you probably will not have a completely quiet and isolated room either, so
study accordingly.
FE
Reference Handbook: For the FE exam, get a hard copy of the book
and use it while you are studying. You
will want to be as familiar with this reference as you can, it will be the only
reference you will have during the exam.
You will not be able to take in your copy of the FE Reference Handbook
to the FE exam, but they will give you a new copy at the exam (so, make sure
when you are studying you are using the version that will be at the FE exam).
For the PE exam, I would also
recommend getting a hard copy of the Fundamentals of Engineering Reference
Handbook and including it with your reference materials you take into the
exam. The FE Reference Handbook has the
discipline specific information, which would make it a good reference for the
PE exams. It would certainly help on the
breath section of the exam (the morning part of the PE exam).
Just before the exam, get two good nights of
sleep. This is not to imply that you
sleep for 16 hours before the exam. That
will create another set of problems. It
seems that today's society is run by a lot of people under sleep deprivation
and you want a useful rested brain for the exam.
Don't cram before the exam. This may have worked in college, but it
doesn't work well for the Professional Engineering exams. Being rested for the exams is very
important. You will know a lot of
information for the exam if you have studied along the way. However, it will be of no use to you if your
brain is asleep on the exam day.
Strategies
during the Exam
You want to develop a plan for the exam. One I recommend is to read the exam. Read through all the questions and classify
them into; "easy", "will require some work", and "I
don't know ". This should take 6 - 12
minutes, depending on the exam and you.
Implement your plan. The easy
ones are best to answer during the first pass through as you read them;
however, watch the time. Don't spend all
of your time on the problem(s) you like.
Get them done as soon as possible.
You are going to have to spend your time on the others, i.e., the ones
you don't like as much. If the whole
exam is easy for you, great, do it and go home.
For most people, there aren’t enough of the "easy" problems
for them to pass the exam (otherwise the pass rates would be higher).
On the "will require some work" problems,
don't spend your time completely calculating the problems. A natural human reaction is to start at the
beginning and serially move to the end.
You don't have time for that.
Check as you are calculating, to see if you have enough information to
isolate the answer. For multiple-choice
questions, if two answers are correct and there is a selection for
"all", select it and go on. Don't take the time to prove to yourself
all the answers are correct. Use the
answers from multiple choice questions to back calculate, this can save you
time. You need to be efficient with your
time.
Make sure that when you are answering a question, you
are filling in the answer for that question.
For example, if you are answering question 33, make sure you are filling
in the answer for 33. It may seem
unnecessary to even mention this; of course for problem 33 you would fill the
answer for problem 33. But you must
remember during the stress of test you might not. Many times I have heard from people after taking
the exam. They thought they had done
quite well upon leaving the exam realized their answer sheet did not reflect
the questions they had skipped over. Taking
the last 5 to 10 minutes of the exam to check your answers will not work very
well on these exams. You will need to
develop your own methods of check to make sure you have answered the correct
question.
By reading the "I don't know" problems
again, you may discover that they can be moved into the category of "may
require some work". If not, do some
intelligent guessing. If you find
yourself in a problem and it just looks too hard, remind yourself that you are
not "looking" at it correctly.
This helps in two main ways. First
is that this will cause you to re-look at the problem and there may be
something you missed.
The second is more of a psychological help. If you think it is too hard for you, you may
convince yourself and give up. Don't
give up; just look at it differently.
That is the main point of being an engineer. Don't give up; try another way. That's what being
an engineer is all about, trying until you find a solution. The people who give up are not engineers; the
people who get it done are engineers.
Summary Check List: Before the exam:
·
Check
with the Board for an Application and current requirements for the exams.
·
Develop
a plan for the exam. How are you going
to engineer your way to and through the exam? One specialty area is not enough
to pass the exam.
·
Study
for the exam, take a review course, and/or form a study group.
·
Familiarize
yourself with your calculator and reference materials.
·
Make
sure you going into the exam fully rested.
On the exam:
·
Read
all the problems and sort by difficulty.
·
Estimate
as much as possible.
·
Make
efficient use of the calculator and your time.
·
Keep
in mind, if it looks too hard you are not looking at it correctly.
·
Check
the answers; make sure your answer is the answer to the question asked.
Good luck,
on your path to becoming a professional engineer.
Links for further information:
ABET, Accreditation Board for
Engineering and Technology www.abet.org
State Board locator: http://www.ncees.org/licensure/licensing_boards/
California
State Board of Registration: http://www.pels.ca.gov/
NSPE, National Society of Professional
Engineers: www.nspe.org
How to pass FE(EIT) and PE exam seminars and review
courses: http://pe.quartzvalley.com/
NCEES, National Council of Examiners for
Engineering and Surveying (NCEES): www.ncees.org
FE your reference book www.ncees.org/exams/study_materials/fe_handbook)
Calculator Policy www.ncees.org/exams/calculators
Dennis Dahlquist, P.E is a
consulting engineer in California. He teaches Engineering courses at California
State University, Sacramento. He has
taught review courses for 20 years for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) and
Electrical Engineering (EEPE) licensing exams, with pass rates near 90%. He can
be reached by email at: d.dahlquist@ieee.org,
2008