The Mechanical PE Exams will convert to the year-round Computer-Based Testing (CBT) format starting in April of 2020. The October 2019 Exam is the last chance to take the Mechanical exams in the Pencil-and-Paper format. The Civil PE Exams are scheduled to convert in 2023. In this post, I want to focus on the change that will have the most significant impact on the exam experience and your ability to prepare for the exam – the restriction on taking personal references into the exam.
In the long history of the PE Exam, you could bring almost any personal reference to the exam facility. I remember when I took the exam many, many years ago, a fellow examinee rolled in with a steamer trunk full of books. In the face of that long-standing tradition, the upcoming transition to the CBT format is very disconcerting indeed. In this new format, you will not be allowed to take a single reference to the exam with you.
Not one!
Instead, you will be presented with a searchable PDF of the NCEES Reference Handbook, sharing half of the 24-inch computer screen with the PE Exam itself. The official NCEES Reference Handbook for the Mechanical CBT exam is now available for download from NCEES in PDF format. You’ll need to create an NCEES account to access it. The PE Mechanical Reference Handbook is just over 500 pages, with 200 pages needed for Machine Design & Materials, 260 pages for Thermal & Fluids Systems, and 385 pages for HVAC & Refrigeration. The thought of getting to be familiar with hundreds of pages of information is daunting to say the least. Also, having looked through this handbook since its release, I've found that, while some of the material provided in it is excellent and even a great improvement over other references, there are many serious gaps. And the Handbook preface clearly states that, while the handbook contains material that may be helpful in answering questions on the exam, "it does not contain all information required to answer every question; theories, conversions, formulas, and definitions that examinees are expected to know have not been included." Let that sink in.
With the old format, which is now referred to as a Pencil-and-Paper exam, the process of assembling the reference materials to take into the exam was a vital part of your preparation. Deciding what to take and preparing your references for easy access to information, required much thought, resulting in better retention of that information. I have seen this consistently in many years helping engineers to pass the PE Exam. The more effort our students put into preparing and organizing their references, the better they do on the exam. Beyond the exam, the materials you generate in preparing for the PE Exam are also materials you can use once you became a licensed professional engineer. It is unfortunate that the CBT format will make that effort obsolete. No longer will you be able to enter the exam with the sense of confidence and accomplishment that you had collected, created and brought to the exam the materials that you needed to succeed, and leave with a wealth of materials you can use in your life as a PE. I’m afraid that, instead, there will now be merely a sense of just surviving the CBT exam experience.
There is clearly an advantage in preparing for the PE Exam with materials you gather and create yourself, as well as great reward in passing the PE Exam knowing you were the one who compiled the reference materials. And for these reasons alone, my advice is to take and pass the PE exam now, before the change takes place! - Dr. Tom
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