r/PE_Exam

I self studied for roughly four months, around ~200 hours. I went through five study books:

Wasim Asghar Study Guide for PE: this was the first book I completed, I am not sure I’d recommend it. Much of the chapters miss the mark for real exam feel in my experience. Some of the chapters are really good though, so it’s a mixed bag. If you do use it, use it to begin your studying as the book is structured well for teaching how to use every square inch of the NCEES handbook and exposing you to some deeper concepts that may not be explicitly tested but good background to know. I cannot recommend using it during the tail end of your studies. I spent six weeks on this material.

Engineering Pro Guides Exam 1-6 Bundle: if you are doing self study as I did, I’d say this book is the closest you can get to the real exam. I used it as a question bank and had a goal of doing around 10-13 questions per day. Exam #3 is focused entirely on codes and standards, which makes up a large part of the real exam and will be the best practice you can find. I spent around 6 weeks running through this book. Highly recommend.

Zach Stone AIT, TSG, & Qualitative Exams: I bought hard copies of all three of his books available on Amazon. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to buy or access PDF copies without buying into his classes. These books are great for conceptual questions. Likewise, I went through them with the goal of doing about 10-13 questions per day over 3 weeks.

General piece of advice I can give is not to focus on whether you scored a question right or wrong when studying, and not to focus on time or efficiency. Try to answer a question solo first, then compare with the answer key and revise as needed. For conceptual questions, understand why every other answer choice was incorrect before moving on.

People often ask about practice test scores:
Two weeks before my exam date I took the official NCEES practice exam. I split it up into two parts between Sunday and Saturday and scored a 74%. I finished the exam in 6.5 hours and did not check over my work. I think if I did I’d have caught some simple mistakes I made and scored higher. The week before my exam date I did the same thing with EPG Exam #2. Enough time elapsed that I didn’t remember the questions anymore on my retake. I scored a 78% on this one and had an hour of time left. I finished the real PE exam early and had slightly over and hour to review (30+ minutes on each AM and PM part). This is why I say not to worry about time or efficiency when solving problems. Focus on understanding instead. The exam is very generous time wise.

Good luck to anyone studying!

Passed PE Chemical on my 2nd attempt — sharing because I don't see many PE Chemical posts on here.

**First attempt: PPI2Pass Live Lectures**

Would not recommend paying for the live lectures. Just get the question bank if you go this route. The live lecture, homework, and Lindenburg study schedule is unrealistic and ends up being a lot of busy work. The instructor was a genuinely nice guy but didn't explain theory in a meaningful way. The course struggles due to how everything is laid out and presented. The real value is in the questions and the PPI practice exam (which is harder than the actual exam — I scored 50% on it the first time). Also, the Kaplan website is buggy as hell.

**Second attempt: LearnChemE PE Exam Prep (FREE)**

Shoutout to the professors and staff at the CU Boulder Chemical Engineering Dept who put this together and made it FREE. The screencasts and interactive simulations are excellent for actually learning theory, not just drilling problem types. That distinction matters — NCEES writes purposefully tricky, worded questions, so if you haven't touched something like extents of reaction, Raoult's Law, Heats of Mixing, etc. in 20 years, rote practice alone won't save you.

**What I'd do if starting over:**

- Buy only the PPI2Pass question bank and practice exam (skip live lectures)

- Use LearnChemE for theory

- NCEES practice exam — the single best study resource; don't just check answers, make sure you fully understand the *why*

- Matthew G's practice exam on Amazon (some dated API-referenced questions, but still solid overall)

- Aim to score at least 75-80% on practice exams for buffer

Happy to answer any questions

Here is a continuation of some practice problems I am developing. Here are the next 2. I will leave them up for a few days for you to answer before I provide the answers and concepts.

I was SCOURING Reddit trying to find other ppl who were scoring in the 60s and then passed... there r people who have said that but mostly y’all r saying to shoot for 70-80???? I feel it is my duty to provide this data so we can all chill out a bit. I also got a 65 on ncees. I was lowkey worried af but I passed. Purr

I have done it! I am so very happy, I really want to shout out Eng Pro Guides and Wasim for their resources! I self-studied and I had my mentor help me with some of the material to help me understand it better!

Three years out of college, main source was LearnNova and I feel like it prepared me really well! It made me go through sections of the code I had never touched before. Total hours was probably around 150, I didn’t count questions I did during break at work.

Stopped logging after 5/3 cause I was definitely feeling burnt out lol

Hi everyone-

I passed the PE Civil: Construction exam on my first try. This community has been a huge help on why I was able to pass.

Some advice and how I prepared:

1. I used EET On Demand to prepare and started the course in November last year. I watched every lecture and made sure I understand the topic completely. All the practice problems that were given in the lecture I tried first before listening to the solution. I studied about 2-3 hours a day. My exam was originally scheduled for April but end of March i did not feel well prepared and rescheduled to May. I took that month to strictly do practice problems averaging about 15 problems a day. I did all the quizzes on EET averaging about 70% on each one and they are in line difficulty wise with what was on the exam. I found the NCEES practice exam to be a lot easier.

2. If you feel off on a study day, it is better to skip and get a fresh start the next day. I felt many days burnt out so I encourage if you are burnt out to close the laptop and rest.

3. Know your references very very well. I knew the handbook like the back of my hand and what equation serves what purpose. The search feature on the exam is also neat so take advantage of that. The other important reference is the SP-4 and you can find the .pdf file online for free. The ACI manual has search functions but you need to be familiar with table of contents to navigate quicker. Same with the OSHA manual. The MUTCD manual has the one equation in chapter 6 regarding the taper length so that is really the only useful item from that manual.

4. Day before the exam I did a brief review of my notes but cut all studying off at 2pm to give my body and mind time to relax. I had a nice dinner and went to sleep at 9pm. The morning of, I had a nice breakfast (nothing greasy or heavy) and a coffee.

When I finished the exam I felt defeated and had really low confidence. It is important to read every word of the question and every word of the answer. The 3 pass method is the best way to go with getting the easy ones out of the way and coming back to the more challenging questions later.

I believe in all of you that are about to take the exam! Happy to help with any other questions.

Pretty hard exam, the deck wasn‘t stacked in my favor as a bridge engineer but still made it.

I self studied with the books shown for around 100 hours probably. Also used my school notes.

For lunch I had PB&Js, hummus and chips, nuts, double espresso, and a backup banana I didn’t eat.

Thank you to this subreddit for helping me pass this gauntlet of an exam!

I didn't feel like it after the second half of the exam but got the big surprise this morning. Didn't get any work done for the rest of today haha

I'm exhausted. This was just my first attempt, and of course I'm going again, I'm just exhausted. I'm dealing with a spinal cord injury with 4 ruptured discs, I'm caregiving for my father with cancer, all while working full time and trying to study. I'm looking for a little encouragement or at least motivation to light a fire under me. Was I close at all here?

I'm doing EET regardless, but with my abundance of available time and energy to study more (/s), I'm wondering if it's possible to kind of move quickly through some EET sections and skip homeworks occasionally, but still get where I need to be?

Anyone else feel like this right now? Trying to get as much done before Wednesday as possible so that if I failed, I get some pre-depression productivity in lol.