My Study Tips
Unfortunately, it’s time to crack open those books and get to work. Studying is the worst, and you don’t want to waste your time and energy studying ineffectively. Let’s talk about how to make the most out of your studying time.
It’s an open book exam, so we’re not trying to memorize or cram. Our goal is to know how to solve the problem and where to find the information. Here are my favorite tips for studying for the P.E. exam:
Get someone else to grade your practice exams: If someone else grades your exam, you can get a second try at the questions you answered incorrectly. Learning through repeating the question is more effective at retaining the material than getting the answer easily through the answers.
Use the right calculator: You are allowed only certain calculators in the exam room. Make sure your calculator is allowed and use this calculator all through your studying. You want to be comfortable using your calculator and know where all the buttons are. Spending time during the exam trying to change your settings from radians to degrees is a total waste of time.
Tab your references as you go: Everybody says it, tab your references. It saves you valuable time during the exam finding the information you need. Mark useful tables and graphs, mark the start of useful sections, and tab the index with the letters. Color code your tabs and label them to make them easier to use. Tabbing as you go is the most effective way to mark all the information you’re going to need and will save you the time of doing it later.
Highlight your references: Highlighting key words, equations, variables, and section titles can make it easier to find what you’re looking for during the time pressure of the exam. You can use different color highlights to mean different things. Picture yourself in the exam, looking through the index (with your tabs) to find Reynolds number. You find it, flip to the page, eyes dart to a blue highlight for the keyword Reynolds. Just below your eyes dart to the yellow highlighted equation. And then you find the orange highlights for the variable definitions. You don’t want to spend minutes reading and scanning through your references, when you can spend seconds.
Learn the material before doing the problems: A lot of people think that diving in and doing a bajillion practice problems is the right way to go. The problem with this method is that the reference manuals and the six-minute solutions have mistakes. When studying I came across an alarming amount of mistakes in the practice problems. If I didn’t know what I was doing, I would have learned the wrong way to approach these problems. Know what you’re doing, so that you can go through the problems with a critical eye.
Annotate your practice problems: Go through your practice problems and see where you’re going wrong. Not only to review the problem and learn how to approach the problem correctly in the future, but to catch patterns of mistakes. If there’s a pattern of forgetting to convert units or getting the axes wrong or not reading the problem carefully, you can find it and work to correct it. This will give you an edge when you go over your work during the exam and you know exactly what to keep an eye out for. (Note that I was noticing a pattern of sloppiness with reading the problem in my own studying. I corrected it by annotating the problem before delving in. I underlined parameters and units, double underlined what the question was asking for, and circled keywords such as “service” or “design.” Practicing this annotation in my studies helped me do it without a second thought during the exam.)
Write it out: Writing things out helps me retain the information. As I read through the material, I took notes. While going through practice problems, I annotated my notes. After I was finished going through all the material, I transferred my notes to a nice notebook using colored pens and pasting in useful charts. I still use my notebook at work for a reference sometimes! You don’t have to get crazy with notes like I did (see image of my notes above), especially if that’s not your learning style. But even being intentional with writing out your work with your practice problem can be useful in providing a road map for solving problems during the exam or finding patterns of mistakes in your work.
Read out loud: It happens to all of us, you read the same sentence over and over because you forget what it said the second your eyes hit the period. After a long day of work, it would get especially tough for me to focus on reading. When this would happen, I would read out loud. The action of speaking and hearing the words out loud helped me get through the material. It may take longer to read out loud in theory, but it’s definitely faster than reading the same sentence 50 times.
Use commute time to study: If you spend a decent amount of time commuting each day, take advantage of this to multitask and study. If you’re using the bus or the train, you can read material and really get some good studying time in. If you’re driving, it’s a little tougher as you need to focus on the road. You might be able to listen to any course material you have or just review the material you learned in your head.
Borrow study materials: A great way to save money for the exam is to borrow study materials, reference books, and practice exams from others. You can ask your coworkers/friends who’ve already taken the exam, your place of work, or the library. You can maybe even find deals for second hand books online. Any references you get your own copy of will probably come in handy during your career. But don’t get caught up in buying everything. You don’t need to make the exam any more expensive than it already is by buying a full set of references.
Get your hands on the CERM or equivalent: If you’re going to only get one reference book for the exam, get the overall reference manual, such as the Civil Engineering Reference Manual (CERM) for civil. I know there are similar texts for electrical and mechanical. It’s a really great resource for the exam, but I don’t necessarily find this text that useful in my career. I highly recommend borrowing someone else’s if you can. I borrowed one that was an older edition, and it worked out perfect for me.
Get a study buddy: If you’re taking the exam at the same time as one of your friends, it’s great to have the extra support system. You can share notes and ask for help on practice problems. It’s not essential to have a study buddy, but venting to someone who’s in it and gets it was actually really helpful.