By Doug Criner, P.E.

The 8-hour "principles and practice" engineering exam, leading to state licensure in the U.S., is offered in a number of engineering disciplines. The exams are developed by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying and participating technical societies.

Breadth & Depth Format

For many of the most popular engineering disciplines, such as civil, electrical, computer, and mechanical, the exam format consists of a morning "breadth" module and an afternoon "depth module," each module comprising 40 multiple-choice questions. Each question has four alternative answers, A, B, C, and D. In addition to the correct answer, there are three "distractors" that are deliberately chosen to match answers that could likely result from common calculational errors or misconceptions.

The score is the total number of correct answers—with no penalty for incorrect answers. Therefore, it is advantageous to "guess."  A correct answer on the morning "breadth" module has the same weight as a correct answer on the depth module.

The exams are structured to have a relatively even distribution of correct answers among the four choices, A-D. Thus, a random guess will have a 25% probability of being correct. If the candidate simply has "no clue," it would be well to pick an answer at random. Answering all questions by guessing would produce an expected raw score of about 20 (out of 80 questions), so the passing score should always be higher.

Naturally, the odds are vastly improved if the candidate can eliminate one or more choices as being implausible or unlikely.

Numerical answer choices are usually arrayed in descending or ascending order. Therefore, there is no particular psychology of where the correct answer is placed among the distractors.

Each question is expected to be answerable within just a few minutes, assuming that the candidate has the specific knowledge. There is no evil strategy of planting a few very difficult problems to sucker candidates into wasting time. Some questions may be qualitative, requiring no calculation, and answerable immediately after reading the problem. If the candidate perceives a question as involving very complex or lengthy calculations, it is likely that he/she misunderstands the problem and should move on to other parts of the exam.

Suggested Approach

Here is one possible approach for taking the P.E. exam, particularly for those disciplines in "breadth & depth" format:

1. A substantial amount of the exam time will be occupied by just reading the problems and mentally "shifting gears" between questions. Therefore, try to minimize skipping problems and coming back to them later.

2. Answer questions in order.  "Guess" if you have to.  If you do guess, and think you might benefit from more work, mark the problem to revisit if you have time at the end.

3. If you "hack" through a problem, be aware that you may arrive at one of the alternative answers, and yet still be wrong–because of the insidious way in which distractors are chosen.

4. Do not spend an inordinate amount of time on any one problem.  On average, you need to budget about five minutes per problem.  If you perceive the solution being very complex or lengthy, you probably have the wrong approach.

5. Bring to the exam only those references that you are reasonably familiar with and know how to use.

6. Sometimes, rather than solving the problem directly, it might be more expedient to check each of the alternative choices to see if they work.

7. Take time to read each problem carefully.  There is a temptation to start solving the problem too quickly.

8. The sample exams available from NCEES are very helpful in gaining insight into the content of the exam.

9. Only certain models of pocket calculators are allowed to be take into the exam.  Don't worry about having the latest pocket calculator.  For the electrical & computer exam, bring a calculator that can handle rectangular and polar coordinates and conversions between the two--but highly sophisticated calculators won't help.  For the power depth portion of the electrical & computer, it would be helpful to have a calculator with four-function complex number handling, such as the HP-9s.  Without such a capability, complex numbers must be converted to rectangular form to add or subtract, and be in polar form to divide or multiply.  Four-function capability allows any of these operations to be performed in either rectangular or polar form

10. Don't try to take the P.E. exam "cold."  Few of us are that sharp.

Here is one way to look at the exam:  suppose that you can answer one-half of the questions with reasonable certainty.  Then assume that for one-fourth of the questions, you can eliminate two of the multiple-choice answers as being unreasonable.  Then, for the remaining quarter, assume that you have not the foggiest idea of how to work the problem.  Your expected raw score on the 80-question exam will be:

        40 + 20 x 0.5 + 20 x 0.25 = 55

The passing score for each exam is determined by a panel of engineers that decides what a "minimally competent" candidate should know.  The passing score will vary from one exam administration to the next, depending upon the each exam's perceived difficulty.  Therefore, there is no way to anticipate the passing score, but a raw score of 55 certainly is well above the "floor," 80 x 0.25 = 20, that could be achieved by a monkey with a pencil and it's conceivable that a score of 55 would be passing.

If you have recent experience with the P.E. exam, consider submitting your thoughts for publication on this website.

Questions & Answers

Q.  Are there "trick" questions?

A.  A "trick" question has information that is deliberately misleading or subtleties that are purposely disguised.  In this sense, there are no "trick" questions, at least intentional ones.  However, among the multiple-choice answers, there are likely to be "distractors," deliberately chosen to match with incorrect results from common mistakes.  For example, if a calculation involves a factor of 2π, it is likely that some of the choices may incorporate combinations of incorrect factors, such as forgetting 2π altogether or dividing instead of multiplying by 2π.

Also, some problem statements may provide more information than is needed:  for example, an electric motor's nameplate ratings might be given, yet some of the rating information may be irrelevant to the problem.  A single-line diagram may show devices or other details that are superfluous to the actual problem.  Be watchful for problems that may be less complex than they first appear!

Q.  Is it possible that there could be an error in a question's wording or in the multiple-choice answers?

A.  Not likely, but possible.  Exams are reviewed multiple times, but it's possible, for example, that a seemingly minor correction or clarification is made just before the exam goes to press–with some insidious effect that creates ambiguity or invalidates the whole question.  Even if this were to happen, it is likely that the question would be flagged by the spurious, unexpected performance of the question on the actual exam–if so, the problem might be thrown out or keyed with multiple correct answers.  In any case, if you think a problem is flawed (even though it probably isn't), guess and move on.

© 2003 Doug Criner