I still remember questions from my exams... You will probably think about the problems you think you may have missed for quite some time I know I did. The waiting for the results is miserable.
But I definitely agree write down the problems if you remember them. I never thought of doing that when I took my exams, however, I'm pretty sure I could write down all the questions from my afternoon exams if asked they were in my nightmares for months!
While it's certainly within their purview to require that I have to ask what might be the intent of doing so. It seems to me there are two possible answers:
1. So they can reuse questions thus reducing the expense of creating the exam.
2. So they can limiting testers ability to study for it.
If it's the former then I suspect most people would pay more for the exam in order to be better prepared for it. If it's the latter then they are just serving as gate-keepers to the profession, a topic unto itself.
I can't imagine any teacher or professor trying to impose or enforce such a ruling. And more pointedly, how can any of the companies that offer test preparation courses/material do so? Surely what they offer is based off of *something*.
1. It is well known that NCEES reuses questions from a question pool. Though obviously new ones are added at times and poor questions are removed.
2. NCEES publishes a sample exam that I'm fairly sure is just questions they have removed from the question pool.
I doubt they can have entirely new exam questions every 6 months. Doubly so as it likely would wreck havoc with their statistics.
I teach 1/2 of PPI's structural exam course and obviously bring my exam experiences into my personal knowledge during the course. That said, I take steps to ensure that all the exam related tips, the study items, and other topics are all based partially or entirely on the NCEES published exam syllabus, sample exam, and obvious test strategy. I can provide information that is not exam specific, such as how I recommend a question be answered on the exam. Obviously someone could infer some details of the exam from the information I give in the review course. To this end I specifically make a few recommendations that are good test advice but do not reflect my particular exam experience. This way anything inferred may not be correct.
It's worth mentioning that many people see nothing wrong with talking about the exam with someone else who took the exam with you. Nothing is revealed that wasn't already known, but this technically does violate the NDA.
Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH, MA)
American Concrete Industries
I took and passed the SE recently. Hands down the most difficult test I have ever taken. IMO, the PE test was easy. The SE though you gotta know your stuff and you gotta cook. No time to learn it on exam day.
TehMightyEngineer, I'm not sure it's true that the NCEES has removed all the questions they use on the practice exam from the "question pool". I had a question in the afternoon that was nearly identical to a question in an NCEES published practice exam. By nearly exact I think the only thing different was the loading or something simple. I couldn't believe it.
It is statistically important for testing agencies to run a basis line from one generation test to the next. By reusing the same questions, they can gage how one population performs against another. Using that difference they can then gage how their new questions stand against the previous questions.
Ha! TehMighty and msquared48! I took my PE several years ago... first stop was the trash can where I dumped all the reference junk that I don't care to ever see again (if I didn't pass the first time, I was not really considering taking it again - glad that I did fine) and then proceeded to the parking lot where I appeared to be the only one that had the foresight to pack myself a cooler of beers.
I cracked beers in the University exam gymnasium when I finished my degree. It actually was perfect in that it was an easy exam, not worth a significant amount of the final grade, and I knew my shit for that one. I was the first person to leave the exam and it was so quiet, everyone and their dog heard my beer can open. It ranks up there with the best tasting beer I've ever had.
