Have you taken the Mechanical PE Exam and failed? Are you committed to getting your professional engineering license but not sure what adjustments you need to make in order to pass the exam? Here are three suggestions I’ve compiled from working with hundreds of candidates in the same situation, including multiple repeat takers that passed on their sixth try!
1. Recalibrate Your Expectations
One of the most common questions candidates ask themselves, me, and anyone on Reddit willing to venture a response is: “How hard is the Mechanical PE Exam?” The answer depends on a variety of factors, such as:
- What you studied in school
- How long since you were a student
- How accustomed you are to thinking critically for hours at a time
- What you work on day to day
- Your ability to make time to study
- Your willingness to establish consistent study rituals
- Your access to trusted study resources
- Presence or absence of accountability structures
In short, how hard the exam is turns out to be a function of the candidate’s capabilities in relation to the exam rather than an objective statement about the exam itself. Since the question posed rarely supplies these details, none of the answers offered can provide much insight.
Then how do candidates assess the difficulty level? How do they decide how hard to work?
- Some base their effort level on their recollection of the FE Exam. This usually leads to superficial learning of a broad set of topics because you are envisioning solving problems in only a few minutes each.
- Some base their assessment on colleagues they know who passed and what they are able to share anecdotally. The problem with this approach is people tend to describe their experience with hindsight bias and make it sound easier than it actually was, which also makes them look good because it sounds like it was “easy” for them.
- Some look at the published pass rates, which are around 70%, and convince themselves that they could not possibly be in the bottom third of applicants, so therefore they will be fine.
If you fail the PE exam, NCEES furnishes you with a PDF showing whether you were above or below the average candidate that passed the exam for each major topic area. Candidates seem to want to put these reports under a microscope and extract deep insights about their personal strengths and weaknesses.
When I review diagnostic reports, I roll my computer chair back until the text is no longer legible, and I roughly gauge the size of the colored areas. If the gray and white are about equal, I tell candidates they were very close to passing, and all they need to do is revisit some hard problems for a few weeks and try again making sure to work carefully and manage their time. Get enough little things right and it will tip the scales in your favor.
However, if the report shows much more white than gray, we have the all too common gross shortfall across most or all topics. This tells me a recalibration of expectations is needed. The candidate expected the exam to be much easier than it actually was. Or they honestly weren’t sure what to expect, so they just took a chance to see what would happen.
There’s nothing wrong with this approach. Some engineers are extremely pressed for time due to external commitments and are more concerned with the risk of over-studying than being underprepared. Some of these candidates take the news in stride, and with a clearer picture of the task at hand, set about putting themselves in a better position the next time.
Others have a hard time taking the news, because they honestly thought they were doing well during the exam. The exam almost always has answer choices available for common but incorrect solution paths, so it is easy to get lulled into a false sense of confidence when your preparation is superficial. Also, no one enjoys the feeling of disappointment and having to ramp up and start studying again, much less admitting to colleagues and family that they failed.
Ultimately, the humbling process that repeat takers must go through in order to eventually be successful is a process of recalibrating their expectations to be as aligned as possible with the actual exam. This is less about technical skills and more about personal growth. Attempts to externalize and explain the result away often lead to repeated failures because nothing new is happening during the study process.
2. Find Enjoyment As You Go Deeper
After hitting the reset button, repeat takers understand they need to go much deeper, and they show up ready to do the work. The challenge now becomes about cultivating patience and endurance, because studying is genuinely hard. But it shouldn’t be torturously hard, filled with constant despair, and seemingly impossible questions. You should not feel like you are wasting your time. While there will be moments of minor frustration, disappointment, and confusion along the way, these should be relatively brief as you are pushing into the boundaries of your knowledge and skills, and expanding your abilities incrementally.
In fact, encountering sticking points along the way is inevitable, and your ability to push through them is a positive signal that you are doing the right work in the right way. If you already knew everything there was to know about mechanical engineering, there would be nothing to learn in each study session. And if the material was so impenetrable that you couldn’t break through any of it, that would leave anyone stuck and deflated.
There is a sweet spot in between these two extremes, where the problems are challenging – but doable – sometimes with a bit of external assistance or trying a few dead ends first. This is the makings of real learning. This is the kind of learning that will stay with you for the rest of your career and life, well beyond exam day.
When you find this flow of generating new questions, discovering answers, and continuing forward, studying can become deeply satisfying. Without the challenges and uncertainty along the way, practice problems would be akin to basic algebra, the exam would be a cakewalk, the pass rate would be 100%, and getting your PE license would mean nothing. This isn’t really what we want. Deep down, we want to be challenged, we want the opportunity to enrich ourselves professionally, and we want to stand out from the crowd because we set out on a mission to do something hard and worthwhile.
So be gentle on yourself when the going gets rough, take breaks when you need them, take care of yourself along the way, and make sure to find satisfaction each time you study. That voice in your head that constantly tells you to push harder, work longer, and that you should have gotten some concept already is not helpful. Taming this mentality will make it easier and more pleasant to show up day after day as your next exam date approaches.
3. Use a Study Program You Trust
Candidates who fail the PE Exam often did not invest in a study program due to the calibration issue previously discussed. Their logic goes: If the exam is easy, why should you bother with a program? But this reasoning overlooks several factors.
When you study without a structured plan, you spend a substantial portion of your study time not actually studying because you are trying to figure out which topics are worth your time. A trusted program is an opportunity to outsource all the effort directed toward figuring out what is in scope so all you have to do is show up ready to work.
Because the program has a proven track record (if it doesn’t then find one that does!), you can truly buy into the process. When you doubt the process, you might cherry pick topics based on what you like and dislike, or what you heard will or will not be on the exam. But when you go all in with the right program and believe it is going to work, you do everything as it has been laid out knowing that you will ultimately achieve the desired result. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Good programs include technical guidance and personalized support so if you are stuck for longer than you should be, you can get moving again and avoid wasting time.
In addition to friends, family, and colleagues, a quality program may offer additional accountability from a guide who understands exactly what you are up against and is aligned with your objective.
If a program is truly able to produce the result it promises, the returns will outweigh the investment many times over within a year of getting your PE. If there is a Pass Guarantee, there is no financial risk.
Investing in yourself often produces the motivation required to establish and maintain a consistent study routine which is essential to getting fully prepared.
In conclusion, PE candidates that have come up short on the PE exam and want to make the necessary adjustments to pass on the next try should recalibrate their expectations, look for enjoyment in studying, and find a trusted study program to help you on your journey.
If you found this article helpful, I’d be honored to support you on your journey toward professional licensure. To learn more about the process and our programs, contact Dan@mechancialPEexamprep.com.
Thank you Dan.
I must say, above 5 minute read is enough to keep going and push harder.