ENGINEERING PRO GUIDES

ONLINE MECHANICAL FE EXAM COURSE - Introduction

Introduction

Course Objective: Learn the Concepts, Gain the Skills and Pass the Exam with Confidence

  • Understand the "why"
  • Gain confidence in each exam topic
  • Be familiar with the NCEES® Handbook
  • Become familiar with your calculator

  • Develop speed and avoid common mistakes with practice
  • Complete ALL course practice problems
  • Aim for 75% correct average on practice exams
  • Ask lots of questions!

The amount of study hours will vary depending on how fresh the material is for you and how well you did in your engineering courses. Students right out of college may only need 8 hours of studying. If it's been a while, you may need to invest closer to ~115 hours. A good way to gauge your preparedneess is if you are able to score 70-75% correct on the NCEES Practice exam.



Exam Scoring

There is no penalty for wrong answers, so if you are stuck on an answer, use your best judgement and process of elimination. Remember not to get bogged down by one question, move on and come back to it if you do not immediately know how to solve it.

Passing Score
The passing score is not published, since the exam is scaled through psychometric statistical calculations and not by a specific passing score or rate. However, the concensus from test takers answering around 50-55% correct. The pass rate for the CBT exam as of January 2021 is 75%, which means 75% of test takers passed.

Exam Scoring
The scoring is done by ranking a bank of questions based on difficulty, and comparing the scores against what is expected to be the minimum ability of the engineer. This has been determined by subject matter experts.

NCEES® Exam Outline

The NCEES® Mechanical FE Exam Syllabus defines the topics that will be tested and how many questions to expect per topic.

The EPG course and textbook covers all topics. Throughout your studying refer to this syllabus to make sure you are comfortable with all topics or flag the subjects you struggle in.


  Exam Day Timeline

The exam is 110 problems, 5 hours 20 minutes.     Approx. 2.9 minutes/problem. The exam is broken up in two sections with an optional break in between. You decide how to distribute the time between each section, but once you submit a section, you cannot go back to it.

  • Total Exam Time: 5 hours, 20 minutes
  • (split between Section 1 & 2)
  • Total Appointment Time: 6 hours
  • Total Questions: 110 questions
  • (split between Section 1 & 2)

  • Intro: 10 minutes
  • First Section: ~55 questions (+/- few questions)
  • You decide when to stop the clock. Once you submit, you cannot go back.
  • Break Time: Max 25 minutes
  • Second Section: ~55 questions (+/- few questions)
  • Clock resumes, ends at 5 hours, 20 minute total test time. You cannot go back to the first section.

Computer Based Test (CBT) Interface

  • Split Screen: Side by Side view of Reference & Questions
  • Exam Day Resource: NCEES® FE Reference Handbook.
  • Provided as Searcahble PDF.
  • No outside resources.
  • Download free on MyNCEES.com
  • Used for all disciplines, thus contains extraneous information.
  • Line Tool: See NCEES® Sample Video
  • Lines cannot be copied.

  • Search References: See NCEES® Sample Video
  • Search Button only, No Ctrl+F Hot Key
  • Bookmarked by Chapter
  • Flag Questions: See NCEES® Sample Video
  • Question Types: See NCEES® Sample Video
  • Multiple Choice (Majority of Questions)
  • Multiple Correct Answers
  • Drag & Drop
  • Fill in Blank


  Calculator

NCEES® has a list of calculators that are allowed into the exam. We recommend the TI-36XPro. The Casio FX-991EX is also a good model. See the links for calculator manuals.

At a minimum, you should be familiar how to use the following functions. This will be key for improving your speed and minimizing mistakes.
  • Using the solve function

NCEES® Examinee Guide

For more information about the exam, review the NCEES® Examinee Guide


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