Welcome to the Mechanical PE Exam Prep podcast, the podcast where I give mechanical engineers like
you the tools and motivation to get your professional engineering license and take your career to the
next level. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about three tips for retaking the PE exam.
So if you're someone who has taken the PE exam in the past and failed and you remain committed to
getting your professional engineering license, but you're not sure what adjustments you need to make
in order to pass the exam, this is the episode for you. And even if you've failed multiple times,
these are suggestions that I've compiled from working with hundreds of candidates that are in
the same situation that have failed one or more times, even some that have failed four or five
times and not passed until their sixth try. So this is some of the key ideas that I've distilled
from working with candidates in that situation over the last several years. So the first tip
is to recalibrate your expectations. And what do I mean by this? Well, one of the most common
questions that candidates ask themselves, ask me or ask anyone on Reddit, and this is not just folks
that have failed the exam, this is even folks that are taking the exam for the first time,
everybody wants to know how hard is the mechanical PE exam? And 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, and the presence or absence of accountability structures
in your life the way things are set up. So in short, from this list, what we can say is that
how hard the exam actually is turns out to be a function of the candidates capabilities in
relation to the exam, not an objective statement about the exam itself. So it's impossible to talk
about how difficult the exam is or isn't without talking about all of these factors, which are
really a statement about that candidate personally. And since when folks ask this question, they
rarely supply all those details, none of the answers that are offered by me or anyone can
really provide much insight because we have to dig deeper. So then the question becomes,
how do candidates actually assess the difficulty level if they're not looking at the question
in this more structured and deeper way? How do you actually decide how hard you need to work
to get ready for the PE exam? And from what I can tell, this is how people are coming about
their determinations of how hard the PE exam actually is. Some are basing their effort level
on their recollection of the FE exam. And this usually doesn't turn out well because the FE
exam is broader and not as deep. So what will happen is these candidates will have superficial
learning because they're expecting to just kind of hit the tops of the waves, learn a lot of things
on a shallow level, and they're envisioning being able to solve problems in just a few minutes each
so they tend to not go deep enough. Some will base their assessments on what a colleague tells them,
maybe this colleague passed, and they're able to share anecdotally some about their experience on
the PE exam. But the problem with this approach is that people tend to describe their experience
with hindsight bias so they make it sound easier than it actually was because they already know
what the result was and it makes them look good because it sounds like it was easy for them.
So these anecdotes often can't be trusted. And some folks will look at the published pass rates,
which NC's puts out, and those pass rates are around 70%. They vary a little bit from year to year.
But once you kind of look at that, you might convince yourself, hey, I can't possibly be in the
bottom third of applicants, so therefore I'll be fine. And the last thing that
repeat takers will do is they'll get their diagnostic report. So if you fail the PE exam,
NC's furnishes you with a PDF showing whether you were above or below the average candidate
that passed the exam for each major topic area. And candidates seem to want to put these reports
under a microscope and extract some deep insights about their personal strengths and weaknesses
that they would hope to go back and kind of retool and figure out how to make
adjustments for the next try. But I'll let you in on a little secret. When I review diagnostic
reports, what I do is I roll my computer chair back away from the screen until the text is no
longer legible. And I roughly gauge the size of the colored areas. If the gray and the white
are about equal, right, gray means you're over, you've gotten more correct, white means less.
If they're about equal, when I'm sitting that far away, then I tell candidates that they were
very close to passing. And all they need to do is revisit some hard problems, go a little deeper,
spend a few more weeks, reschedule, try again, and just make sure to work really carefully
and manage your time. If you get enough little things right, it'll tip the scales in your favor
and you'll pass. But unfortunately, a lot of the times when folks send me diagnostic reports,
they're not showing more gray than white, it's just the opposite. We have the all too common
gross shortfall across most or all topics. And at that point, there's no use in drilling down
into individual topics, right? We have to notice at that point that a major recalibration of
expectations is what's needed. And this is a tough moment for folks sometimes, because the
candidate expected the exam to be much easier than it actually was. Or maybe they just honestly
weren't sure what to expect. So they just took a chance to see what would happen. Now, to be fair,
there's nothing actually wrong with this approach, right? I think there are definitely folks out
there that only want to do it once and want to make sure that they leave no stone unturned. I
would put myself in that camp, but not everyone's that way. And that's okay. Some engineers are
extremely pressed for time due to external commitments. And they're more concerned with the
risk of overstudying than being underprepared, right? You could spend three to 500 hours like I
did, and it's not really necessary to pass the exam. So, you know, if that would take time away
from other things that are important to you, doing that may be a mistake. And some of these
candidates that are not looking at it in such a severe manner, they're able to take the news in
stride, right? If they took a chance to see what would happen and weren't too clear on how hard
the exam would be, then it's not super painful when the result comes back. And now they have a
clearer picture of the task at hand, and they're able to set about putting themselves in a better
position for next time. Other examiners have a harder time taking the news. And that's because
they honestly thought they were doing well when they were studying and during the exam.
The exam almost always has answer choices available for common but incorrect solution paths. So,
it's easy to get lulled into a false sense of confidence when your preparation is superficial.
And 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. So, ultimately, there's this
humbling process that repeat takers have to go through in order to eventually be successful.
And it's a process of recalibrating their expectations to be as aligned as possible
with the actual exam in relation to their abilities and how they have to grow and change to get ready
for the next attempt. So, this is less about technical skills sometimes and more about personal
and more about personal growth. So, it's a sticky subject and it's something that folks generally
don't want to talk about. They want to talk about, you know, why am I good at fluids and not at
psychometrics? You know, why am I doing this topic well and this topic not so well? But it's
kind of something we have to dig deeper for before we can recalibrate and figure out what's
going to be different the next time around. Any attempt at this stage in the process to externalize
and explain the result away, I failed because of some external reason or the exam is like this
or NCCS is like that. They want to trick you. All of this stuff that's outside of your control,
it only leads to repeated failures because nothing new is going to happen during your study process
if the reasons for not getting over the line are external. We have to actually take the result on
board and do something differently the next time. And that's what this episode is all about,
is getting you to realize that there's something different that has to happen for the next attempt
to be different. The second tip is a little bit counterintuitive. I actually want you to find
enjoyment in the study process as you go deeper than you have in the past. So after we've gone
through this recalibration and hit the reset button, repeat takers are ready to take it on board that
they need to go much deeper and show up ready to do the work. That's great. Now the challenge becomes
about cultivating patience and endurance because studying is genuinely hard when it's done in the
right way. But, and this is a super important caveat, it shouldn't be torturously hard. It shouldn't
be filled with constant despair and seemingly impossible questions. You shouldn't feel like
every time you go to study that you're just wasting your time and getting nowhere,
banging your head against the table. That's not the point. There'll be moments of minor frustration
and disappointment and confusion along the way. That's to be expected, but these moments should
be relatively brief as you're pushing into the boundaries of your knowledge and skills
and expanding your abilities incrementally. So encountering sticking points as you're studying
is inevitable and your ability to push through those is a positive signal that you're doing the
right work in the right way. And we know this because if you already knew everything there was
to know about mechanical engineering, there'd be nothing to learn in the study session. There would
be no point in studying. We would just show up and take the exam. And on the other side of the
spectrum, if the material was so impenetrable that you couldn't break through any of it, then that
would leave anyone stuck and deflated and not very many people would pass. So there's a sweet spot
between these two extremes where the problems are challenging, but doable. Sometimes we're the bit
of external assistance in trying a few dead ends first, spending a bit of time overcoming a bit of
frustration. Yes, but the problems are doable. This is the way 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. This is the kind of learning that is worthwhile if you want to become a
professional engineer. So you don't have to worry about, oh, I'm going to forget this between now
and my exam. No, if we're doing it deeply, you're never going to forget it. So you don't have to
worry about that when you're studying in the right way. And when you find this flow where you're
generating new questions and then discovering answers, right, you're closing the gaps, you're
continuing forward, the process of studying can become deeply satisfying without the challenges
and uncertainty along the way without hitting these sticking points. Doing practice problems
would basically be like basic algebra and the exam would be a cakewalk and the pass rate would be
nearly 100% and getting your PE license would mean nothing. And 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 that was
hard but worthwhile. So the takeaway here is when the going gets rough, be gentle on yourself.
As much as the last part of the process, this recalibration stage where we have to kind of raise
the bar and go much deeper, when it actually comes down to the day to day work of studying,
we actually have to be a little bit gentler and take breaks when you need them. Take care of
yourself along the way. Make sure you're doing all the little things. And find satisfaction
each time you study. We're looking for that little spark of joy when you're able to
figure out something that was tricky before and add something new. And when it's fun,
it goes a lot better. That little voice in your head that's telling you to constantly push harder,
work longer, and you know, it shouldn't take you so long to get something you should have gotten
that concept already. That voice is not helpful. So taming that mentality, that harshness that comes
from internal, sometimes we can be our own harshest critic, taming that is going to make it easier
and more pleasant to show up day after day after day as your exam date approaches. And
having a consistent study ritual is essential to your success, but whipping yourself every day to
go do something that's not enjoyable is an uphill battle and it doesn't have to be like that. So
find a way to make it a little bit more enjoyable as you go deeper. And the third tip is to use a
study program you trust. Candidates who fail the PE exam either on the first try or on subsequent
attempts often did not invest in a study program because of the calibration issue that we previously
discussed. And it's understandable why. The logic is if the exam is easy, why should I bother with
a program? I don't need a program. I'll just figure it out as I go along. But this reasoning overlooks
several factors. First of all, when you study without a structured plan, you end up spending a
substantial portion of your quote unquote study time, not actually studying, because you're trying
to figure out what topics are worth your time. So what a trusted program is doing is it's giving
you an opportunity to outsource all of that effort that would be directed toward figuring out what's
in scope. So all you have to do is show up ready to work. I can't tell you how many times I speak
to candidates and the first thing you're telling me is, well, I'm doing this and I'm doing that,
but I'm not sure if I should be using more of this. And they're spending so much time debating what to
do that they're actually not getting deep into anything that they're doing because they're not
sure it's the right thing. So the beauty of a program, if it's a good one, is that you can just
start at the beginning like a conveyor belt and go from beginning to end. And by the time you get
off at the end, you should be ready. So if the program has a proven track record, and if it doesn't
then find one that does, you can truly buy into the process. And, you know, the opposite of this,
when you doubt the process, what ends up happening, and I've had candidates come through my program
without fully buying in, and this can happen. It's rare, but they may cherry pick topics based on
what you like or dislike, or what you heard will or will not be on the exam. For some reason,
people think certain things need to be emphasized and not others. So there's not that trust of
saying like, okay, if it's in the program, I got to know it. If it was important and it's not in
here, then it must not be critical. So believe in the process. When you go all in with the right
program and you believe it's going to work, then you end up doing everything that's in there as
it's laid out, knowing that you'll ultimately achieve the desired result. And success becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe it's going to work, then it works. If you believe it's not
going to work, then it doesn't work because you didn't do it the way it was laid out. Good programs
also include not just technical guidance, but also personalized support. So if you're stuck
for longer than you should be, you can get moving again and avoid wasting time. Again, efficiency.
So we're delegating all of the figuring out what to do. That's a huge time save. That could be
30 to 50% of your study hours gone because you don't have to figure out what to do. And when you
get stuck, instead of swirling in that for many, many hours, you can get the support you need to
get unstuck and keep moving. So getting a lot of time back and not just time, but uncertainty and
you know, just confidence to keep moving. In terms of accountability, in addition to friends,
family, colleagues, a quality program may offer additional accountability in the form of a guide
who understands exactly what you're up against and is aligned with your objective. If a program
is truly able to produce the result it promises, then the returns will outweigh the investment many
times over easily within a year of getting your PE. And a good program may also include a guarantee
that you'll pass so that there's no financial risk for you. That's something we added a mechanical
PE exam prep recently because the program has such a high pass rate that why wouldn't I want to put
my skin in the game with you? If you're willing to do all the work, I want you to have the confidence
to know there's no financial risk. It's just a matter of do you have the level of commitment to
go through a trusted process that's going to get you where you want to go. And if you do, I have every
bit of confidence that it'll take you there. And lastly, the act of investing in yourself often
helps with the motivation that's needed to get you to establish and maintain a consistent study
routine, which as we know is essential to getting fully prepared. So 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 do three things. Recalibrate expectations, look for enjoyment
in your studying as you go deeper, and find a trusted study program to help you on your journey.
Hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you are a repeat exam taker, feel free to reach out.
I would love to hear your story and offer any guidance I can to help you pass the PE exam
once and for all and get your license. Thanks for listening to the Mechanical PE Exam Prep podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review to help other engineers find the
podcast. And if you're looking for a program that will help you pass the PE exam, check out the
full access bundle available at mechanicalpeexamprep.com. And feel free to reach out with any questions.
I would be honored to be your guide on the journey to becoming a professional engineer.