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Reasons You Failed the FE Exam & How to Pass It Next Time
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Why You Failed the FE Exam ? • The FE exam has the potential to either succeed or fail you in your engineering career. That isn’t accurate, but it will certainly seem that way if you fail the FE exam. • Unfortunately, the FE test does not demonstrate that you are an exceptional engineer. It simply indicates that you can complete a test quickly and accurately answer more questions than your fellow future engineers. You must know how to play the game to pass this test. • This article will discuss why you failed the FE exam and how you can overcome them in the future.
Spending More Than 2-3 Minutes on Each Problem • Spending too much time on a single problem is one of the biggest blunders you may make on exam day. The FE exam’s questions are designed to take no more than two to three minutes to complete.
How to Overcome it? • It’s fine to spend more than 3 minutes on those questions you know you can answer 100% correctly. But if after reading the question, you have no idea how to solve or approach it, make a guess, flag it, and move on. You can return to it at a later time. • If a question takes longer than 3 minutes (let’s say 5 minutes), consider making an educated guess based on what options you’ve already eliminated, then flagging it and moving on. • You should monitor your pace every 20-25 questions to see how much time you have left per question. If you just have 3 minutes, you should be more selective with your time and use it only on questions you are familiar with and confident in your ability to answer. If you have more than 3 minutes per question left, you can be more flexible with your time and attempt questions that are more challenging but still within your capabilities.
Attempting to Answer All Questions Manually • As the FE exam comprises questions that include various calculations, trying to answer all the questions manually will require a longer time to solve each problem.
How to Overcome it? • NCEES® allows you to bring a calculator for the FE exam day. Getting familiar with your calculator and all of its functions before the FE Exam and using it on the exam day will aid you in answering problems quickly. Why would you try to answer every question manually if you can use a calculator instead to answer it in less time?
Not Being Able to Make Calculated Guesses in the Exam • Some of the questions will be difficult for you to solve and may take an unusually long time to answer. And if you fail to make a calculated guess on those questions, that will become one of the reasons for failing your FE exam.
How to Overcome it? • The best way to tackle these problems is to make a calculated guess on questions that take longer than three minutes to solve. There is no negative marking for giving a wrong answer, so don’t ever skip a problem just because you’re afraid that you will not get the correct answer.
Not Properly Assessing the Problems Because of Hurry • Remaining in haste to complete the exam may result in not assessing the problems correctly and, therefore, failing to understand how to solve them in time. Completing the test beforehand would be useless if you haven’t given the correct answers.
How to Overcome it? • Stay calm, and read each question carefully. Understand what the questions mean and be aware of the type of question you’re dealing with. For example, some questions require several responses, whereas some questions starting with wordings such as “Which of the following is NOT…?”, require you to eliminate one option from several choices. The key is to always be aware of what type of questions you’re dealing with. This way, you can answer questions without wasting any time.
Too Greedy to Attempt Every Problem • Being greedy to solve every problem on the exam just to shoot for a perfect score won’t help you. In fact, with that mindset, you will just solve the questions and not know if you are answering them correctly.
Howto Overcome it? • To pass the test, you don’t have to answer all the questions. Many engineers have previously passed this test with a score of only 50%. • So firstly, answer only those questions you know you can solve, then flag the rest of them. • Once you’re satisfied you’ve answered every question correctly, try to solve the problems you flagged earlier.
Continue.. • If a test question appears to take longer than three minutes, make a calculated guess on it for now and make a mental note of it so that you can come back to it later to solve it properly if you are left with some time in the end. This way, you can answer the most number of problems in the shortest period of time. • Remember that time management is the key, so you should aim to solve the most number of problems correctly in the least amount of time possible rather than attempting every question but answering them wrong.
Focusing More on Theory Rather than the Actual Exam Questions • Another mistake you can make is prioritizing theory rather than focusing on the actual exam questions and not solving practice problems.
How to Overcome it? • When completing a FE practice test, you should assess yourself on more than just correct and incorrect answers. You should examine your most prevalent blunders and keep track of how long it takes you to answer questions. • Make a checkmark next to any questions that took more than three minutes to answer once you’ve completed your practice exam. Determine which types of questions you should spend less time answering and which ones you should skip on the test entirely.
