Are you about to attempt the FE exam? Do you want to know what to expect on your FE exam? We have curated this article to answer all of these questions to help you get started with the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination practice. Here are some details about your upcoming FE exam to help you prepare in the best way.
Table of Contents
FE Exam Structure
The FE Exam is a computer-based test consisting of 110 questions split equally into two sessions. Each of these two sessions contains 55 multiple questions where the first session will deal with your engineering basics whereas the second session will test and review your knowledge about your respective engineering discipline.
Moreover, a topic which has been covered in the first session, won’t appear in the second session. Only one question will be shown on screen at a time with its four possible answer choices labeled as (A), (B), (C), and (D). Also, you’ll be exposed to a limited number of questions that will not impact your results. This is just NCEES’s strategy to determine the viability of new questions for conducting future exams.
The exam isn’t adaptive, that is, your answer to one question won’t have any relationship with the next question. Also, as the FE exam will be conducted in two sessions or parts, during either session, you wouldn’t be able to view or respond to questions in the other session. In addition to that, if you hit the submit button after session 1, you won’t be able to change your answers in session 2. So be careful with that part!
FE Exam Duration
The exam will last for 6 hours including an 8-minute tutorial, a 25-minute break, and a brief survey at the end of the exam. Thus, the duration you have in hand to answer the exam questions is 5 hours and 20 minutes.
You can divide your time between the two sessions as you wish. You can spend 2 hours on the first and 4 hours on the second and vice versa. You’ll also be given a 25-minute break between the sessions. If you don’t want to take a 25-minute long break then you can make it less as well. However, you aren’t allowed to work during that time.
Once each session starts you can leave the seat for any of your personal reasons, however, the clock won’t stop for you. It’ll keep ticking even in your absence. Also, make sure to make an educated guess and place answers to all the unanswered questions as these questions are scored the same as questions that are answered incorrectly. So, save some time in the end to do that.
Tools Allowed During The FE Exam
No study materials, writing tools, and scratch paper will be permitted in the examination. However, you’ll be provided with mechanical pencils and a test booklet to be used as scratch paper. Along with this, an electronic copy of the handbook will be issued on-site.
Moreover, only certain calculator models are acceptable on the test site including the Casio fx-115, Hewlett-Packard HP 33s and 35s, and the Texas Instruments TI-30X and TI-36x.
Why Is The FE Exam Unique?
The unique feature of this exam is that the person sitting next to you will not answer the same questions as you. This is because the CBT system randomly selects different but equivalent questions from its database for each appearing examinee. So, avoid looking at your neighbor’s monitor as each examinee will have to answer a unique exam of equivalent difficulty.
Conclusion
So, if you’re planning to become a Professional Engineer and have begun with the Fundamentals of engineering examination practice, which is the first step to take in the process, then you certainly need to keep the above-stated things in mind while preparing for the exam.
Additionally, you’ll require to register for the test with a registration fee of $225 directly paid NCEES. Now is the time to get ready with your resource materials and practice to ace the Fundamentals of Engineering examination.
Author Bio:
This is Kenza S NelsonI, engineer in Los Angeles and founder of enGENIEer, FE Exam Preparation Platform. I tutored and helped over 1000 students in University. Tutoring that many students helped me realize the different learning styles and I tailor my teaching to help students grasp. I share with you the fastest methods to solve engineering problems to prepare for engineering classes and the FE Exam.