Managing your pace during the Exam plays a huge role in your success.
In our experience, the test makers are testing you see whether you are smart enough to skip the more difficult questions.
Don't waste time on hard problems! Simply skip them.
Why waste all of your time trying to solve the hard problems, and not even get a chance at the easier problems at the back of the exam?
You have to "Engineer" your way through the exam. Meaning, seeking out to find the easy problems to solve on your first pass.
You basically have only 3 minutes per question, and since there are a slightly different number of questions between the 1st and 2nd sections, you should quickly multiplied the # of questions by 3 minutes to know how long you should take on the first and make sure to stop within that time +/- 5 minutes.
If you don't immediately know how to work a problem or not confident in your knowledge in that area, just flag it and move on. It's actually quite normal to flag the first few problems- so don't let that be a distraction or demotivator.
The FE EXAM pulls questions from its "problem bank", so no telling the difficulty level of each question - it's completely random.
Also, this is very important:
Make sure you watch the short tutorial at the beginning of your Exam which explains how to do this. Don't worry, the time doesn't start yet.
Do not skip it!
Nearing the end of the first section time limit, go back to all those questions you flagged and you’ll be surprised how many you can solve simply using formulas that you might have overlooked on your first pass.
For example, if it's a fluids problem, try the Bernoulli equation or Darcy Friction headless equation.
Sometimes going back a second or third time will help you see the trick in the problem. If the problem seems extremely hard, there is probably a trick involved. If you can't see it, just guess and move on.
A lot of students say that most problems require little knowledge about the subject and more skill in problem solving when given a certain formula.
This method will definitely saved you a lot of time since the first section might have more topic questions outside your area of expertise that you could’ve spent much longer on but it will give you more time in the second section to solve topic questions that you are way more confident in.
Also, the number of questions you flagged will make you feel confident in the probability of passing since the ones you did solve right away..were the ones you were almost 100% sure you got right.
Make sure to download the newest version of the FE Handbook 10-3 as you work the FE Exam practice questions.
Good luck!
