Customer Reviews

FE - EIT: AM (Engineer in Training Exam) (Engineering (FE/EiT) Test Preparation)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

With five days until the FE, I decided to purchase this book. Given the choice again, I would still purchase it because it gave me an idea of what would be on the test, which is the greatest asset the book provides. In fact, some of the example problems were very similar to the actual test questions. The book does contain numerous errors, however, and the solution explanations are generally inadequate. I felt swindled after looking at the poor proof-reading of the text.

You might be better suited by downloading a free copy of the pdf of the equations given during the exam, which you can find by typing "fundamentals of engineering supplied reference handbook" in a search engine. Since the questions on the AM test are fairly general, look over the examples of the first few chapters of your engineering books.

The book might appeal to some because of its massive size - "If it's this big it's gotta be good." I don't like paying the high price and lugging around this type of large exam review book and would buy a smaller one given the opportunity.

The text is an improvement over prior texts by the REA. All the areas contain more topical material. I've passed AM twice and these problems look good. My concern is the PM which is a bit more slippery. This book alone will not suffice for PM; however, it's a good starter for PM-GENERAL. The Potter text and the sample exams
available with the registration materials provide a better profile
of the PM component of the examination.

Just beginning to review for EIT using this book, and finding typographical errors both in text portions and in the solutions, which makes study slow, more confusing and more difficult. For example in the Mathematics section, there are two errors on a complex numbers problem solution. In the companion PM for Mechanical Engineers edition, there is a mistake on Test 1, problem 14, where the problem asks to solve for one variable, but the solution outlined solves for a different problem variable. I'm looking for a better book that is more trustworthy. It is appears comprehensive and has a good format, but mistakes which could have been caught by better editing are a stumbling block.

The book help me review for the exam but it could be much better. Basically, If I'm finding mistakes in the book, something is wrong. I found some sample problems with units that were incorrect (ie Pressure, N*m^2 instead of N/m^2) and a few times the worked exam problems would be have different units or would be change from meters to millimeters.

Overall, the book did help me during the exam, but if I was going to do it over again, I would purchase a different review book.

I bought this book (and the PM version) to restore my years-ago university knowledge. I read virtually all of the PM book, and a wide but more random swath of the AM book. I did pass the FE on the first try, for what that's worth.

The good: the questions in the book were of the same type and difficulty as questions on the actual exam. The reviews are decently written, though I admit I don't usually do more than briefly follow worked problems and focus instead on the text. What I particularly liked about the review sections was their independence: I felt quite normal skipping around things that I more or less remembered.

The bad: the book is fat, includes a lot of extra material and, yes, blatant errors. Also, the problems are usually tough to follow, and the reviews assume you have (or had and can quickly recover) a thorough knowledge of the subject. Fluids still confuse me, for example.

Overall I was happy enough with the texts, especially given their price compared to others of the same kind. They restored enough of my memory that I at least knew something about each exam question... and given that I haven't used most of that knowledge for years that's saying quite a lot!

The amount of errors, even with things as simple as addition, make studying a real burden. Several times on the tests I have gotten an answer that doesn't match any of the multiple choices, but on comparison with the solutions my entire formula is correct and they messed up the algebra at the end.

The list of contributing professors in the front made me laugh, I would be embarrassed to have my name associated with this book.

It is fun to have the test on a cd, I guess. (That's why I chose it, although the actual test is paper based, so I am not sure why I bothered.) The CD isn't worth the frequent mistakes. The morning exam, for instance, contains at least 4 major errors (out of 120 questions) There may be more among the dozen or so questions that I have no clue about. The interface does not actually make it easier to target the difficulties - I had to copy by hand all of the problems I got wrong so I could look them up in the explanations mode.

Some of the other prep books have errata online - REA doesn't. The text is visually challenging and poorly written. I wish I had purchased a different book.

I bought this book because it was the only one that B&N had. While reviewing it, there have been a few times where I've said to myself, "Wait a minute. That makes absolutely no sense." I thought it was just me until I heard from other people as well about all of the errors. There are some blatant errors in examples in this book, such as units conversion or solving for something completely different than what was asked. And if the errors in the examples are this bad, it makes me wonder what sort of errors are contained in the review sections. Personally, I just ordered the same style book from another publisher, and I'm going to throw away this book when the new one comes.

-Gross mistakes in the text that lead to confusing and hard to understand solutions
-Solutions skip a lot of steps
-Overall written very poorly
-Unnecessarily large font makes for a huge book

The reviews covered the test subjects and excellent explanations on the exam questions