Customer Reviews

Practice Problems for the Electrical and Computer Engineering PE Exam: A Companion to the Electrical Engineering Reference Manual, 6th ed.

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I it is a new book. It does not look like he finished working on it before it went to press. Many chapters have a blank page with the words 'There are no proctice problems corresponding with Ch. 2 ...". I have not had the time to go through it all, but I have found quite a few errors. For example Ch 61 Practice Problem #1 the correct answer is 78.23 km He forgets to multiply by 2 for the correct distance. The formula is d = sqr(17h) he aproximates this and uses d = 4.1 sqr(h) which is fine but he does not use the formula correctly.
The book will be much better after the he corrects the many errors.

This book is not very useful in either studying for the exam, or as a reference while taking the exam. I think you prepare much better by using the 6-Minute Solutions book and Sample Exam book by the same author, and using the NCEES published Sample Exam.

The problems in this book do not represent the types of problems on the exam. The format is different, the complexity is different, and even the language is somewhat different. These problems are good for truly learning the material of the particular book section, but are not that helpful for the exam itself. Furthermore, it's difficult to tell which problems would be appropriate for the exam option you're taking (e.g., I took the Power option, should I be working all the Computer problems in this book too? Obviously I need some computer basics for the morning portion of the exam, but where do I stop?). Another shortcoming of this book is that the problems from one section to the next do not have a lot of similarity, and even appear to have been written by different people. One section will be all multiple choice, the next section will not. Also, there are a lot of multi-part problems; again, this is good if you need to completely learn the subject, but there are no multi-part questions on the exam.

Bottom line, if you are going to study for a year and work every problem you possibly can, then include this book too. However, if you want to optimize your studying time, then work problems that are as close to what will be on the exam as possible and stick to the three other books that are available for that purpose.

See my review under the Reference Manual for recommendations from someone who just took the exam.

In addition to the Electrical Engineering Reference Manual, I've also purchased this book. It doesn't hurt if you don't buy this provided you're getting the reference manual. Nonetheless, it still helped me prepare for the PE Exam. I say it's still a good buy.