How to study for the FE exam - A comprehensive guide





1. Review your weakest, heavier-weighted subjects first.

There’s quite a long list of different topics to study for the FE exam. Although you might have given yourself a detailed schedule that covers every exam topic, life might get in the way, and you might find yourself with only one week left until the exam with only half of the exam topics reviewed so far!

It is for this reason that you should study first your weakest subjects ordered by the number of questions found on the exam. You can find a list here of all the exam subjects and how many questions of each subject are on the exam.











2. Leave for last subjects you never saw in school.

It’s possible for the FE exam to ask about 1-2 topics that just weren’t part of your undergraduate engineering curriculum. This is sometimes the case with topics such as Structured Programming for civil engineers or Engineering Economics for mechanical engineers. You could very well teach yourself enough about these topics to tackle them on the exam; however, it will certainly be more time consuming to prep for those topics than to prep for the topics you did see in school. We’re not saying you should just ignore these topics, we’re just saying leave their review for last. Go after the questions you have a better chance of getting right first.









3. Solve practice problems with a sense of urgency.

During the actual FE, you will get 5 hours and 20 minutes to solve 110 questions. That approximately equates to a little under 3 minutes per question. However, not all questions on the exam will take the same amount of time to solve e.g. an ethics question might take 45 seconds while a dynamics question might take 5 minutes. To get in the habit of answering questions as fast as possible during the exam, rush yourself when doing practice problems. Get ready for the exam by doing practice problems under that rushed, stressful mindset that happens during the actual FE.









4. Re-do from scratch every problem you get wrong.

If you get a practice problem wrong, don’t just look at the solution and say ‘ok this makes sense’ and then move onto the next problem. Instead, look at the solution and understand what is going on in the problem. Now, re-do that problem from scratch without ever looking at the solution. Talk to yourself aloud while you re-do this problem. That way if you face a similar problem on the actual FE, you will know exactly what to do as you’ve built some “muscle memory” for that type of problem.









5. Understand the basic theory behind the practice problem.

Many FE problems will be ‘plug 'n chug’, but many also won’t be. The FE also loves throwing some curveballs at you. They will deliberately work out a problem incorrectly and then put that answer as one of the possible solutions to trick you into thinking you got the problem right. If you understand the basic theory behind the practice problem, you will catch any tricks the FE might throw at you. Since there are so many different topics to review, don’t go too far into the nitty-gritty theory details to where it’s taking too much time away from reviewing other subjects. Simply understand the basic theory just beyond the typical ‘plug 'n chug’.





6. Take advantage of your calculator’s advanced features.



Go ahead and buy an approved calculator for the exam. Get comfortable with it before the exam. We recommend the TI-36X Pro. We also wrote an article where we show you how to use some of the more advanced calculator features such as integration, derivatives, and the equation solver. You can save yourself a lot of time during the exam by taking advantage of these calculator features.









7. Work problems backwards.



Taking a trial and error approach is usually an inefficient way to solve engineering problems. With trial and error, i.e. stating what’s given and then looking out for different equations that might work together, you can go off the wrong path to solve a problem and not realize so for a while.





Solve a problem ‘backwards’ by:

Determine which variable the problem statement asks for. Look for an equation on the FE Reference Handbook that has this variable as one of its variables. If there are several equations with the desired unknown variable, pick the equation that has the least unknowns. Fill in the variables you know into the equation and then start solving for the remaining unknown variables. Once you determine all the unknown variables, go back to the equation from step 2 and solve the problem statement’s unknown variable.









8. Do many practice problems over time.



Research shows that repeated practice learning, spaced out over time, is the most effective way to study.





9. Don’t cram before the exam. Go to bed extra early the night before the exam.



If you feel the need to cram the night before the exam, don’t. It is not worth it. Don’t compromise all your hard studying from previous days (months) by staying up all night. Give your mind some rest, so you’re fully charged and ready to go the morning of the exam.











10. Use the FE Reference Handbook PDF for practice and know it inside and out.



You will constant refer to FE Reference Handbook throughout your exam. Keep things in mind:

The more familiar you are with the handbook, the more time you will save finding formulas, tables, and other information. Use search (CTRL-F, CMD-F) for finding what you need quickly. You will not have a physical handbook during the official exam, so get used to looking things up on a digital version fo the FE Reference Handbook. There are some problems that can simply be "looked up" in the handbook. A few may have answers simply listed there (like an ethics problem and other conceptual problems), and some may be a simple ‘plug 'n chug’ with only 1 formula used. Unit conversions take time and are prone to simple mistakes. Take advantage of the unit conversion tables in the FE Reference Handbook.





11. Don't waste time prepping with outdated textbooks.



Starting July 2020, the FE exam will be using an updated list of exam topics. Many of the study prep books out there haven’t been updated in years and contain information that is no longer relevant to the exam. PrepFE prides itself on being a technology company that is able to quickly adjust itself to changes. In the PrepFE dashboard, you select when you are taking the exam, and the website and mobile app will automatically adjust itself to show you only the questions that are relevant to YOU. Additionally, PrepFE is continually improves and updates its question bank to help you learn the most efficiently.