Principles and Practice of Engineering Examination


The Principles and Practice of Engineering exam is the examination required for one to become a Professional Engineer in the United States. It is the second exam required, coming after the Fundamentals of Engineering exam.
Upon passing the PE exam and meeting other eligibility requirements, that vary by state, such as education and experience, an engineer can then become registered in their State to stamp and sign engineering drawings and calculations as a PE.
While the PE itself is sufficient for most engineering fields, some states require a further certification for structural engineers. These require the passing of the Structural I exam and/or the Structural II exam.
The PE Exam is created and scored by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. NCEES is a national non-profit organization composed of engineering and surveying licensing boards representing all states and U.S. territories.

Exam format

Exams are offered twice a year, once in April and once in October, and are discipline-specific. With the exception of the Structural exam, each exam is eight hours long, consisting of two 4-hour sessions administered in a single day with a lunch break. There are 40 multiple-choice questions per session. Several disciplines require a common morning breadth exam which broadly covers the discipline and then a more detailed afternoon depth exam where the test taker selects a more detailed area of the discipline. Other disciplines essentially have morning and afternoon breadth exams.
The Structural exam is 16 hours long and administered over two days, with two 4-hour sessions and a lunch break per day. Morning breadth sessions consist of 40 multiple-choice questions, while the afternoon depth sessions require essay responses. An examinee must earn a passing score on both days' exams in order to pass overall, but need not obtain those scores during the same administration of the exam.
NCEES began the process of transitioning exams to computer-based testing in 2011. NCEES has successfully converted some of the exams and all other NCEES exams are currently in the conversion process and scheduled to launch in computer-based format between now and 2024. Some CBT exams are administered year-round. Other CBT exams that have a smaller examinee population use a different high-stakes testing model and are administered on a single day each year.

Disciplines

PE exams are offered for the following disciplines:
Unlike the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, outside reference sources are allowed for the PE Exam. The general rule is that any such materials must be in some sort of permanent binding ; loose papers and notes are prohibited. No writing tools or scratch paper may be brought in, and only calculators specifically approved by NCEES may be used. Examinees are provided with mechanical pencils and may use the test booklet as scratch paper for solving problems.

Pass rates

The PE exam is a professional exam much like the examinations required for public accounting, law, and other professions for which protection of the public is of the utmost concern. Consequently exam candidates typically spend large amounts of time preparing for the exam. Exam pass rates vary by discipline module and test date, for the April 2010 exam, the pass rates for first time test takers ranged from 85% to 46%. The pass rates for repeat test takers is considerably lower.
October 2016 Exam
ExamFirst-Time TakersRepeat Takers
VolumePass RateVolumePass Rate
PE Agricultural and Biological 2972%560%
PE Architectural 8686%633%
PE Chemical29671%6632%
PE Civil Construction74255%70829%
PE Civil Geotechnical50563%29527%
PE Civil Structural134766%59043%
PE Civil Transportation142168%81533%
PE Civil Water Resources and Environmental143071%61335%
PE Control Systems22979%4945%
PE Electrical and Computer: Computer Engineering2162%729%
PE Electrical and Computer: Electrical and Electronics10478%4360%
PE Electrical and Computer: Power100366%50938%
PE Environmental24262%11437%
PE Fire Protection14864%7238%
PE Industrial and Systems 7278%1513%
PE Mechanical HVAC and Refrigeration49583%15448%
PE Mechanical Mechanical Systems and Materials55373%14747%
PE Mechanical Thermal and Fluid Systems64373%20447%
PE Metallurgical and Materials4567%757%
PE Mining and Mineral Processing5165%1127%
PE Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering 5675%1010%
PE Nuclear2572%1070%
PE Petroleum19266%5540%
PE Software 956%633%

Calculator Policy

There is a certain calculator policy made by NCEES. Examinees are not allowed use the calculator other than the mentioned brand or model. At present the following models are approved by the NCEES.
1. Casio: fx-115 or fx-991 models.
2. Hewlett-Packard : Only HP33S or HP35S models.
3. Texas Instruments: TI-30x or TI-36S should be in the model name.