Computer-Based Testing – This Changes Everything!
Although still unofficial, the three Mechanical PE Exams are scheduled to transition to the year-round Computer-Based Testing (CBT) format starting in January of 2020, and the five Civil PE Exams will transition in 2023. This change in the testing method for the PE Exam has huge consequences for anyone taking the exam. To help you understand how this will affect you, I will be outlining the implications of the CBT exam and giving you my advice regarding this change.
Here’s the bottom line up front – take the Pencil-and-Paper exam now, before it’s too late.
NCEES first introduced Computer-Based Testing (CBT) for the FE Exams in January 2014, and it has been expected that they would move to this format for the PE Exams, but until now no transition schedule had been established. Now it has. Some CBT exams will be offered year-round. In this category, the Chemical PE Exam transitioned to the CBT format for 2018, and the Environmental PE Exam is scheduled to transition in 2019, with the Mechanical following in 2020 and Civil in 2023. Other CBT exams will only be offered one day a year. The Nuclear PE Exam falls into this category and has already transitioned to the CBT format. Over the next five years, about a dozen other PE Exams will transition to the CBT format offered one day a year.
The NCEES says that transition dates for all the future transitions to CBT will be confirmed one year in advance. Along with the confirmation, the official NCEES Reference Handbook for the exam will be made available for download in PDF format. With the introduction of this new Reference Handbook, there is also the possibility that there could be changes in the exam specifications.
The most significant consequence of the CBT exam format for examinees of the PE Exam is that no personal reference materials will be allowed into the exam facility. The only reference that will be available to you during the exam is a searchable PDF of the Reference Handbook, sharing half the 24-inch computer screen with the PE Exam itself. For the Chemical PE Exam, the PE Chemical Reference Handbook is almost 600 pages, so the Mechanical and Civil handbooks will most likely be similar in length, if not longer. Let that sink in. Think about how that limits your ability to prepare for this exam and what it means to have only one, generic, on-screen reference to help you solve problems during the exam.