As I mentioned last week, Mel knew the material inside and out. So well, in fact, that I would joke with her that she could easily get a job writing questions for NCEES. Mindset was a big part of what Mel struggled with, but it wasn’t the only missing piece.

Getting stuck between answer choices. Managing pacing, focus, and energy levels. Content areas you struggle with. You can be a brilliant engineer and still lose to the test being a test.

The Success Formula

In over 20 years of helping people perform to their potential on standardized tests, I have witnessed the formula for test success is:

Content + Mindset + Strategies = Success 

The past couple of weeks, we have talked a lot about mindset, but this week is about strategy. If we go all the way back to week one of this series, I talked about the different types of test takers. People that can really benefit from strategy support are the Overthinkers and Time-Watchers. For Overthinkers, you know the material, think yourself right out of the correct answer, and then you spend the rest of the section second-guessing the answer you already had. For Time-Watchers, pressure physically hijacks your thinking, and you start rushing answers you would have gotten right with thirty more seconds.

Strategy can be a great anchor as you move through the test, and even if you feel like you don’t need any strategies, maybe you can still pick up a tip or two below:

The Handbook

Your handbook is your lifeline on the PE. If you aren’t practicing using the real handbook, you are missing out on practicing with test day conditions. You can find a copy of the handbook in your NCEES account, and you need to practice with it because it can feel a bit clunky. You can’t use CTRL-F to find things in the pdf, but there is a search function within the reference handbook (Check out this YouTube video to see how it works).

As you work through problems using the handbook, keep a list of terms that you find yourself using in the search bar all the time as a kind of “cheat-sheet” to help you remember which terms brought you to the information you needed the fastest! The more you practice, the more you will feel like you are actually memorizing the handbook.

Pacing

The PE gives you one block of time for the questions. Partway through, after the first half, you submit and take an optional break. Here's the trap. The time you spend on the first half is time gone from the whole. If your pacing is off early, you will not realize how little is left until you are staring at the second half. And if you run long on the break, that comes out of your second half too. Last week, Mel shared a story of someone she misread the single running clock as if it reset per half, so when she came back she discovered how little of the total she had left. 

It is also important to remember that once you complete the first half and take the break, you will not be able to revisit any of the questions from the first half.

Flagging is your friend

To go hand in hand with pacing, a great strategy is to have a two-pass plan for the test. When you read a question, if you don’t know what to do right away, read it a second time. If after the second time, you still aren’t quite sure what to do, flag the question in the software (Alt-F) and move on to the next question. Or if you know what to do, but you aren’t confident in your answer, flag it.

I think about it as a time vortex. If you keep rereading the question because you know you know how to solve it, you won’t realize how much time you are spending on it. Take a break by doing other questions and then you will be able to look at the question again with fresh eyes. Take an anchor breath. If you keep re-reading, you might be reading the question wrong, or you might be getting frustrated, and that will prevent you from getting the question correct. Flag and move on!

Process of elimination

Seeing as you are an engineer, by default it means that you are a good student. You had to have passed some pretty difficult classes to be sitting in the seat that you are sitting in. That said, you probably already use the process of elimination when going through a test. But for an Overthinker, it bears repeating! Rule out impossible magnitudes, wrong units, wrong signs. Back-solve from the choices when you can. Once you have narrowed it down, make a choice and move on. Flag it if you aren’t confident, but don’t get stuck!

Now when you come back to look at your flagged questions before you submit that half, hopefully the break from the question helped and you know what to do. If you already had an answer selected, double check that it is correct. If you think your previous answer was wrong, leave what you had. If you know your answer was wrong, change it. The difference between thinking and knowing is all confidence. Sometimes, you don’t know with 100% certainty why you chose an answer, but that doesn’t always mean that it is incorrect!

“Things I suck at”

On last week’s podcast, Mel shared how she started a “things I suck at” list as she worked through problems and practice tests. She stopped padding her confidence with the topics she was already good at and went after the ones she dreaded, drilled them, and retested until she owned them. It is so easy to want to check that study box off the to-do list by studying and brushing up on topics you don’t hate, but being more strategic in how to spend your study time can provide better results.

So what now

All of this is learnable. You can improve each part of the formula

Content + Mindset + Strategies = Success 

Which parts of the formula need some extra attention and focus is different for everybody. Taking some time to honestly reflect on what you suck at, how you are feeling about the test, and your gameplan for going through the test will make a big difference in the outcome of your PE. 

You don't have to figure out which part of the formula is yours alone. That's exactly what this series is built to help you do.

If you're preparing for the PE, or facing a retake, get the rest of the From Panic to PE series delivered straight to your inbox. It's free, and it's written for engineers who are done leaving this exam to chance.

Join the free From Panic to PE series 

Next week is the last one in the series, and it's the big one. What actually works. How mindset, content, and strategy come together, and exactly what to do with all of it. You won't want to miss it.

About the author

Tina Wiles is a former engineer, a 20+ year educator, and a Brian Kane certified Mental Performance coach. She helps engineers and professionals stop losing high-stakes exams to panic and start performing like they actually know the material. She's the founder of My2tor and the creator of From Panic to Passing.

Not sure what's getting in your way on exam day? Take the free 2-minute Test-Taking Mindset Quiz and find out! Click here to take the quiz.