Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Ok, here is my story: On my first attempt, I took FE exam right after graduation in summer. I used NCEES FE Reference Handbook and the practice exam sold by NCEES for preparation. I skimmed over Reference Handbook while doing the practice exam. After two weeks, I showed up for the exam thinking I am going to pass. I was WRONG. I failed miserably. I calculated my raw score to be 48%. I would say 20% of the test was very similar to the practice exam. I found the exam to be easy (even though I failed) because I knew most of the materials (or at least I have seen them before), but I wasn't able to quickly point out the equations in Reference Handbook to get the answers. And sometimes, you know the materials, but because you haven't done or seen that particular question while in school, then you will get stuck on doing it or you will get wrong answer trying to solve it. After all, I had to guess a lot of the questions, and since I got stuck on some of the questions, then I ran out of time while still having to answer remaining 20 questions. After huge disappointment and some downtime, I realized that I needed to pass this test no matter how many attempts it took (got to be POSITIVE in life). I knew I needed to do a lot of questions to boost my exam taking speed and get myself familiar with as many questions as I could. So, I bought this book on feprep.com (eBook version). I started doing all the questions without looking at the solutions. Yes, you need to do it the hard way if you want to pass this exam. I only looked over solution after I was done fully attempting to solve a problem. It took me about good 40 days and 4 hours a day on average to do all the questions, relearn all the materials that were a bit dull, and review everything from beginning to end. The problems in this book are way more difficult than what I got on the test, which is a good thing because it forced me to relearn all the materials again. As a result, hopefully I am a better engineer today that I was yesterday. Anyways, I showed up on the exam day being prepared, I was able to get through the first 55 questions (i.e., the first part of the exam before taking a short break) with ease. It took me 2 hours and 10 minutes, and I only flagged 8 questions for review. So, I knew I did well and had 3 hours and 20 minutes left for the second part of the exam which is a bit more difficult than the first part (at least, that's how I felt). I got through the second part (i.e., 55 questions) and had 18 questions flagged for review. Although, I had 20 minutes remaining, so, I decided to make educated guess on the questions that I wasn't able to get the right answers. Usually, in some questions, you could easily rule out one of the answers because it doesn't even belong there (if you know the materials, you can easily point that one out). And then, you are left with 3 answers. At this point you could either guess or pick the answer that is more closely represent the value of your wrong calculation (I am not sure if this worked or not but that's what I did). I took the test on Tuesday, and I got my passing result the following Wednesday. Just a side note; by no means I am a smart kid. I was in bottom 10% of my class. I came to USA as an immigrant at age 16 and worked my way up. I graduated with GPA lower than 3.0. My school has a passing rate of 90%+ for the first time exam takers. I just hope this review would give you enough courage and boost of energy to finally pass this test and move forward with your career. Do good in life and be happy!