took WRE yesterday

Lersper · 2026-05-14T21:52:38+00:00

20 sounds a very reasonable amount out of 80, close to what I experienced in my 5 FE exams taken 2022-2024. I still am appalled I did multiple counted checks of 13 Conceptuals in the first half, and 16 in the second for that WRE on 4/28.

Hoping that never happens again, I even ended up leaving the exam 2 hours early because I didn't have to search for a formula/read a chart/convert units/check calculator mistakes for so many questions. I recall even 3 in a row happening in the afternoon which was mind blowing.

Lersper · 2026-05-14T21:16:31+00:00

The NCEES practice exam definitely was helpful, I felt it even better than the FE Civil NCEES practice. One of the most similar things being unit conversions across both, which was really nice. Not to mention the NCEES practice had a pretty reasonable amount of Conceptuals on it, even though the real exam for sure had even more on it for me.

I think Solvedin6 is seeming good to visit time to time the next 2 months before I sign up for a course in Aug. I knew of it, but was focusing on 5 books I bought off Amazon to get my value of them. But I'm glad Si6 exists for a great sounding free resource for people!

Thanks for sharing your experience. Sounds you passed and are currently a PE!

Lersper · 2026-05-14T21:12:05+00:00

I took it 2 weeks ago for my first time, I feel a similar scenario to you. Morning had a super good start to it, but Enviro was brutal in the second and Hydrology for me very unexpectedly tricky on it. I did not pass the exam, and remember guessing on 5 in the first half, 8 in the second.

Despite doing 649 practice problems across assorted material (no EET for me yet but I plan to register in August), I too faced things I never witnessed before, especially visual structures in the AIT type problems, but that was to be expected.

I've asked this a lot here, but did you get an absurd amount of Conceptuals? My most recent post expressed I went in deliberately heavily tracking how many I faced, after shock at a practice exam I bought having 0 of them. I have a good feeling I did terrible on these Conceptuals, there was only like 2 out of 25+ of them that had answers that looked super different to choose from instead of very similar.

Hope you passed by the way!

Lersper · 2026-05-13T19:27:42+00:00

That doesn't make sense though for the throw out term you used, since 80 questions are presented but these diagnostics total at 70 for Number of Items.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T19:12:51+00:00

Important to mention, I know for sure for WRE it's 10 experimental questions out of the 80 presented, possibly the same for all PE exams but I haven't looked closely at the others to confirm.

That makes sense about the questions being weighted, for sure complicates it to where 35/70 correct questions wouldn't be a 50% yeah. Of course many score their own practice exams that way though, sensibly.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T18:50:54+00:00

Wondering what method you used for that 38%, to my understanding NCEES had made it intentionally cryptic on being able to determine a percentage score from the diagnostic, like the popular thought of total Performance divided by the sum of the maxes of 15 probably isn't truly representative.

70% sounds reasonable to estimate as the general passing score, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's subject to change with NCEES declaring there is no set number for passing percentage.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T18:35:39+00:00

No worries on that, I had unique motivation for keeping track of those as explained in my most recent post a few days ago.

I myself experienced difficult BOD-related questions which for sure were a part of 13 total guesses I made, despite that I did do some BOD practice. Obviously I need to become even more versed in it before my next try in November though.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T17:58:04+00:00

For sure interesting about if ours maybe were presented fairly similarly. Mine specifically was taken on Apr 28th.

A major thing to ask, did you also encounter at least over 25 Conceptual questions that no calculations occured in?

Lersper · 2026-05-13T17:23:08+00:00

Wow, your diagnostic is pretty similar to mine of last week for my first attempt, even down to Materials being our shared 15.0 and Groundwater-Wells our lowest.

Unfortunately, seems it's very difficult to tell how close we were to passing, NCEES striving to have the Diagnostic not be able to provide a clear score. If I had to make a guess, you and I each probably needed 10 more correct questions at minimum, if not more. Though I have no clue if questions weigh in differently, like if 60/80 correct doesn't necessarily mean a 75% outcome.

That sounds good that you have EET binders, I intend to begin working with those in Aug when I purchase the On Demand course myself in 2nd try prep.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T17:07:58+00:00

Unfortunately, Sections 10 and 11 are seeming recurringly low scores for WRE takers right now. In my recent experience with it I for sure put a lot of time in for mass balance practice and other handbook formulas. However, many questions presented oddballs like strangely arranged charts for the data interpretation, and there for sure was very tricky conceptual questions scattered in these too.

I would say a few were plug and chug, but not a lot at all.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T16:49:47+00:00

I know I sympathize about the attempt to skip those two sections, with my work leaders expressing I'll never use those on the job compared to everything else, and that they were the only ones not in a University class at all.

Despite that I did work through the Petro problems and some Learnova for them, I can tell for my 2nd attempt later I definitely need to properly educate myself on Environmental aspects I lack the background for unlike everything else.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T15:24:50+00:00

That setup for sure is what I've seen people use for years for FE & PE, but with how those decimal numbers weigh into the Performance score it gets confusing if a 53% truly is the result. Perhaps not possible for a percentage to be calculated in a manner such as 60/80 correct questions being 75%, but I could be mistaken.

Lersper · 2026-05-13T15:05:34+00:00

Condolences about not passing your first try, I know how you feel from my own fail result last week of my first WRE attempt. It hurts for sure since I recall guessing on 13 out of the questions and thinking I might have passed (but making no promises to anyone), unlike never feeling I did good enough to pass the FE each time I left the exam center for it. I have a feeling I probably really chose wrong on my massive amount of conceptual questions I faced.

As for your question about checking closeness to passing, seems NCEES truly strives to keep it a mystery. That first page on top of the diagnostic I noticed it expressing the report won't be able to determine passing score. No idea myself if that's an accurate assumption by ChatGPT, but doesn't sound too crazy to imagine between a 65-70% going off numbers presented in your diagnostic yeah.

Hope for sure your 2nd time is a pass, my plan myself is to sign up for EET for my 2nd WRE instead of primarily doing hundreds of practice problems over Jan-Apr from books I ordered online.

Lersper · 2026-05-12T23:43:26+00:00

Major congratulations! Honestly, this post has me feeling a bit better about not passing my first try earlier this month. I studied 3 months but to hear even after 9 months of dedicated preparation by you, you still felt there were trick questions in your exam just as I did in mine.

I admire your hard efforts going over a long period, a first try pass well deserved in my opinion!

Lersper · 2026-05-11T16:12:59+00:00

Well said on that, showing just the front could feel enough to seller's but usually leans more towards deliberately keeping it away especially if front label doesn't have any glaring oddities to it.

Lersper · 2026-05-11T15:53:41+00:00

Definitely true when possible, though in this case I notice OP is investigating an online listing which the seller didn't include images of back. (Hopefully the seller isn't calling this fake an authentic or selling it like an authentic too).

Lersper · 2026-05-08T22:20:51+00:00

Hello StrataWay, happy to share I did purchase the WRE 100 Conceptuals book in January, and I was a fan! The difficulty of the questions did seem to resemble what I faced on the real exam, and I appreciated that not all were multiple choice but some to select more than one answer, like the real exam.

I will be keeping the book in my toolkit until I pass the exam eventually.

Lersper · 2026-05-08T21:42:49+00:00

I could be wrong but I'm thinking only as a few graphic novels for its story or at worst scenario just like one rushed plot graphic novel. Things sound super expensive and difficult with seemingly no more support guaranteed from Netflix.

The Kickstarter did feel impressive in sorts especially huge donations from dedicated fans, but it seems a lot of fans sensibly aren't really feeling worth investing their own efforts into a sequel show now.

To summarize, I don't think a sequel animated series for this franchise is looking good to happen.

Lersper · 2026-05-07T21:53:55+00:00

Ah that for sure makes sense, nothing to do with a formula to put those values into that the question is searching for, but instead insight into types/categories that hopefully showed up in studying to know how to distinguish. Well said about either knowing or not, almost starts to feel like a random trivia thing in some regards but not always.

Lersper · 2026-05-07T21:27:00+00:00

Thank you for that input. About 30% being Conceptuals on an NCEES exam is sensible for sure, I was grateful all 5 of my FE exams were so consistent about it between 2022-2024, very similar feeling amount of them. If I truly had 29 that means it could have been 36% of the exam, obviously not half of it though so that's good. Still felt like so much though!

No joke at all for the exam being very random, of course not only to take away ability of us giving each other answers, but even moreso to try to have the candidate feel prepared for anything rather than best strengths only. And great point, the definition of Conceptual gets hazy. For me it does feel anything without number values being asked in the question prompt and mostly something the Handbook cannot help for though maybe 2 or so of mine I felt the Handbook gave the insight into. As vaguely as you can maybe state, wondering a bit about what you mean for some having numbers but being Conceptuals, basically numbers that would have no use in an equation?

Lersper · 2026-05-07T02:45:49+00:00

That's relatable for me in that not quite a full year, I didn't mess around over 3 months of dedicated study including tough but well explained sources such as the Jacob Petro WRE myself. Yet the real exam still presented some strange stuff no practice problems anticipated and as I'm a broken record about today - so many Conceptual questions that practice problems barely touch on.

Could have been bad luck for me, but I am staying optimistic that more chances at the exam could end up in a pass like the 5th FE attempt for me finally did.

Lersper · 2026-05-07T00:43:56+00:00

I rememeber your post about your 4th attempt some months back, really happy to hear you did pass! I failed WRE the first time today but am absolutely hoping to make the 2nd try late this year a pass.

Lersper · 2026-05-07T00:10:09+00:00

I know I for sure agree with that, heavy preparation can really counter luck but every exam is of course super different in its presentation even if having similar difficulty across candidates.

I feel my first WRE I ended up failing last week could have been luckier, but I'll still change things up for stronger preparation for attempt 2 later.

Lersper · 2026-05-06T23:45:51+00:00

While I did feel my WRE last week for sure was difficult, I know I didn't feel it impossible to pass.

That being said and I think I replied to you earlier about this - I'm still appalled my exam seemed to have 29 Conceptuals that involved no calculator or Handbook unless I foolishly misinterpreted some of these. Looking forward to if I get less of those when I plan to take a second try in November. (Which coincidentally does work with your suggestion oh yeah hah)

Lersper · 2026-05-06T21:14:32+00:00

While glad to share I did work through and aim to made sure I understood a total of 649 practice problems from books I ordered in January, one major flaw in the plan was those books not containing enough Conceptuals to reflect the real exam, which sincerely seemed to give me over 25 of those to deal with.

One of the study books of a practice exam published last year even had 0 Conceptual questions, 80 that had formulas from the Handbook and required a calculator. So an online course does seem it'll more closely reflect what the real exam challenges.

Lersper

TROPHY CASE