How to Pass Chemical Engineering (ChE) Board Exam Philippines - Five Crucial LessonsYou Should Know

In only roughly more than two weeks time, a new batch of Chemical Engineering graduates will test their prowess to become part of a noble profession. I have been there, and I know the feeling of anxiety and fretfulness knowing the days slowly sneaking. So I made this blog to hopefully somehow reduce the unease outlook you may have inside.

 

This could have been more credible had I made it to the top 10 during my turn, but being a passer alone is not bad either. 
So to pass on my dreams and let you fulfill it for me, I’m offering to you some helpful advices for your next big challenge.

I won’t tackle the other common exam-taking techniques and strategies applicable to general exams. Go google it.  What follows instead are some specific tips and tricks for ChE board exam based on my own recent experience and my friends’ as well.

Stop your preparation for a while, and let me take your hand toward a more rewarding examination experience. 

1.       Test your basics - Remember that what you’re preparing for is a national board exam, and is not going to be the kind you had in school. In my case, it was way far from being as detailed and meticulous as what I had in my review school.

In all probability, it would only test if you know what every chemical engineer should know - which we call the foundation.

There’s some truth to the statement “You can never be prepared”.

The fact is that the exam is going to be just a set of questions from limitless possibilities, which means you get to pass or not based on your knowledge on that particular set only.  So it might be wise to put more focus on the basics and fundamentals of each subject matter, then just build-up on that in case some question requiring more complicated solutions arise. 

By doing this you also help yourself identify what to review and limit what you should pay attention to, maximizing your memory space.

In fact, some will be either-you-know-it-or-you-don’t type of questions, leaving you no choice but to rely only on your heavy guts feel and educated guess to pick the right one. So to avoid having so much to remember, going back to the core is our first rule.

2.       Assess. We know it. In exams like this, we’re actually tested in two ways – one is on what’s inside our brain, next is on our exam-taking skills.  We can’t do anything in the former after all our preparation, but it’s on the second we want to leverage on. Remember that examiners won’t mind on how you got your answer. The important thing is you get the right one, however you arrive to it.

So what now?

If you know readily that a problem can be solved by mere substitution of a choice, do so and avoid any self-exhibitions with your long solution. This will save you a lot of time. (This is more applicable to trial-and-error-solutions requiring problems, like in … uh,friction factor correlation?)

Clustered questions often appear, and the good thing about this is that though you may not find the answer to one question in the ladder by itself, simply playing around with the known relationships of all the choices of all members of the cluster can be helpful. You can always do this if you follow the first advice above. (It’s a different discussion though if the examiner happens to be more playful than your creative minds.).  

3.       Widen your resources.

Always recall that on the actual day itself, you only have three tools readily available to the rescue, (1) the prayers you sent to heaven, (2) your Perry’s handbook, and (3) your calculator.  All your loved ones can use the first tool for you, but it’s only you who can use the other two for yourself. Thus I strongly suggest that you capitalize on these and dedicate at least two days of your final review, relying on these two tools alone - no more looking at solved problems, crosschecking with other reference books or asking your friend. At least familiarize the books’ contents’ location and and on how to maximize your calculator’s features.  You may also consider simulating the actual exam by doing your practice exam straight morning to afternoon.


 4.       Intermingle. Many heads will always be better than one.   The overall preparation can be hard doing it alone, but a pair or a circle of friends can make it a fun experience as well.

Go find a potential group where you can join and exchange ideas with and do your final self-assessment.  I assure you, it will save you a lot of time and effort, plus it eliminates possible distractions. Additionally, it adds confidence, which, some would say, is the name of the game.

5.       Doubt the questions and choices.  Finally, this is one factor that can define a topnotcher. While the rest of the exam-takers spend their time left figuring out the answer and checking their results against the choices, potential topnotchers begin to doubt what’s provided to them, and then start wondering on where the potential error could be.

Most of us are trained to doubt ourselves when we don’t get the exact answer or solution to a problem. But don’t always do it in your board exam after you’ve exhausted all means to solve it and all seemed futile.

Sometimes the problem is not with your brain but with the exam itself.

 So what to do? Be creative.



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Check the given values, especially the physical properties constants added, and see whether it complements your common sense or stock-memory.  

Next, use your wild imagination on figuring out how your “sure answer” can match one of the choices.  It might be that there’s a typographical error committed by the exam encoder, or the printing output is not clear and readable enough or whatever that’s overlooked by the examiners in their final checking.

In extreme cases the formula (specifically the subscripts, superscripts, exponents) can be misplaced (or misaligned) and you have to navigate through the entire page to solve the puzzle first before doing calculations again.

 In either case, you need to take an extra look on these watch-outs if you want to leverage on and take advantage of it.

But again, do this only when you’re 99.9% sure that all your capacity have been tested to check the accuracy of your own solutions. Relying on this tactic after just your first failed attempt can be hurtful in the end.

There you go.

My final advice - take it easy.

Don’t pressure yourself too much if you believe you’ve done your due diligence. Remember that a mere license can never fully dictate the course of your life. It may become a turning point, but that’s only it, a point, and it’s all up to you on how you’re going to connect it with other more important points and milestones you want to achieve in your life.

A professional license may be an additional help for you to enter the gateway of opportunities, but it should never limit you in achieving your dreams and adding value to this world.

Okay? Okay!

Good luck and be victorious!

Disclaimer: The blogger doest make any guarantee or other promise as to any results that may be obtained from using the blog. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the writer disclaims any and all liability in the event any information, commentary, analysis, opinions, advice and/or recommendations in the blog prove to be inaccurate, incomplete or unreliable, or result in any other undesirable result.