The FE exam, the first in the two-part engineering licensing process, is taken typically by upper-level students or recent graduates in April or October. This eight-hour exam is closed-book except for a handout provided in the examination room. The exam is divided into morning and afternoon sessions. The morning exam, with 120 multiple-choice problems, is the same for everyone. In the afternoon, examinees must choose to take a discipline-specific (DS) or a general exam, each with 60 multiple-choice problems. The Discipline-Specific Reviews are used to study for the afternoon DS exams.

For speedy access to the formulas you'll need during the exam, use the Quick Reference for the Mechanical Engineering PE Exam. This material, drawn from the Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual, is organized by topic and indexed for rapid retrieval.