Ever walked out an exam and felt about *this* small?
Whether it be the result of poor studying or a terrible professor,
I think most of us have been there at least one or twice.
These tips you're about to hear have been curtailed toward engineering majors, but feel free to tweak and mold them as you please.
There are several obvious ways to improve exam scores; studying, reading textbooks, doing your homework,
but we'll be taking a different approach in this video.
This is, How to Pass an Engineering Exam.
Tip 1; If you don't know it, assume it.
Professors would much rather you pull a random, arbitrary value out of thin air,
then proceed to solve the problem, neglecting it altogether.
Here's an example in fluid dynamics:
Suppose your task is to calculate the power of a pump required to drive a liquid through 1600 feet of 8-inch pipe.
Your friction factor is 0.005, average pipe velocity 10 feet per second, mass flow rate 10 slug/s per second,
and acceleration due to gravity, 32.2 feet per second squared,
and all we need to do is calculate head loss from *this* equation,
and multiply that product by the mass flow rate in acceleration due to gravity once more.
This kind of math is 99% plug and chug, basic algebra.
Now let's assume, for sick kicks, that you cannot remember the head loss equation.
Great, there goes one vital piece of the puzzle.
While instead of stopping here, panicking and turning the page, as tears roll down your face, do this:
Write "ASSUME", in all caps I recommend,
head loss equals, say, 100 feet. This assumption may have just saved your grade.
Professors will look at this, probably realize that this magical number is a complete fabrication,
mark off a few points for that, and continue on grading.
Even if this value proves to be WAAAAY off, chances are *this* is the only place you'll be penalized.
Your final answer will, of course, be wrong but only as a result of your royal mistake a few lines up.
It's placing a band-aid over a geyser, but better than failing to write a solution, however wrong it may be.
Now let's move on to tip 2; if you are artistic in any way, shape, or form, don't be afraid to draw pictures and/or graphs when necessary.
At this point, it comes down to how well you can pass off BS as legit work.
You can really get away with this one in your physics classes.
Suppose your problem involves lifting a 10-kilogram box, let's draw a box here, straight up a certain distance, say, 10 feet,
but you have no idea where to go from here. Draw a friggin picture!
Start with the ground, throw in some grass, maybe a tree or two, make it look pretty.
Now we've gotta get *this* box, let's label it 10-kilograms, up *here*, 10 feet.
Sketch an imaginary crane of sorts and a rope connecting it to the box. In comes the free body diagram.
Even if you cannot remember the force and work equations needed to solve this problem,
you'll more than likely squeak by with some partial credit just for this amazing work of art.
It reminds professors that you aren't clueless and that you genuinely tried, and hey, you sketched and labeled a free body diagram that wasn't even asked for.
If a problem instead pertains to a graph or trend that you can recall, sketch that.
Anything is better than nothing in an engineering exam.
Tip 3; This will be hard for some of you, maintain an adequate level of maturity.
Don't write smiley faces or obscure question marks on exams, these divulge your lack of know-how,
and NOTHING with cheer up an engineering professor, trust me I've tried.
Let's assume you're asked to name the chemical compound ((MgFe)7Si8(OH)22), a magnesium iron silicate hydroxide.
If you write "Cummingtonite" followed by a smiley face or classic "LOL", you deserve point deductions, plain and simple.
By the way, this is the official name for this compound.
Ladies, this isn't so much a problem for you as it is for us guys.
Grow a beard and man-up, keep the maturity level on point, especially when in test taking mode.
Tip 4; Write neatly and in an organized manner, you will thank yourself later.
I take this one very seriously. Check out my notes, and in purple, such class.
I choose to write in all caps because it allows me to better differentiate legit notes from long-hand equations.
If you combine tip 4 with tips 1 and 2, you'll be sittin' good in the engineering neighborhood.
It's a bit like PC cable management, it doesn't improve functionality in any way but sure makes things easier to find and change later on.
Here's the last resort option, tip 5; Act like you misunderstood the question.
Let's assume the question asks for the total resistance in a circuit with three parallel, five-ohm resistors.
If you can't remember the parallel summation notation, this right *here*,
but you can remember the easy one, resistance in a series, then pretend asks just that.
What is the total resistance in a circuit with 3 series, 5-ohm resistors?
I suggest just sticking with the word "parallel" though on paper and writing out the notation for series,
so as to fool your professor into thinking you just mixed them up.
Which is much more forgivable than not remembering parallel notation altogether.
Again, it's a last resort effort, test takers discretion is advised.
But there's one last tip I cannot go without stating, that's tip 6; Be confident.
Even if you know, without a shadow of a doubt that your answer is incorrect, tips 1 thru 5 will not work without confidence.
Be confident in your assumptions, confident in your sketches, confident in your writing, and be confident in your confidence.
It's like the old saying goes, "You can go anywhere in the world you want if you appear confident and carry a clipboard."
Don't bring a clipboard to an engineering exam, though.
That will certainly draw unwarranted attention, bad news if you plan on stuffing functions into your handy graphing calculator.
Yeah, I know, I've been there.
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