This FE Exam cheat sheet strips the Fundamentals of Engineering core down to the formulas, constants, and rules that repeat across every discipline, laid out for a fast final review. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Reinforce it with the rest of your free FE toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
FE Exam exam at a glance
- Questions: 110 (every discipline)
- Appointment: 6 hours (5 h 20 min testing, plus NDA, tutorial, and a 25-min break)
- Scoring: Pass/fail on a scaled cut score — no fixed percentage, and no wrong-answer penalty
- Reference: NCEES FE Reference Handbook only (on-screen, searchable)
- Cost: $225 to NCEES; verify the current fee at registration
What’s on the FE Exam cheat sheet
- Mathematics & Statistics (~14–21 Q) — core derivatives and integrals, differential-equation setups, the empirical rule, z-scores, and probability rules.
- Engineering Economics & Ethics (~10–17 Q) — time-value-of-money factors (F, P, A), NPV and IRR decision rules, and the public-safety-first ethics hierarchy.
- Statics, Dynamics & Mechanics of Materials (~27–42 Q) — equilibrium and free-body diagrams, kinematics and kinetics, and stress, strain, and Hooke's law.
- Fluids, Thermo & Electrical (~24–36 Q) — Bernoulli and continuity, the Reynolds number, the first and second laws, Carnot efficiency, and Ohm's and Kirchhoff's laws — the heaviest-weighted block.
How to use it in your final week
- Open the NCEES FE Reference Handbook next to the sheet and rehearse finding each formula by keyword — the handbook is your only allowed reference, so navigation speed is worth real points.
- Front-load the mechanics and fluids block (statics, dynamics, mechanics of materials, and fluid mechanics carry the heaviest weight) — if you master one section of the sheet, make it this one.
- Read the ethics line first thing on exam morning: the public's safety, health, and welfare is held paramount, and that single rule answers most ethics items.
- Pair every review pass with a short timed practice set — about 2.9 minutes per question — so pacing across 110 questions feels automatic before you sit.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your FE Exam practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
FE Exam cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the FE Exam cheat sheet downloads as a PDF at no cost and with no sign-up. It sits alongside Career Employer's free FE practice test, study guide, and flashcards, so your whole FE toolkit is free.
It boils the shared engineering core down to a fast reference: the calculus and statistics rules, time-value-of-money factors, statics and dynamics relationships, stress and strain, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and the ethics hierarchy — the topics that repeat across every FE discipline.
No — the FE is closed reference except for the on-screen NCEES FE Reference Handbook. Use this sheet to memorize where each formula lives in that handbook and to lock in the facts before test day, not as a tool you carry in.
It is built from the current NCEES FE exam specifications and the FE Reference Handbook, and we review it against NCEES's published materials on a regular cycle so the counts, timing, and topic weights stay accurate.
Click the download button or the preview card near the top of this page and the PDF opens instantly. Bookmark the page so you can pull the sheet back up during your final review week.
References
- 1.NCEES. “FE Exam — Fundamentals of Engineering.” NCEES, 2026. ↑
- 2.NCEES. “Exam Scoring — How NCEES Scores the FE Exam.” NCEES, 2026. ↑
- 3.NCEES. “NCEES Exam Reference Handbooks (FE Reference Handbook).” NCEES, 2026. ↑
- 4.NCEES. “FE Other Disciplines — CBT Exam Specifications.” NCEES, 2026. ↑
- 5.National Society of Professional Engineers. “NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers.” NSPE, 2026. ↑
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