To get Engineer Intern (EI) certification, you need to pass the NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam. The exam is designed for recent graduates and for students close to finishing an EAC/ABET-accredited engineering degree. This page has free practice sets grouped by topic, a map of the official FE content areas, worked explanations of sample questions and the main exam facts: a $225 fee, 110 questions and pass/fail results.
Numbers in brackets link to the official sources listed under Sources & last verified. Dates that have passed are removed automatically.
According to NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying), which runs the FE exam; the EI/EIT certificate itse, “All results are reported as pass or fail. If you fail the examination, you will receive a diagnostic report showing your performance for each of the major topics covered on the exam.”[1]
The EI designation is also called EIT (Engineer in Training). Your state engineering licensing board grants it, not NCEES. The main exam step is passing the NCEES FE exam. Each board sets its own rules for education, applications and experience, so check your state board's website before you register.
NCEES can change exam details, and state EI requirements differ. Confirm both on the official NCEES FE exam page (ncees.org/exams/fe-exam) and your state board's site before you book.
The content areas below are copied from the official EI content outline published by NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying), which runs the FE exam; the EI/EIT certificate itse. The right-hand column shows which of our practice sets covers it.
| Official content area | Practice on this site |
|---|---|
| Mathematics[3] | EI Fundamentals of Engineering Practise algebra, calculus, vectors and differential equations until you can find the right handbook formula quickly and apply it without hesitating. |
| Probability and Statistics[3] | EI Quality Control & Inspection Methods Work through mean, standard deviation, distributions and confidence intervals, especially as they apply to inspection and process-control data. |
| Chemistry[3] | Mixed practice tests above Review stoichiometry, balancing reactions, acids and bases, and basic thermochemistry from your coursework, because we have no dedicated set for this area yet. |
| Engineering Ethics and Societal Impacts[3] | EI Engineering Ethics & Professional Conduct Practise deciding what a licensee must do when public safety, client interests and honesty conflict, using the reasoning in model rules of professional conduct. |
| Safety, Health, and Environment[3] | EI Safety Regulations & OSHA Compliance Practise hazard recognition, the hierarchy of controls and the basics of workplace safety regulations, and pair this with the environmental set for sustainability topics. |
| Engineering Economics[3] | Mixed practice tests above Practise time-value-of-money problems such as present worth, annual worth and break-even comparisons, using the interest tables and formulas in the handbook. |
| Statics[3] | EI Structural Analysis & Design Draw free-body diagrams and solve for reactions, truss member forces and centroids before you check the answer choices. |
| Dynamics[3] | Mixed practice tests above Review kinematics, Newton's second law, work-energy and impulse-momentum problems for particles and rigid bodies from your coursework. |
| Strength of Materials[3] | EI Structural Analysis & Design Practise stress, strain, beam shear and moment, deflection and column buckling, and always check units and sign conventions. |
| Materials[3] | EI Materials Science & Specifications Learn how material properties, phase diagrams, corrosion and testing methods relate to choosing and specifying materials. |
| Fluid Mechanics[3] | Mixed practice tests above Review fluid statics, the continuity and Bernoulli equations, and pipe-flow head loss, and get used to finding these relations in the handbook. |
| Instrumentation and Controls[3] | Mixed practice tests above Review sensors, measurement error, block diagrams and basic feedback-control concepts from your coursework. |
Prepare for the EI - Engineer Intern Certification exam with our free practice test modules. Each quiz covers key topics to help you pass on your first try.
These are practice questions written for this site, not questions from the real exam. Each explanation shows why the right answer is right and why the others are wrong.
Question: Which quality improvement method is most applicable to safety regulations & osha compliance in Engineer Intern Certification?
Answer: C. Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) continuous improvement cycle
Explanation:
C is correct. Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) is a cycle of continuous improvement. You plan a change, try it, check the results against your goal, and then adopt it or adjust it. Safety programs work this way: you identify a hazard, put a control in place, check whether incidents or exposures went down, and refine the control.
Rule to remember: pick the answer that measures results and feeds them back into the next decision.
Question: Which of the following activities would a state engineering board MOST likely consider valid engineering experience for an EI?
Answer: B. Performing finite element analysis on structural components
Explanation:
B is correct. State boards generally count experience that applies engineering principles to real problems. Finite element analysis of structural parts is that kind of work: it calls for engineering judgment about loads, boundary conditions and results.
Rule to remember: the employer and the job title don't decide whether experience counts. Engineering judgment does. Exact rules vary by state, so check your board's definition of qualifying experience.
Question: Which of the following best describes a key competency required for safety regulations & osha compliance in EI certification?
Answer: B. Critical thinking and evidence-based decision making
Explanation:
B is correct. Safety compliance means applying rules to situations that never match the textbook exactly. You have to weigh the evidence, understand what a regulation is meant to achieve and choose a defensible action. That is critical thinking based on evidence.
Rule to remember: on competency questions, prefer answers about judgment and evidence. Distrust answers built on extremes such as "all", "without any" or "verbatim".
Start with the NCEES FE exam specification for your discipline and the NCEES FE Reference Handbook, which is the reference you will use during the exam. Use the content-area table above to see which areas our sets cover and which ones you need to study from your coursework.
The FE exam costs $225 per attempt, paid directly to NCEES. That covers the exam itself. Your state engineering board grants the EI designation and may have its own application process and fee, so check the board's website for anything you need to pay beyond the NCEES exam fee.
The FE exam has 110 questions. It is computer-based and given at NCEES-approved Pearson VUE test centers. The topics depend on your discipline, so download the exam specification for your discipline from the NCEES FE exam page and plan your study around it.
NCEES does not publish a target score. Results are reported only as pass or fail. If you fail, you get a diagnostic report that shows how you did in each major topic. Use it to decide what to study before you try again.
FE exam results usually arrive within 7–10 business days after your exam, according to NCEES. Once you pass, apply to your state board for the EI designation. Each board has its own process, so check its website for the next steps.
You get 1 attempt per testing window and no more than 3 attempts in a 12-month period. The testing windows are January–March, April–June, July–September and October–December. If you fail, use the diagnostic report to focus your study before the next window.
NCEES designed the FE exam for recent graduates and for students close to finishing an undergraduate engineering degree from an EAC/ABET-accredited program. Eligibility and EI application rules are set by each state board, so confirm your state's requirements before you register for the exam.
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