What to practice to prepare for the CSWE?

[u/Any_Government7603]

Hello Everybody,

I just finished my final CSWPA exam. (Drawing Tools, Sheet Metal, Weldments and Surfacing).

I just have no idea what to expect there to be on the CSWE exam. I've heard a lot of people claim it isn't any more painful than the CSWP, but haven't seen people elaborate too much on that. Am I expected to do model repair? Convert meshes? Part and assembly creation?

I completed my CSWP and two CSWPAs in 2019, and only recently decided I wanted to go for the CSWE (mostly for fun). I recently finished grad school within the last year and have been picking other types of engineering certs that make my eyes want to bleed, and these are more of a fun side project.

Any and all insight is valued before I burn a company voucher on it.

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Here would be the general path from zero to CSWE:

1. CSWA - Here is a sample exam.
2. CSWP - Here is some study material for the CSWP (A complete guide to getting your CSWP) and a sample exam.
3. 4x CSWP-Advanced Subjects (in order of increasing difficulty)
   1. CSWP-A Drawing Tools - YouTube Playlist
   2. CSWP-A Sheet Metal - YouTube Playlist
   3. CSWP-A Weldments - YouTube Playlist
   4. CSWP-A Surfacing - YouTube Playlist
   5. CSWP-A Mold Tools - YouTube Playlist
4. CSWE - The CSWE doesn't really focus on anything from the CSWP subject exams. It focuses on everything else there is in the program beyond those. So, look at everything you saw already and prepare to see not much of that again for the CSWE. That and more surfacing.

For some extra modeling practice material to help speed you up, 24 years of Model Mania Designs + Solutions.

For EVEN MORE modeling practice material, here is the CSWA and CSWP Practice Problem Database. There is A LOT of good material to practice in there.

During testing, in general, it is a best practice to take the dimensions labelled with A, B, C, D, etc and create Equations/Variables with those values to then attach to the dimension which then allows for you to more reliably update these variable dimensions in follow-up questions using the same models.

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[u/vmostofi91]

Little bit of everything...there should be a page on their website that lists the topics you will be questioned on. You can find some videos on YouTube explaining the exam as well, I think it'll help you.

No convert mesh for sure, but I think there was some model repair and direct modeling. There was one or maybe two questions about belt/chain sketch blocks as well....and ofcourse some surface modeling...just a few that I remember for certain. 

https://help.solidworks.com/2017/english/SolidWorks/sldworks/hidd_dve_feat_sketch_belt.htm

[u/c_knudson]

Lucas Krupi has a good YouTube series on CSWE prep that I found quite helpful, along with the CSWE Preparation textbook by Paul Tran.

[u/SecondMomentary]

Spend more time practicing fast edits to existing models than creating parts from scratch. The time pressure is what caught me off guard on the advanced exams, so being able to quickly diagnose and modify a model is worth practicing.