How to Pass the ECE Board Exams (like a Good

Electronic Device)
June 30, 2019 by Al

Note: This guide is particularly created for ECE Reviewees who would like to
realize that they can pass or even top the board exams regardless of their
background, number of mistakes, or IQ. This post may also include the
promotion of services that the author believes in.

Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, passing the ECE Board Exams just
require you to act like some Electronic Device?

WTF. (Well, That’s Fun)

Yeah, never thought that was possible, either—until I did.

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Privacy - Terms
While reviewing, I realized that passing the board exams requires becoming in control
of your Mindset, Habits, Productivity, and Learning.

By becoming in control of these things, you inevitably become better.

By becoming better, you become someone who’s inevitably going to pass the board
exam.

The good news is, there were already a lot of books published about these topics.

But you don’t have to read them all, now; I already devoured them for you. (during my
review)

One of the things I learned was, you should always have systems set up in place. 

“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your
systems.” -James Clear, Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results

No matter what your goals are, make sure you set up systems that propel you in the
right direction.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this post: (links included if you hate reading)

Chapter 1: Mindset, Passing the ECE Board Exams, and the Conduction Band
(link)
Chapter 2: Habits, Motivation, and Diodes: Why you should value Habits, not
Motivation (link)
Chapter 3: Productivity Principles: What Transistors Can Teach Us (link)
Chapter 4: Learning, Memory, and Capacitors: Encoding to Long-Term
Memory (link)
BONUS #1: Examples of Active Recall + Spaced Repetition Systems and MVE
(link)
BONUS #2: Review Center and ECE Review Materials (link)
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 About the Author (aka “Why the hell should I listen to this guy”)

Let’s dive right in.

Chapter 1 – Mindset, Passing the ECE Board Exams, and the

Conduction Band

Dedicated to: People who would want to know how to believe in themselves.
People who are demotivated because “they’re not born smart”. People who
think “they can’t, because ____”.

When an electron in the valence band gains enough energy to overcome the Energy
Gap, they enter the Conduction Band, where they become “Free” Electrons.


Apply this to your own situation, and you have:

You (as an electron)

Who does an intense amount of preparation (the energy needed)
To overcome the challenges, surpass limits (the Energy Gap); and 
Finally become an Engineer. (free* Electrons)

*poor choice of adjective.

In short, as with any trial, those who have gathered adequate amounts of preparation
are the only ones who can surpass this challenge.

What’s interesting is that individually, we have this “Energy Gap” that we can
fortunately manipulate.

And what determines the width of this Energy Gap is your Mindset.

The Truth about Talent and Intelligence

Dr. Carol Dweck says in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, that there
are two types of Mindsets: Growth, and Fixed Mindset.

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 Photo by Reid Wilson

People who have the Fixed mindset tend to be afraid of making mistakes. They’re
like insulators who have wide energy gaps.

They believe that “either you have it, or you don’t.”

They put themselves down when they fail instead of learning from the experience.

Some people who have this mindset, if they’re honest with themselves, want to prove
to others that they’re smart.

The sad thing is, even smart/talented people may have a Fixed Mindset; this puts an
extreme limit to their potential.

As Dr. Carol Dweck says, “The smartest children don’t usually end up the smartest.”
further emphasizing that only those with the growth mindset are the ones who end
up becoming the smartest.
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On the other hand, people who have the Growth mindset exhibit incredible potential
for improvement.

They believe that “If you don’t have it, you work for it.”

They fail forward.

They’re not afraid to look stupid if in the end, they’re the ones improving.

Another psychologist, Angela Duckworth, says that the secret to incredible

achievements isn’t talent. It’s a combination of persistence and passion, which she
calls Grit.

And, from the same author, here’s something to remember:

Talent x Effort = Skill

Skill x Effort = Achievement

In short, theoretically, doubling our efforts makes 4x the achievement.

Imagine if you could multiply your “Effort” by 2X, 3X or even by 5X–you’re going to be
unstoppable.

That’s what I’m going to teach you here in this post: Evidence-Based, Time-Tested
strategies that actually WORK regardless of how smart you are, or what background
you have. 

As long as you’re willing to put in the work.

Sounds good? Let’s now move on to actually setting something to aim for.

Goal Setting: Little Tweaks that Make a Difference

Admit it, the goal’s usually “To top the Board Exam” or “to pass the Board Exam”.
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The problem is, with this approach, our motivation is going to plummet.

Failing a weekly exam instantly makes you lose your motivation.

Getting only Top 3 instead of Top 1 may make you sadder than a person who ate
oatmeal the whole day.

You see what I mean? If your goals are not action-oriented, you can’t measure if
you’re actually making progress or not.

You’ll lose motivation instantly.

What you want in order to maintain your motivation is an action-based

accomplishment to aim for each and every day.

Instead of “Pass the Board Exam”, you can make it “Answer 1 Problem Set +
Read 1 Chapter + Recall Information”
Instead of “Get a 100 MATH Rating”, you can make it “Learn 50 NEW Solutions
per day”

It assures progress, and it’s rather easy to track. It’s either “I did it” or “I didn’t”. Dead
simple.

Action-Based Goals >> Outcomes-Based Goals

For example, if you’re learning 25 solutions a day, by 3 months then you’d have
learned 2250 different solutions.

If you’re reading 1 chapter per day, it seems small at first but you’re actually reading
90 chapters by the end of 3 months.

That’s kind of a “stress-free plenty” if you ask me.

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Would that be enough to pass the boards?
Who knows, everyone differs in their standing, but that’s good enough progress for
someone who only learns 25 solutions a day or reads 1 chapter a day.

And it’s because: Consistency beats Intensity.

It doesn’t matter what your goals are if you’re going to study for 10 hours straight for
2 days and take a day off for the remaining 5 days of the week.

It’s better to study for 3 hours a day for 6 days than 10 hours a day for 2 days a week.

Now, go tweak your goal to something realistic so you don’t get sad every now and
then.

To conclude this chapter, ALWAYS remember that what we want is to become

smarter every day, not to look smarter.

It also doesn’t matter if we look stupid at first, as long as we’re better than yesterday
after it.

Relevantly, I would like to thank Sir Andrew Manacop of Excel Review Center for
giving inspiration and telling us success stories of previous Excel Reviewees
(including himself) during the in-house and review proper.

He’s where I got my first motivation to aim for the top and developed my Growth
Mindset

Chapter 2 – Habits, Motivation, and Diodes: Why you should

value Habits, not Motivation

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 Dedicated to: People who lost motivation, and are waiting for it “to come back”.
People who have a hard time breaking their bad habits.

Your Motivation acts like a Tunnel Diode; Similar to a negative resistance region,
there will come a time that the more time you spend on something, the more
demotivated you become.

Just like the negative resistance region, this is a time of negative motivation. 
Author Seth Godin calls the downward trend of our motivation as “The Dip”.

You will always, ALWAYS experience “The Dip” when doing something for a certain
period of time.

And it’s why we can’t rely on motivation alone; what we can rely on instead are our
Habits.

Habits, Habits, Habits

It’s simply because Habits are the things that you do REGARDLESS of your
motivation levels.

Do you ever have to motivate yourself to take a bath?

To use your smartphone upon waking up?

Of course not. Again, we do habits REGARDLESS of our motivation levels so it’s

important that we master them in order to actually reap their benefits.

The good news (and bad news) is, the effect of your Habits work like Diode Currents.

You also either reach the Active Region and the Breakdown Region depending on
what habits you have.

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Go toward the Breakdown Region, and you’ll reap the detrimental rewards later.

But go toward the Active Region, and you’ll reap the increasingly valuable benefits
later.

New York Times best-selling author, Darren Hardy, calls these delayed rewards as the
Compound Effect, a phenomenon where the effects of your seemingly
inconsequential actions suddenly unleash their compounded power.

Master your Habits now and reap the benefits sooner.

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If you’re struggling with your bad habits right now (Glued to your smartphone,
Chronic Procrastination, etc.) I’ve written just the article for you:

Further Reading: How to Break Bad Habits (Ideas from Atomic Habits and
The Power of Habit)

Chapter 3 – Productivity Principles: What Transistors Can

Teach Us

Dedicated to: People who struggle with procrastination. People who want to
spend less time studying, but want to accomplish more. People who want to
get the RIGHT things done.

Because we want to get a lot of things done, we always think we need to spend more
time doing something.

But the problem is, we’re not robots. Our efficiency declines with time.

You see, our productivity works similarly to Junction Field-Effect Transistors (JFET).
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We, like these transistors, come to a point where we become saturated.

Image result for fet characteristic curve

JFET are non-linear devices after all.

Anyway, here’s something to remember: We want to be productive, not busy.

It’s the common belief that we have to spend 6-10 hours, sacrifice our lives, and sell
our souls in order to “study hard”.

But at the end of the day, what matters is how much of the RIGHT things you’re
accomplishing, and not how busy you are.

Every entrepreneur knows this. Every executive knows this. Every doctor knows this.

So should a future engineer like you.

The Pareto Principle: Doing LESS but Achieving MORE

Have you ever felt like you’re not absorbing anything you study during those long
hours of reading?

When you’re studying, there comes a point that the more you increase the time you
spend, the less you’re getting in return—in short, you’re also saturated;

You’re now busy, but not productive.

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Notice the point in the curve where diminishing returns (in current) start: the Knee
Voltage. (it looks like…well, a bent knee.)

After the Knee Voltage is reached, an increase in V_DS will not give a linear response
to I_D.

Hence, leaving the Ohmic Region, where the JFET transistor acts like a linear device
(resistor).

By the way, the Ohmic Region is where transistors and resistors live happy together
(because transistors behave like resistors).

The Ohmic Region is also the region that we should always aim to be in when
spending our time and resources efficiently.

Let’s take the graph and apply it to our own so that you can remember the principle
I’m going to share with you.

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For the first 20% of your time, you have already achieved 80% of your results.

If you study for 3 hours straight, however, you only actually accomplish 1.5 hours of
work. 

If you study for 25 minutes, you accomplish 25 minutes of work.

If you look at the ratio of work and time spent, you’ll see that 25 minutes has a better
ratio.

That’s maximum efficiency right there. 

Note: This is just a hypothetical example based on the Law of Diminishing

Returns, an economic principle that states that adding more input yields
increasingly less output.

This principle of Productivity based on the Law of Diminishing Returns is called the
Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule.

The economist Vilfredo Pareto discovered this principle shortly after noticing that
only 20% of his crops yielded 80% of the total harvest. 
Hence, as a rule of maximum efficiency, he can focus on only that top 20% and not
suffer any major consequences at all because he’s still getting at least 80% of the
output.

This goes to say that we can separate our tasks as the vital few, and the trivial many.

Applying this idea to the ECE Board Exams: Examples of The Vital Few Principle

For EST, the topics in Digital/Data Communication, Transmission Lines,

Antennas, and Wave Propagation comprise 80% of the exam, so I didn’t spend
too much time on Analog Communications.
For ELECS, 70-80% are concepts from Floyd/Boylestad/Malvino, so the
majority of your time must be spent on learning these concepts instead of
memorizing objective type questions.
For MATH, almost 90% are problems–making the “objective type” questions
less important
For GEAS, I knew that 80% of the important concepts are taught in Excel, so I
spent less time reading and focused on practicing their problems

By segregating tasks according to the vital few and trivial many, I can spend less
time worrying about the little things that give meager returns. (and that means more
time for hanging out)

In the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, author George McKeown
says that this is the core of the Essentialist’s Philosophy: “Weniger, Aber Besser”
which means: less, but better.

The Pomodoro Technique and the Deep Work Equation

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So what should you do to stop reaching the point of saturation? Take a break.

Yes, take a break, as counter-intuitive as it may sound. Even a short break will do.

Taking a break effectively resets your saturation curve.

One method that I use (and a LOT of productivity enthusiasts use) is the Pomodoro
Technique.

The Pomodoro Technique works using these Principles:

Deep Work Equation – accomplish high-quality work in less time

Parkinson’s Law – effectively force yourself to finish tasks faster
Law of Diminishing Returns – maximize your efficiency while preventing
burnout
Focused Mode Thinking – enhance myelination, a process where neurons are
insulated to improve efficiency
Diffuse Mode Thinking – maximize creativity while allowing the mind to relax
and form fresh ideas from newly learned information

If you want to know about how these principles work, here’s my FREE guide for you.

 Further Reading: Does the Pomodoro Technique Work?

To do the Pomodoro Technique, you just set a timer for 25 minutes uninterrupted
work, then when the timer expires, take a 5-minute break.

If you’re using a PC or Laptop while studying, check out Marinara Timer–it’s

completely FREE. In fact, I used it while writing this post.

Photo from Marinara Timer

Why does this seemingly simple timing strategy work so well for increasing your
productivity?

The answer lies in the Deep Work Equation:

High-Quality Work Done = Intensity of Focus x Time Spent

Increase the Intensity of Focus, and you’ll get the same amount of work done in
LESS time.

The Pomodoro Technique allows you to channel your focus on the task at hand.
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In the book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal
Newport, this effectively allows you to do tasks with your full cognitive abilities
rather than with diffuse attention and effort.

Talking about attention, do you know that only 2% of humans can legitimately
multitask?

If you’re part of the non-freak 98%, then your performance is going to suffer when
multitasking because of a phenomenon called Attention Residue.

Hence, do single tasking, not multitasking.

How to Procrastinate Effectively: In All Seriousness

There must be something that you should procrastinate on, right?

Those things are:

Your current thoughts

Something that came up
A notification (do yourself a favor and click “Do Not Disturb”)
Some task you remembered might be actionable

It’s not limited to this list, but anyway, I want you to proactively procrastinate on
these things by writing them down.

Yes, write them down and process them LATER (the master procrastinator’s favorite
word).

This is what David Allen, productivity expert, recommends every person do to achieve
stress-free productivity.

As David Allen says in the book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free
Productivity:
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 “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

If you’re struggling how to actually get things done and deal with procrastination
once and for all, check out my FREE productivity guides down below.

Productivity Guides:
>Does the Pomodoro Technique Work?
>Can’t Concentrate on Work or Studying? Here’s Why.
>How to Focus on Study and Become Productive

Chapter 4 – Learning, Memory, and Capacitors: Encoding to

Long-Term Memory

Dedicated to: People who think they have a bad memory. People who struggle
with remembering information long-term. People who want to LESSEN their
study time, and remember MORE.


A lot of you may have experienced understanding something REALLY well during a
lecture or when reading a textbook, but when exam time comes–you can’t remember
anything.

Does this sound familiar? Here’s why.

Our brains work just short of similar to Capacitors, which are storage devices that
contain energy in an electric field.

Notice how capacitors charge and discharge in an exponential fashion.

Our memory works ALMOST the same way. (Our brains are better than that,
obviously)

According to Psychologist, Herman Ebbinghaus, our brains forget information at an

exponentially decaying rate, thus represented by the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.

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 Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. Photo From: https://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch06-memory/ebbinghaus.html

Now, it doesn’t make sense to study if we’re not going to be able to recall the
information during the board exams, does it?

Here’s the thing: We can combat forgetting, make forgetting slower and intentionally
encode information to our long-term memory.

Researchers have already found what the best methods are for retaining information
and effectively encoding them into your long-term memory.

Based on anecdotal research, it’s not re-reading.

It’s Active Recall. (study, study, study, study, study)

The Truth about Mastery of Material: Repeated Testing,

not Repeated Exposure

A lot of students believe that re-reading notes or textbooks are the best way to go
because it feels productive. However, the problems with this approach, according to
Make it Stick: Science of Successful Learning, are:

Rereading gives the illusion that you’re actually mastering the material; in
reality, you’re just becoming more familiar with it.
It gives a false impression that you’re going to remember the material.
There’s no reliable way to measure your mastery by the number of times
you’ve re-read something.

Despite the definitive conclusion, I still think that Rereading works for extremely
short-term retention. Otherwise, Active Recall is KING.

Here’s my own experience.

I read a chapter in about 2 hours. That’s pretty fast because I filter out every
important thing using the 80/20 Rule, and I always use the Pomodoro Technique.

Now, if I were to reread that chapter, I would have to spend more or less 1 hour
because I’m already familiar with the topic. And that’s me being generous.

However, comparing that to my Google Sheets Active Recall system, I only review the
chapter for 5 minutes.

Now, if “Repetition is Key”, then, if I reread that chapter 3 times, I could’ve spent a
total of 1+1+1 hour = 3 hours.

That’s already a total of 36 REVIEWS if using the Active Recall System!

Also, here’s the thing: Rereading something 3 times doesn’t guarantee that I learned
the material, BUT self-testing even for 3 times guarantees that I actually do.

I hope that makes sense. That’s the power of Active Recall: Efficiency + Mastery +
Retention.

The SECRET to Retaining Information: Spaced Repetition
In order to effectively encode something into our long term memory, what we should
do is a combination of Active Recall and Spaced Repetition.

Spaced Repetition is a principle that exploits the brain’s ability to remember

information longer after being able to generate it (using Active Recall).

If we recall information when we’re just about to forget it, we effectively reset the
forgetting curve and make it much less steep.

It’s like, for every recall, you’re increasing the discharge time of your capacitor.

In the books, Make it Stick: Science of Successful Learning and A Mind for Numbers, it
was stated that the harder it was for you to recall that information, the more
beneficial it is for strengthening the memory.

So, when doing Active Recall, don’t worry if your answer is always “at the tip of your
tongue”–the next time you’re asked the same question, I guarantee that you’re going
to remember it more quickly than before.

Similar to a re-charging capacitor, here’s what Spaced Repetition looks like:


This not only reduces your study time by only reviewing the information that needs
attention but also helps you retain everything you’ve learned from the start of your
review.

If you’d like to learn more about science-based learning strategies and memory
secrets that Memory Athletes use, you can check out my other articles regarding the
topic.

Inside the articles, you’ll find more actionable techniques to learn faster, retain
information long-term, and instantly remember better.

Further reading:
>Study Smart: Learn Faster and Avoid Learning Myths
>Revision Strategies: Scientifically Proven Methods + Myths to Avoid
>Memory Techniques for Exams: The SECRETS of Memory Athletes

Just to be clear, I’m fully aware that looksfam (looks familiar) is a widely used answer
recognition method for Board Exams. 

In my opinion, they’re highly efficient when it comes to topics that are rather
impractical to study anymore. (deeper topics of Data Communications, for instance)

But, they should NOT be the main focus of your studying, especially when you’re just
in the beginning phases.

BONUS #1: Examples of Active Recall + Spaced Repetition

Systems and MVE

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I teach these exact systems to those who I’m mentoring for their board exam review.

For my Active Recall and Spaced Repetition system, I used a Spaced Repetition app
called Anki that automatically schedules when you should review the information
next.

I’d study hundreds of scheduled cards every day for a maximum of 2 hours. (I have
3000+ total cards by the end of review)

Because of this, I was able to retain everything that I wanted to remember.

My philosophy is that you can only use the information you are able to retain up until
the exam.

So, just understanding the material doesn’t mean you’re going to remember it very
well.

If you’re interested, I have a free tutorial for Anki beginners: 

Read: Anki Tutorial for Beginners


Another method that I use is the Google Sheets method that I learned from Dr. Ali
Abdaal on YouTube.

He created this guide because he felt like sometimes, Anki was too much of a chore
for him (everyone’s different).

Here’s a detailed guide, because I know you’re drowning in words right now:

How to Study for Exams with Google Sheets

Minimum Viable Effort (MVE): The Secret to Consistency

Minimum Viable Effort, or MVE, is the least amount of work you should do every day
without fail.

Make it so easy, that you lose some respect for yourself by not doing it. I’m serious.

During my review, my MVE was 1 Problem Set + 1 Chapter Reading + Finish ALL
Scheduled Recall. That’s it.

If you do this same method:

By 30 days, you would’ve theoretically learned 30 problem sets, 30 chapters, and then
RETAINED them all. Sounds good?

By 120 days, you would’ve theoretically practiced 120 problem sets, 120 chapters,
and again, RETAINED EVERYTHING.

Theoretically because we humans foresee the future optimistically. But the outcome
should still be near those numbers.

Now imagine if you get used to doing more than your MVE every day.

BONUS #2: Review Center and ECE Review Materials

Because I went to Excel Review Center, I’d highly recommend them.

Partly because I always had people to look up to (which was a major motivator as
well), especially Sir Eman, Sir Jj, and Sir Emil.

Whenever I’m confused, I always thought of “What would Sir ___ do in this situation?”


And, in times of doubt, they patiently answered my questions and cleared my
confusions, so I’m really grateful to have mentors like them during my review.

By the way, all of them were topnotchers, too. They definitely walk the walk.

I’d say the Review Centers would contribute to roughly 50% of your grade, and they
will guide you to get your next 50% given that you’ll do the work.

As I’ve said earlier, LESS could be MORE, and that principle also applies to your
Review Materials.

Here’s the link to my list of materials that I was able to read during the Review:

Google Document: ECE Review Materials List

Now, you might think, “Just who is this guy who thinks he knows what he’s talking
about?”

Here’s my little backstory before you run away as fast as you can.

About the Author (aka “Why the hell should I listen to this
guy”)
I am Engr. Al Cantal (now I realized, I haven’t claimed my license yet), an ECE
graduate from Malayan Colleges Laguna.

During my first 4 years in College, I was never really sure if I really wanted ECE, to be
honest.

So, I never took studying seriously. (Relate, someone??)

Normally, I would fail some subjects, and even my thesis (almost 2 times) because I
was so busy doing nothing.

In fact, I stayed at school after my morning class for 10 stupid hours just to talk
about random shit that doesn’t matter. 

Because of the rather unsatisfying lifestyle, I turned to self-improvement.

I read Inspirational/Motivational and Finance books every day, and boy, I was all
hyped-up to “become successful”.

Except I wasn’t successful. And I started to hate school even more.

However, when I got into a major Communications course, suddenly my professor

blew my mind when he said “You’re never going to pass this course if you only read
Tomasi.”

Eager to pass just to graduate, I was like, “what the hell, that book is THICC AF and
reading it won’t get me even close to passing?”

And so that experience made me realize that something was wrong. Something
needed a change.

It was how I studied—I previously used suboptimal learning strategies, I was busy
and not productive, and most of all I was just relying on a single book when I could
be more resourceful than ever.

So, I tried to learn every technique from different books written on scientific methods
of learning.

Then, I started implementing each idea one by one, took what worked and tossed
what didn’t.

Fast forward to the present, I landed as 6th Placer in the ECE Board Exams.

What a plot twist. Not bad for someone who didn’t even lift a single page in the first 4
years of Engineering.
