|
Full disclosure - I went to school before things like this were even available, so that certainly clouds my views. I never studied with electronic books, so my methods don't work for it well. For others, it may be ok.
This type of reference is one that I can't imagine working well in an electronic format. If they made it into an app or did something that vastly improves the navigation, maybe, but for me reference books are really best in paper form.
I know I would not use my ME Reference Manual by Lindeberg if it was only in Kindle/epub format and looking at most of my other references I wouldn't use them either. It is too handy to be able to flip back/forth and use the index all at the same time to get things that are tangentially related. Search tends to be too specific in its results for this type of thing. What if they use a different word than you are searching for?
There are a couple exceptions (HVAC Rules of Thumb and some steam tables/data books) that would work ok, but not too many. The ones that do are not meant to even be read, they are meant to provide small tidbits of information or data at a time and be put away. The HVAC Rules of Thumb would be easy to use in Kindle or ePub (or searchable PDF) because you are generally looking for something specific, so you can just search for it. The data books would be ok this way, but better if converted to an app where you could plug in what you are looking for and have it calculate things for you.
By the way, are you straight out of school or in school still? or has it been a few years? I ask because most people I know don't really need this reference if they are straight out of school. The best study advice I can give is to study the supplied reference handbook and know it backwards/forwards since it is the only reference allowed in the exam, if you don't have it in hard copy, purchase one so you know the form factor and how it is layed out in print. The in-test advice would be to not spend too much time on any one question - if you don't know the answer immediately, skip it and come back later. Of the people I know who didn't pass, spending too much time on a single problem was what did most of them in. They just didn't have time to complete the exam.
|