Just took my CWI

By 3.1 Inspector Date 06-30-2008 09:31

heh.....you get plastic weldments in the us as well.....that just plain sucks IMO
I dont know how it works over there, but when I did my CSWIP(in europe) it was plastic as well, we were told that the important thing was to identify the defects/imperfections

The examinors are well aware of the bad test specimens - but again, I am not sure how AWS deal with things.

I might confuse things with the macro test :(

Good luck with the result.

I am still waiting for my API test results, took the test 4 weeks ago, THAT sucks!

3.1

By jon20013 (*****)

Date 06-30-2008 09:44

tonyd, good advice is to go with your first impressions.

I too have taken the practical in re-certifying through the years. In my opinion, the coupons are not exactly ideal but do a fair job representing what they're intending to represent. No one said it was gonna be a cake-walk! ;-)

By flamin

Date 07-01-2008 03:04

Hey tonyd-

I took the test in Phoenix this past weekend as well, and I feel exactly the same. I have absolutely no doubts about the Fundamental, or open book portion, and the practice test we did on Part B left me feeling confident as well, but the questions in the actual Part B test were VERY different than the practice test IMO, not that they shouldn't be though. Not to mention the old guy in charge didn't really give anyone a chance to settle in. He was like here's your test, here's your tools........good luck. Test starts now. The lighting in the room that the Part B was being given in had real dim lighting I thought. Almost seemed like they did it on purpose, being that every other room in the hotel had lighting bright as day. Now the waiting game is going to drive me nuts.

Good luck on your results

Jason

By Pipeslayer (**)

Date 07-01-2008 14:58

I felt the exact same way. You can study for the others and the practical does'nt offer feed back.

By tonyd Date 07-03-2008 03:44

Jason-

Thanks for the well wishes. I didn't mention the lighting in my original post, but you are right- that lighting sucked!!! The old man in there said he noted it on his report that goes to AWS so I was considering bringing that up if I do end up failing that portion.

The preparatiom for the Practical portion was not enough, in my opinion. As you took the same seminar as I did, I'm certain that our instructer did the best he could- he was obviously very conscientous about doing his job well. From what I've heard the practical portion has gone through some changes over the last few months, so I'm assuming that the instructors have not caught up to the new testing criteria.

Mostly I felt as though this portion was extremely limitted on time. The weldments required a lot of attention that sucked up a lot of time, but in the end I still had a few minutes left. But there was a decent amount of time during the test that I was panicing about how much time I had left, so that probably played a part in how I answered some questions.

Good luck to you too, and everybody else who is awaiting results or their test day.

Tony

By ctacker (****)

Date 07-03-2008 05:14

"that lighting sucked!!! The old man in there said he noted it on his report that goes to AWS so I was considering bringing that up if I do end up failing that portion. "

Don't think AWS will do anything about it, Didn't they give you a flashlight?
They may purposely dim the lights to see if you can inspect in a dim situation!

Good luck with the results!

By arrowside (**)

Date 07-03-2008 11:48

Actually, it doesn't sound like much has changed at all in the last few months. I took mine back in January under the same conditions.

   I passed with plenty of room to spare, however I was very surprised at the number of NDT questions on my practical, and on the code portion. It's a tough test for a reason, and it's impossible to over prepare for it, in my opinion.

   Did you guys that took the exam lately have 50 questions on the code portion?

   Also, if anyone reading this knows of any CWI work in the Western New York area, please click on my profile and drop me a line. Thank You!

By flamin

Date 07-03-2008 14:45

The code section that I took (D1.1) had 50 questions. Did they have more or less in the past?

And as for them passing out the flash lights duirng the Part b, they did after someone had reminded them, but I didn't feel like I had the time to fumble with it getting it to work, so I didn't use it.

By arrowside (**)

Date 07-03-2008 20:09

It used to be 46 questions on the code portion. Using the flashlight helps a ton, in my opinion.

By tonyd Date 07-11-2008 01:14

Yeah, they did give a flashlight... which I did use quite a bit more than I thought I would. I am not sure if they dimmed the lights on purpose or not, but the chandeliers had a frosted tint on them that seemed to be the culprit of the dimmed lighting.

I was verbally told today that I did, in fact, pass my CWI- so I guess I didn't do as badly as I was thinking on the practical.

By ctacker (****)

Date 07-11-2008 02:50

Congrats on passing, although I'm not sure who "verbally" told you you passed because AWS wont give that info verbally that I'm aware of!

By tonyd Date 07-14-2008 03:20

Thanks! I'm pretty stoked passing on my first attempt.

I called to find out the address they were going to send it to, and she let me know that I passed at that time. They had just sent out the results the previous day. I checked my number that she gave me on the Quick Check option on the website just now, and it shows my name there as a CWI. I probably just got lucky with who I talked to. She did not give me any result information as far as my scores go... I'm anxiously awaiting those now!

Best of luck to everybody out there planning on taking this test... The best advice I can give is don't take it lightly! It's the hardest test I've ever taken.