Sample Exam review

- In preparation for teaching this course I went ahead and I did the CSWA sample exam as well as the real CSWA exam. This document provided by SolidWorks does a very, very good job of laying out what exactly is going to be on that exam, and all the requirements. Couple things I want to touch on while we're here. Number one, we want to make sure that we've got a computer running SolidWorks 2011 or higher. Make sure you have that. Make sure you have an internet connection and then a double monitor. A double monitor is really key because one, I can have you testing client up on one screen and I can have SolidWorks up on the other.

Most of the questions are going to have us looking at the drawing, and then creating apart from that. So, if you don't have a double monitor, you're going to be switching between windows quite often, so really, if you have the option of using a double monitor, definitely take it. Now, as I scroll though this document here. You can see, it breaks down each one of the sections of the exam and what's going to be on it. It's going to be asking us miscellaneous questions about drafting, creating the different parts, making assemblies, and then more advanced assemblies. As I go through the document a little further it's going to give me examples of some of these. So here is a sample test. It's going to ask us questions like this.

In fact, on the sample exam, it looks exactly like this. It's going to give you some type of a view and say, "What type of view am I looking at?" So make sure again you know crop sections, align sections, breakout sections, those are the questions they're going to be asking us for sure, multiple choice. This is an example, a very good example, of something you're going to see on the exam. They're going to give you a pretty detailed drawing like this with a bunch of dimensions and you have to go create that part. Notice the A, B, and C here. So those are the values we're wanting to create some type of an equation for, and then plug those values into the equation.

So when I change this part, cause almost every part inside of the exam, we're going to start with one part and then we're going to modify it for the next question. So, make sure we're using equations for the A, B, and C and we're going to go over that throughout the course. Again, make sure you're familiar with all the basic sketching tools here. So lines, circles, tangency arcs, and so on. Fillets, make sure you know those as well. Ok, going a little further, here's a couple other questions you're going to put in here. These are the way they're going ask us questions. They're going to give us an A, B, and C value. They're going to tell us what material the part is made out of.

They're going to tell us the density, so we can verify what the density is, and they're going to tell us the decimal places. Make sure you put the right decimal places in because if you are only one, tiny decimal place off you're going to get the wrong answers. So double check that, for sure. It's going to ask you to build a part and it's going to ask you to weigh it. What's the mass of this thing in grams? So we want to make sure we're, free response, putting that value in correctly. So make sure you're putting that value in correctly. Here is another example of modification of the last part, so I'm going to start with one part and then I'm going to modify it showing this here.

And notice the A, B, and C values did change. So if we had those set up as an equation, it makes it very easy to switch from one to the other. Again, it's going to ask us what the mass of the part is in grams, and then finally, again, one more modification. So notice you have features like this up here that we're going to be doing a cut into the side of the part, it's almost like a shell command, even though it's not. Go on up here. It's going to be a fairly complicated part so we want to make sure we know how to start a sketch not from an individual plane, but an offset from that plane. How to do different individual cuts on the sides. Offset features, you can see this is a perfect offset feature all around the outside here.

Notice it says one millimeter typical. And then up to this surface here so I don't, it doesn't actually give us a dimension, it's just saying it's a typical. So, I want to say I want it cut up to the surface or offset from the surface by one millimeter. Real important there. And, again, it's going to ask us how much does the part weigh at the end. Building assemblies, here's an example. It's going to give us these parts, though, so we're going to download these parts, we're going to unzip them, and then create these assemblies. Number one, we want to make sure on our computer we have a zip type program. Most versions of windows have an uncompression type program, like WinZip or something like that, free installed, so make sure if you get a zip file you can unzip it into a folder, to get these parts out.

So that's important as well. Same thing with the angles, take a look at these angles Not only are we going to do coincident mates, but we're also going to do cylindrical mates, as well as angle mates. So make sure that you know how to do all those individual mates on parts like this. And you can download these parts and take a look at them. Finally, it's going to ask you a couple other questions. We're going to change these angles again, notice the A, B, and C. And then put in the free response values, or the A, B, and C values over here, of where the center of mass is, so, again, we're going to be needing to make sure we have the right material, the right amount of decimal places, and then go and get those values from mass properties and the center of mass, and plug those in, either free response or multiple choice.

At the end of this document, they're going to go ahead and give us a few other tips and tricks, as far as, reviewing drawings as well as getting some other information so you're familiar with each one of those types of drawing views. And the last part of this is they're going to give us some sample exams and some things that you can review. So make sure you click on these links and take a look at those. That's it for the sample exam, let's go ahead and jump in and start learning these tools and techniques.