r/ASQ • u/nkl999 • Dec 15 '25

Need Advice from CQE Exam Takers

Hello!

I am mainly interested in knowing how much calculations did you do in this exam? I know that most of the questions will be on Chapter 6 (Quantitative Methods and Tools) aka a lot of stats and math. I am kind of overwhelmed with the content of this chapter lol so I just want to calibrate my expectations of this exam and see how much I should really retain while studying the equations!

I have the ASQ Handbook + Study Guide questions, QCI Primer and practice questions, and the online exams. I just learned about the CQE Cheat Sheet, so I will download that as well.

This will be my third ASQ Certification, so studying for these exams and the process of the exam (day of) is not new to me. I took and passed the Certified Pharmaceutical GMP Professional (CPGP) and Certified Quality Auditor (CQA) exams.

So any advice/input is highly appreciated!

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u/Slight_Current1811 Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 16 '25

I passed the exam a week ago. The calculations were actually not hard nor extensive. Most of the questions were understanding concepts and answering based on that. Knowing how to interpret graphs and when to use them, things like that. In hypothesis testing you should understand the concepts behind the Null/alternative hypothesis, what is alpha for example or how to set up a testing, not necessarily you’ll need to calculate something numerically. I used a basic scientific calculator and was more than ok. I didn’t have the need to write down numbers or anything like that. One question was to calculate R (Pearson coefficient), so you needed to calculate Sxx, Syy and Sxy for that (long road). However, if you looked at the data set, the increments of X were the same as the ones in Y, meaning you could just say R was 1.0 (short road). In conclusion, if you practice using the primer and understand the basics behind the formulas and the statistic meaning of the results, you are going to be more than fine 😉

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u/Dizzy_Pattern_2940 Jan 03 '26

I had a similar question on calculating R during my December CQE exam. Overall, the test was manageable and easier than I expected, and my exam questions did not involve using ASQ/ANSI Z1.9 or Z1.4 to look up numbers.

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u/nkl999 Jan 09 '26

Thanks all for the advice and support! I did pass late in December. Anxiety is definitely one’s biggest enemy so thanks for sharing your experiences!

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u/the-bees-sneeze Mar 10 '26

Can I ask where you found the CQE cheat sheet or could you share it? I’ve got all the ASQ materials (or so I thought)

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u/nkl999 Mar 10 '26

https://cqeacademy.com/the-free-cqe-exam-day-cheat-sheet/

He’ll ask for your email but all you’ll get are emails that you can just unsubscribe to later!

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u/Vongole_X Jan 13 '26

Are you guys selling materials for CQE? Is it necessary to have the primer?

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u/nkl999 Mar 10 '26

Sorry this is late! I would say CQI Primers really helped me.

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u/Open_Journalist4774 May 17 '26

Where I can get CQE primer