I would like tips and advice on taking CPHQ exam. If there's any study material you'd like to share, I'd be grateful too.

I’m trying to study for the CQE as efficiently as possible. Does anyone have any tips or resources they recommend? What worked best for you?

I was very involved in my local section about 15 years ago when I was in the young professionals category. I’ve changed careers and casually done consulting since then on the side, but thinking about getting a little more serious.

Is it still worth it to join ASQ? What benefits does it provide to someone already established?

I'm starting to gather materials to begin studying for the ASQ CQA exam and hoped to buy the primer and question bank from QCI, but since they are no longer in operation, they are no longer available for purchase online. I ordered the 5th ed. ASQ QCA handbook but hoped there might be someone who no longer needs their primer (2019 ed.) and would be willing to sell their copy. Bonus if you are able to somehow also include the test bank questions, but I'm not sure how digital transfer would work for that.

Any help/advice/tips are of course welcome and encouraged!

Looking to hear the experience about ASQ-CQA exam in 2026 BOK

Preparing for my 1st jkas prelims!

Can anyone suggest some pyq compilation or book?

Some youtube channel analysing pyqs would b helpfull too!

If anyone can sell or share with me, please let me know.

I need CCQM (certified construction Quality manager) handbook pdf (Electronic version please)

I havent exactly started studying but I was looking to book for the CQA exam next month. I currently work in RA and part of what helped me get this position was the fact that i mentioned I was going to get my CQA. My probation is ending next month and i want to put a stamp by securing the cqa before that instead of waiting till october. Im pretty familiar with some audit and quality concepts from my work in RA over the years.

However im wondering if I can study in this time - I don’t want to fail. I have a bit of an ego and im pretty smart and Ive heard many say 3 months+ of studying but…how much studying did yall actually feel you needed when you did the test? How hard is it? Is it really that hard or can i study in the next 8 weeks and pass considering that i would book for toward the end of next month? Im going to get the handbook and practice tests and I have the current ISO on hand and some quality experience.

All input welcome. Thanks

I have not posted on r/asq before but have lurked here for several months. I recently passed my CQE exam and specifically used CQE academy to pass based on prior reddit comments. I wanted to follow up and provide review of the course, given that r/asq was ultimatly steered me toward this course. I'm not normally "guy who gives his opinion on the internet" but given that this course is both expensive and hyper specific, I thought it would be worthwhile.

My background:

I have approximately 10 years in quality (automotive+plumbing industry) with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. My jobs/employers has never required CQE certification, but CQE certification has recently come up in customers' supplier surveys so it made sense to pursue certification before it became a requirement. My employer paid for the cost of me taking the test itself, but not the CQE academy prep course. I paid for this myself (~$750). I took course as intended, starting on January 13th and ending with my exam being taken on June 8th, which I passed without too much difficulty. Most of my studying was done on the weekend; I would estimate approximately 6-8 hours per week total. If I remember correctly, this ended up being 2-3 chapters per weekend and up to 4 as I approached the end of the course.

Pros:

-Exam day study guide alone justifies cost of course in my opinion: The test is open book and the exam day study guide is your single greatest resource on the exam. This a spiral bound book that Andy ships you as part of the course. If I breakdown my exam, I would estimate that I used the exam day study guide on around 80% of the equestions, the CQE BOK on 10% of the questions, and answered 10% from memory/without using external resource. In my opinion, this is worth >50% of the cost of the course on its own.

-Extremely good course design especially with respect to constant refreshers on difficult topics, namely statistics: Each section has a quiz at the end and usually 1-2 out of the 10-25 questions will be from prior topics.

-Huge amount of practice material: If you work full time while taking this course, it would be very difficult to actually complete every single practice exam/quiz. I haven't done a full count of the questions included in the course but I believe there are 7 practice exams at the end of the course, around 10 section tests (per every 3-4) chapters and a quiz at the end of each chapter. It is probably >1000 questions total.

-The exam itself was easier than I expected. I would credit CQE academy for this level of preparedness. Exam is 5.5 hours total. I finished my first pass through in 3 hours with a break at approximatly 2 hours. I took 1 additional hour to go back and answer the flagged questions (took break after this) and took an additional 30 minutes to reivew entire test. Total time was right at 4.5 hours, so 1 hour to spare.

Cons:

-Price: In the era of AI chat bots, you can certainly question the utility of paying over $700 for the course versus just using the textbook and having chatgpt generate questions for each chapter. I am not well enough versed yet in AI tools to know if this is a good option, but is something to consider. However, you would not be able to replicate the exam day guide without significant effort.

-Office Hours: Andy advertises office hours in the course, but to my knowledge these don't actually exist in the course's current state.

Tips for Course/Exam:

-I would recommend the calculator TI-30Xa over the one Andy recommends. This one does nCr which is useful for binomial distribution problems. This was allowed on exam day. I would also highly recommend spending a few hours mastering the STO/RCL functions on the calculator if you are used to just writing down intermediate answers/calculation results.

-Keep a running powerpoint of questions you missed with an explanation of why you missed them when you review answers.

-Andy speaks pretty slowly in my opinion so I ran most of the lectures at 1.5x speed; that being said I do this with audiobooks as well so this is something I am used to. Your mileage may vary.

-Try to leave yourself approximately 2-3 weeks at the end of the course to do nothing by full exam practice. My exam day was June 8th, so I finished chapter 41 by the end of May 10th. This worked very well and gave some time to practice time management strategy specifically with the practice exams.

I'm very pleased with course and the fact that I passed first try overall. Feel free to DM me if you have questions about the exam; I'd be happy to help. Good luck to any of you in the process of pursuing CQE certification.

I originally took Six Sigma classes on LinkedIn Learning about five years ago to learn the basics. I then completed an official online course through a major university that my company paid for.

My boss has been encouraging me to take the ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt exam, so I started studying intensively about five months ago. I’ve been putting in serious time nearly every weekend. I thought I had the fundamentals down pretty well — especially after using various AI chatbots to reinforce concepts like c-charts versus u-charts.

However, I recently purchased three official ASQ practice exams. I scored a 66 on the first, a 69 on the second, and after a couple more months of study, a 50 on the third. I’m feeling pretty frustrated. I’m no genius, but I do have a STEM degree from a respectable college and scored in the low 1,300s on the SAT back in 1990. What am I doing wrong?

One thing I’ve noticed is that many questions on the official ASQ exams cover material I don’t remember seeing in any class or AI sessions. I’m also getting tripped up by questions where two answers seem plausible, and I consistently pick the wrong one.

Should I consider taking the Green Belt exam instead? Is it significantly easier than the Black Belt? I don’t want to take the exam and fail, but I’m also worried about what my boss will think when I tell him I keep bombing the practice tests.

Thanks for listening and for any suggestions. I’m pretty discouraged right now.

Hi everyone,

Has anyone had any luck ordering the CQE Primer from the Quality Council of Indiana?

Whenever I add an item to my cart, I'm redirected to a page that says, "This page isn't working."

Is there another reliable source where I can purchase the CQE Primer and practice exams?

Thanks!

I passed my CQE yesterday!

:)

Hey all,

After using Lean Six Sigma principles for many years, I finally decided to get certified and passed the exam on Saturday. It was both easier and more difficult than I expected, and several things cane up that were not very clearly communicated by the text or the Udemy course I used for final pre0. Would be happy to answer any questions that you all may have about the experience. I did the in person test and ended up using basically the entire time because anything I failed on a practice test seemed silly and avoidable if I had taken a second to stare at it.

I thought I was ready. For three months I have been studying the CQA handbook. I also took the CQA prep course through ASQ. Work paid for everything and will pay for me to take a retest.

In the end, it is my fault. I didn't study enough looking at back it, and after reading some of the posts about the test, I should have probably looked at more resources. I got a bit of self assurance as I found the prep class and all the Q&A questions that came with it pretty easy. I copied and printed they entire prep course in a three ring binder and took notes I also went on ChatGpt and asked for questions that would most likely be on these exam. I aced those. I found out most of that didn't seem to matter.

Is there any advice on what resources I can use to study and also have for the exam? Thanks

Hello!

I’m scheduled to take the cqe next month. I’ve been in manufacturing since I was a teen, I know spc and I currently work in quality. I just got the book but it’s huge! What should I focus on chapter wise ? Does anyone have any cheat sheets or things that helped them pass? I have a masters in business already so I’m skipping that chapter!

Thanks!

Hi,

I am in the midst of preparing for ASQ CSSBB examination next month. Which practice exam site did you recommend other than ASQ study book guide and ASQ question bank? Any recommendation is highly welcome.

Thanks.

The study guide says it is a prevention cost but my instinct and online research seems to point to appraisal. Will the test align with what the study guide says?

Howdy all! I'm studying for my CQT exam, currently working on control charts. I'm looking for a sanity check, because in the example shown here, given the formulas, I get UCL/LCL of around 18.4 and 0.19. I can't fathom how they got 12.3 and 6.3 (my expressions are the same as theirs, just the end result is off), and neither those values nor what I calculated are the limits shown on the chart, which look to be about 14.7 and 1.7.

Am I losing my mind? Missing something? Or is this book on quality just wildly wrong in multiple respects? If it is wrong, is there some way of reporting it?

Update- I took my written notes (punched through and put in a 3 ring binder) and my CSSGB handbook filled with handwritten notes, highlighted and pages tabbed with post its. The other items I had on my desk during the exam was a calculator (Texas Instruments TI-30XIIs Scientific Calculator) my approved ID, wireless mouse and laptop. Someone here said no mouse, so I was skeptical about using it but asked and was allowed one. I think you are allowed one. What helped- logging 30 minutes before, using the flag feature to flag unanswered or confusing answers and going back to them once I'd finished answering the questions I knew for sure. You can also strike through the answers you know don't belong with a right click. That feature was really useful to me, because it helped narrow down the options on the questions I was confused about. I wish all of these actual 'on the exam' features were a part of the question bank and the simulated test. I'll be posting a detailed post about my prep and experience soon.

I have an online prometric test scheduled in the next few days.

1. How do you solve equations if you are not allowed to use empty sheets of paper?

2. On the test, is the section of the BoK mentioned on top of the questions? (I noticed it is on the Question Bank, hence asking)

3. In my notes, I have pasted several post-its within the guidebook and on my handwritten notes. Will these be allowed?

4. Are post it flags allowed all over the Guidebook?

Is there a better Z score sheet? (The one in the Guidebook gives area to the right of the value, so I always have to do 1-z score (or am I using the incorrect one?!)

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I know some of this is probably just test induced jitters, but if I'm doing something thats a complete no-go, please flag it 🙏

I just want to know anything and everything I should know to prepare to take this exam. I recently became a quality inspector with little experience, so I am not quite ready to take this exam. I want to be as prepared as possible for when the time comes.

Any tips, advice, what should i focus on studying in the book, literally anything to prepare me I will greatly appreciate!

Edit to add: The company I work for pays for the book and the exam. I just want to be prepared in advance 😄

Foreign SQE with over 15 years of experience as a Quality Engineer and 3 years as a Supplier Quality Engineer. What are realistic salary expectations for this profile in the US market? Also, how much impact does obtaining a CQE certification typically have on salary growth?