At least for me and the QEP, it is! I learned yesterday that I passed the QEP and can sign up for the FSOA next week. I've taken the FSWE the past three years now and got around a 165-175 and 6 or 8 on the essay each time. No significant life experience change since the last two years either except for another year of work under my belt.
But this time, I really went to town on my personal narratives to make sure they hit exactly what was asked. I also had tremendous help from an old friend who's familiar with HR questions. Let me just add to the general consensus that impressive PNQ stories are NOT a guarantee to pass the QEP. If there's a spectrum with one end representing an incredibly impressive story that kind of addresses the PNQ asked, and the other end representing a mundane story that adequately reflects the characteristics sought, I would choose the answer closer to the latter end. There's a girl who published her successful PNQs on the Yahoo FSWE group, and her intellectual skills PNQ answer discusses how she went about following a set of instructions to fix her bed. You can't really get more mundane than that, but she did showcase intellectual skills in her response and she passed. Of course there are other factors like her background, test score, other PNQ responses, and the fact that State was hiring more during her candidacy, but at least you can say the mundane response wasn't fatal to her application.
The Oral Assessment for my group will be offered between mid-November to early March, and I hope to have some new posts between now and then that highlight some study materials that I've found to be helpful in prepping for the interview. I hope it'll be helpful to someone!
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