Passing the Journeyman Exam

What is on it

Roughly, general knowledge and definitions, wiring methods and materials, equipment for general use, special occupancies and equipment, calculations and theory, and safety. The exact weighting varies by state and by year and is published.

Calculations are the heaviest part for most people. Service and feeder sizing, box fill, conduit fill, voltage drop, motor circuits and ampacity correction come up over and over.

How to study the code book

You are usually allowed the code book in the exam, which sounds generous and is really a time test. The book is enormous. Knowing that a question is about box fill is worthless if it takes four minutes to find the article.

Tab the book yourself rather than buying pre printed tabs, because the act of placing them is half the learning. Learn the structure first. The chapters run in order from general rules through wiring and protection, through equipment, through special conditions, with the tables at the back.

A study plan that works

Three months at an hour a night beats two weeks of panic. Split it into calculation practice, code navigation drills and full timed exams.

For navigation drills, have someone read you a question and race the clock to find the article. Thirty seconds is the target. Do fifty a night and the book stops being a maze.

On the day

Answer every question you know cold first and mark the rest. Time spent stuck on question nine is time stolen from questions you could have answered.

Read the question twice. A lot of them turn on one word, like whether a conductor is copper or aluminum, or whether a location is damp or wet.