First-year electrical apprentice program
Fourteen lessons and a review quiz covering what a first-year electrical apprentice is expected to know — in Canada or the US — explained the way a journeyman would explain it on the job. Start at the top and work down, or jump to whatever your school block is on this week. Each lesson takes ten to twenty minutes, has at least one worked example with real numbers, tips from the job, the mistakes people actually make, and a short quiz.
The order matters a little: safety and tools first, because they come first on site; then the theory in a line — what electricity is, Ohm’s law, series, parallel, combination; then the practical lessons that lean on it. The last lesson, using your meter, ties the theory back to what you will actually measure.
Finish a lesson’s quiz at 80% or better and it is ticked below. Without an account nothing is sent anywhere — the progress lives in this browser; signed in, it syncs between your devices. Fail one? Read the explanations, then start it over; your best score is the one that counts.
None of this replaces your code book. The lessons teach the ideas and the arithmetic; wherever a rule or a table value is needed, they tell you to look it up in the CEC (CSA C22.1) or the NEC, whichever you work under — because that is what you will be doing for the rest of your career.
The lessons, in order
0 of 15 passed
- Safety, PPE and arc-flash awareness How electricity hurts people, what shock and arc flash are, the PPE that goes with the job, and why you test before you touch. Lesson + quiz · 15 min
- Hand tools and testers The kit a first-year carries, what each tool is for, and the difference between a non-contact tester, a two-pole tester and a meter. Lesson + quiz · 12 min
- What electricity is Voltage, current, resistance and power in plain words — the water-hose picture, where it helps and where it lies. Lesson + quiz · 15 min
- Ohm’s law and power V = I × R and P = V × I, the wheel that joins them, and five worked examples with real loads. Lesson + quiz · 18 min
- Series circuits One path: the current is the same everywhere, the voltages add up, and one open stops the lot. Lesson + quiz · 15 min
- Parallel circuits Many paths: the voltage is the same across every branch, the currents add, and the total resistance drops below the smallest branch. Lesson + quiz · 15 min
- Combination circuits Series and parallel in one circuit — how to reduce it step by step and work back out to every current and voltage. Lesson + quiz · 18 min
- Conductors and insulation Why copper and aluminium, what makes a conductor’s resistance, what insulation does, and where the ampacity tables come in. Lesson + quiz · 14 min
- Reading prints and symbols Floor plans, legends, symbols, home runs and schedules — how to find your work on an electrical drawing. Lesson + quiz · 15 min
- Boxes, devices and terminations Stripping, the screw terminal loop, back-wire clamps, wire connectors, torque and the habits that stop a joint from burning up. Lesson + quiz · 15 min
- Grounding and bonding Two different jobs that people mix up: connecting to earth, and tying metal together so a fault trips the breaker. Lesson + quiz · 16 min
- Basic residential circuits Receptacle and lighting circuits, switch legs, and what GFCI and AFCI protection actually watch for. Lesson + quiz · 18 min
- Trade math refresher Fractions, decimals, percent, metric and imperial, square roots and powers of ten — the arithmetic every other lesson leans on. Lesson + quiz · 15 min
- Using your meter Continuity, voltage and current: where the leads go, what the reading means, and the three-point test before you trust a dead reading. Lesson + quiz · 16 min
- First-year review quiz Fifteen questions across the whole first year. Take it cold, then go back to whatever it catches. Review quiz · 12 min
Tools for the first year
Calculators that go with these lessons. Each one shows its working underneath, and every result can be emailed, copied or printed so it ends up in your notes.
- Ohm’s law & power calculator Type any two of volts, amps, ohms and watts; get the other two and the formula that did it.
- Resistor colour code Pick four or five bands and read the value, the tolerance and the range it may measure.
- Series & parallel resistance Up to eight resistors: the series total, the parallel total, and the current at a supply voltage.
- Efficiency & percent Input and output power in watts, kilowatts or horsepower: efficiency, losses, or the input a load needs.
- Wire length & area converter Feet and metres, and conductor area between AWG, kcmil, circular mils and mm².
- Battery runtime & bank size Volts, amp-hours, depth of discharge and inverter efficiency: hours on a load, or the Ah a runtime needs.
Preguntas frecuentes
What does a first-year electrical apprentice learn?
Across Canada and the US the first year covers much the same ground, whatever the program calls it: working safely, the tools, the basic theory of voltage, current, resistance and power, Ohm’s law, series and parallel circuits, reading drawings, making good terminations, grounding and bonding, residential circuits, and using a meter. Most of your time is on the tools, with the theory in school blocks or night classes. Your own program’s outline is the final word.
Is this a replacement for trade school?
No. It is a study companion: the same topics explained plainly, with worked examples and quizzes, so the school material and what you see on site make sense. Your apprenticeship’s exams follow your province’s or state’s program and the code edition it uses — study from those, and use this to understand them.
How do the ticks and progress work?
Each lesson ends with a quiz. Get 80% or better and the lesson is ticked off here. Your answers are kept only in this browser (under a key starting spk:), so if you clear your browser data the ticks go with it; if you have a sparkytools account, they sync between your devices.
Does this cover the Canadian Electrical Code or the NEC?
Both, in the sense that the physics and the good practice are the same either side of the border, and where the two books use different words (bonding conductor versus equipment grounding conductor, for example) the lessons give both. What the lessons never do is reproduce code tables or rules: wherever a code value is needed, you look it up in your own current book.
Ver también
- Second-year program — AC, transformers, three-phase and motors.
- Start here — the short path through the site’s diagrams and drills.
- Practice drills — timed practice on the arithmetic.
- Glossary — every term in these lessons, in plain words.
- Formula sheets — printable, for the back of your code book.
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