You hit a long calculation question early in the exam and you are not sure how to start it. What is usually the best move?

C. Mark your best guess, flag it, move on, and come back when the quick questions are done

A. Stay on it until it is solved, however long it takes

In a multiple-choice calculation, your answer is not among the choices. What should you check first?

B. Units and factors: √3 used or missed, line vs phase value, kW vs kVA, a percentage used as a whole number

A. Pick the closest choice immediately

C. Assume the question is wrong

D. Recalculate with a different formula

What is the most useful thing to do with a practice question you got wrong?

B. Read the explanation, work out WHY you went wrong (concept, arithmetic, or reading), and come back to that topic later

A. Nothing — move on to the next one

C. Memorise the letter of the right answer

Which habit best protects you from arithmetic mistakes in calculation questions?

B. Writing each step with its units, and doing a quick estimate first to know roughly what the answer should be

A. Doing it in your head to save time

C. Always rounding to the nearest ten early

D. Using the first formula you remember

Quatrième année Lesson 12 of 12 · about 12 min

Exam prep strategy

What you’ll learn

How to build a study plan backwards from exam day, with a review week you actually keep.
How to use practice questions so they teach you, not just score you.
Timing on the day: your minutes per question, the halfway check, flag and return.
A calculation habit that catches the classic slips before you pick an answer.

Before this: Finding it in the code book

The certification exam — the Red Seal or a provincial certificate of qualification in Canada, a journeyman licence exam in the US — tests what you know, how fast you can find what you do not, and whether your arithmetic holds up under a clock. All three can be practised. This lesson is how to spend the weeks before, and the hours on the day.

Back the plan off from exam day

Start from the exam date, block off the last week for review and full-length practice, and share the weak topics across the weeks that are left.

Find out the format. Number of questions, time allowed, open or closed book, what may be marked in the book, whether wrong answers are penalised. Your apprenticeship authority or licensing board publishes it.
List the topics and rate yourself. Use the exam’s own breakdown if it publishes one. Mark each topic strong, shaky or weak.
Take a baseline practice test. Your self-rating and your score will not agree; the score wins.
Divide the weak topics across the weeks, minus a review week. Hardest and highest-weight first.
Keep a mistake log. Every wrong practice answer, with the reason: concept, arithmetic, reading, or lookup.
Last week: review and full-length timed practice. No new topics.

Worked: a plan and a clock

Ten weeks to the exam, 45 weak topics. Keep the last week for review: 45 ÷ 9 = 5 topics a week.
At about 90 minutes a topic that is 7.5 hours a week — say an hour on weeknights and a longer session on the weekend.
On the day, say 130 questions in 4 hours: 240 ÷ 130 = 1.85 minutes a question. At the two-hour mark you should be past question 65.
If you are only on question 50 at two hours, you are 15 questions behind: flag harder ones faster.

Using practice questions properly

Practice questions are for finding what you do not know, not for proving what you do. Do them in short, topic-focused sets early, then mixed sets later — the real exam mixes everything. After each set, read every explanation, including for the ones you got right by luck. The practice exam here filters by topic and year and keeps your progress, so you can drill a weak topic and then widen out.

The calculation habit

Estimate first. A 480 V, 50 kVA load is somewhere near 60 A. If you get 600 or 6, stop.
Write each step with units. V, A, kW, kVA, %, and whether a voltage is line or phase.
Check the usual suspects when your answer is not a choice: √3 missing or doubled, line vs phase, kW vs kVA, a percentage used as a whole number, a factor applied twice.
Round at the end, not in the middle.

On the day

First pass: answer everything you can in under your average time. Flag the rest with a best guess.
Second pass: the flagged questions, with the time you banked.
Read the last line first on long questions — it tells you what is actually being asked.
Watch the words “not”, “except”, “minimum”, “maximum”. They flip the answer.
Do not change answers on a hunch. Change one only when you find a definite reason.

Sur le chantier

Tips

Study the things you meet at work while you are meeting them — the panel you are wiring is a better flashcard than a flashcard.
Explain a topic out loud to another apprentice. If you cannot, you do not have it yet.
Do a timed set with the same calculator and book you will use on the day.
Sleep beats one more late night of questions the night before.

Common mistakes

Studying the topics you already like, because it feels productive.
Doing practice questions without reading the explanations.
No clock in practice, then running out of time on the day.
Spending ten minutes on one question early and rushing the last twenty.
Planning study right up to the exam with no review week.

Check yourself

0 right of 0 answered 6 questions · pick one answer each

1.An exam gives you 240 minutes for 120 questions. What is your average time per question?
2.You hit a long calculation question early in the exam and you are not sure how to start it. What is usually the best move?
3.In a multiple-choice calculation, your answer is not among the choices. What should you check first?
4.Your exam is 8 weeks away and you have 64 practice topics left that you are weak on. Roughly how many should you plan to clear each week, leaving the last week for review?
5.What is the most useful thing to do with a practice question you got wrong?
6.Which habit best protects you from arithmetic mistakes in calculation questions?

Answers

B. 2 minutes — 240 ÷ 120 = 2 minutes. Knowing this number before you start lets you check at the halfway mark whether you are ahead or behind.
C. Mark your best guess, flag it, move on, and come back when the quick questions are done — Every question is usually worth the same. Ten minutes on one hard question can cost you five easy ones. Answer something (if there is no penalty for guessing), flag it and return with the time you banked.
B. Units and factors: √3 used or missed, line vs phase value, kW vs kVA, a percentage used as a whole number — Wrong choices are often built from the classic slips — the missing √3, a phase value where a line value was wanted, 80% applied twice. If your number matches none, one of those is the likeliest cause.
B. About 9 to 10 — Back the plan off from exam day: 8 weeks minus 1 review week = 7 working weeks. 64 ÷ 7 ≈ 9.1, so plan 9 to 10 a week. Planning to the last day leaves no room for the topics that take longer than expected.
B. Read the explanation, work out WHY you went wrong (concept, arithmetic, or reading), and come back to that topic later — A wrong answer is information: it points at a concept you do not have, an arithmetic habit that slips, or a question you misread. Fix the cause and revisit the topic; memorising the answer letter teaches nothing.
B. Writing each step with its units, and doing a quick estimate first to know roughly what the answer should be — An estimate tells you when an answer is ten times too big. Written steps with units let you find the slip in seconds. Rounding early compounds errors — round at the end.

Questions fréquentes

How long should I study for the certification exam?

Long enough to clear your weak topics with a week to spare. Work it out rather than guessing: list the topics, mark the weak ones, and divide by the weeks you have minus a review week. For most apprentices that means a steady few hours a week for two or three months, not a cram the week before.

Is the exam open-book?

It depends on where you write. Many Canadian certificate-of-qualification exams and US journeyman exams allow the code book for code questions, and some provide one; the interprovincial Red Seal exam has its own rules. Check with your apprenticeship authority or licensing board well ahead — the answer changes how you should study.

Should I guess if I do not know?

If the exam has no penalty for wrong answers — most trade exams do not, but check — a blank is always zero and a guess sometimes scores. Eliminate the choices you know are wrong first; each one you remove improves your odds.

Voir aussi

Journeyman practice exam — filter by topic and year
Finding it in the code book
Journeyman formula card — the formulas on one page
Rusty on three-phase math?
Practice drills — arithmetic speed

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