mike holt test prep

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journeyman0217

Senior Member
Location
philadelphia,pa
just ordered the mike holt master electrician exam prep package! I'm excited! scheduled to take the philadelphia license exam, anyone have any tips or advice on taking master exams. anyone that has taken philly's test??
 

mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
just ordered the mike holt master electrician exam prep package! I'm excited! scheduled to take the philadelphia license exam, anyone have any tips or advice on taking master exams. anyone that has taken philly's test??

I've taken many professional tests and they all are the same. You need to learn the language they speak and you need to know where to find content in the reference materials. You need to do it with confidence and in a timely fashion. Don't let that scare you. There's an easy way to do all that.

For every reference material (code book, etc.) read the scope, table of contents, skim through the index looking for unfamiliar terms, etc. Learn the layout. You're not going to remember tables & calculations but you do need to know where to find each table and how to do each calculation.

Practice questions - lots of them. The first time you do a set of practice questions you will bomb and this is fine; it's to be expected. Not that you're not a smart person; it's that you're a first timer at it. At least that's how it was for me. Use the answer key to figure out WHY you got the questions wrong. Then do some more practice questions. You're going to do much better the second time. Some time later after you have had plenty of distraction from what those first questions were even about, go back and redo those questions. Practice questions generally do a very good job of simulating the test questions, in fact, some of them may even be the exact question(s) you will get on your test.

Between now and test day all of your time should be spent learning that reference material and practicing test questions.
Even if you flunk it, that's not a problem. You can take it again of course. I only say this to calm some of the anxiety. It's only a test.

When you take the test, read the question. If you don't understand it, read it again. If you still don't understand it, skip it and make a note where it is. This way you don't burn up your time on one question when you could have had ten other questions done. They all carry the same weight no matter how hard they are. One thing to be careful of is if you skip a question, be careful not to put the answer for the subsequent question in the answer location for the skipped question. I did that once and it was a little stressful. I had to run back and re-enter answers and that took up some time.

Good luck!
 

Ponchik

Senior Member
Location
CA
Occupation
Electronologist
Agree with mgookin said.

Also practice, practice, practice, practice.. you see where I am going with this?
 

Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
I did the MH prep study & I did all the practice exams.
I took it literally as suggested in the study. I set some time aside with no one home.
I set up a work station, turned off all phones, tv, etc. ...no distractions.
I then did exactly as the study said, I set an alarm clock for the time allowed on each section and took the test. I was as (almost) nervous as if it was the actual test.

I have to say that ,other than the obvious studying, that this single thing of setting the alarm helped me more than anything when it came to taking the actual test. I kind of new what to expect for the real test.

As was mentioned, never labor on one question too long, mark it and return to it after you have gone through the rest of the questions. The software that the testing center used had a "bookmark" folder where you could save unanswered questions and quickly find and return to them.
 

Ingenieur

Senior Member
Location
Earth
Have a strategy for the actual taking of the test
mine

first pass-all question you KNOW and can be answered quickly, ie, little math or research
go thru entire test

next pass the more complicated questions

next the ones you must make an educated guess

last, make sure all are completed and marked correctly

best to get the ones you know rather than spend time on ones you may or don't know and leave the sure thing on the table
better to do 3 fast ones you know than spend that time on one complex one


others have hit the key points
Start 3 months in advance (at least)
make a study schedule and stick to it
2 week nights 2 hours each plus 1 sat or sun 3 hours
or whatever you think you need

do not memorize
comprehend and derive
 

journeyman0217

Senior Member
Location
philadelphia,pa
thanks a lot guys! yeah i just got the Mike Holt prep guide and just by skimming through it, it seems like it will be VERY helpful. He definitely knows how to simplify things! i will keep you guys posted and thanks again for the helpful words of wisdom!
 
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