jeff43222
Senior Member
- Location
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
I just took the Minnesota Master Electrician Exam last week, and I found out yesterday that I failed it by one point. The exam was a lot different than I expected, which is why things didn't go so well.
My preparation involved quite a bit of time over several months with the Mike Holt Master Electrician's Exam Prep book, which helped somewhat. I also used another book, Master Electrician's Review by Richard Loyd, which didn't help much. The exam consisted of a 25-question section, open book, and a 50-question section that was closed book.
The open-book questions were all code-related. Some of them were along the lines of "which of the following is permissible under such-and-such circumstances", and others were things like "what is the minimum size EMT required if you are going to have this many #12 THHN plus that many #14 THHN, etc." All questions required a code reference to get credit for a correct answer, so you couldn't guess or just know the correct answer and still get credit. It took a while to find all the code references, but I got all the code questions right.
After completing the open-book section, you have to turn in the questions, your answer sheet, AND the code book. Then they give you the remaining 50 questions, which you have to answer with no reference material. This is where things went awry for me. I was shocked to find quite a few straight code questions here, the kind of simple stuff that you would expect to be able to look up. For example, there was a question about maximum distance between supports of a certain wiring method. There were other questions about how many #12 wires fit in a certain size box and how deep the trench had to be for a certain kind of outdoor circuit. I had no idea I was supposed to memorize information out of tables! I later found out that my guesses on questions like this were very close to correct, which of course means that I got the questions wrong.
The other area where the exam was different than what I expected from the exam-prep books I used was that there was a fair amount of theory involving motors and transformers. One question asked how you would go about the increasing the power factor on a circuit with inductive motors. Others gave a description of a transformer or motor and then asked you to choose which of the following schematic diagrams matches the description. And another asked about determining the speed of a squirrel-cage motor. This stuff isn't covered very well in the exam-prep books.
Overall, I was surprised how the exam didn't have much math on it, and what calculation questions they had were not complicated at all, whereas the exam-prep books focused a lot on doing a lot of calculations.
Having taken the exam, I can say objectively that it's not a really hard exam, but you have to make sure you study the right material and have memorized certain tables and other information in the NEC if you want to pass it. Unfortunately, there's a law in Minnesota that you have to wait six months before you can take the exam again, even though it's offered every week.
-Jeff
My preparation involved quite a bit of time over several months with the Mike Holt Master Electrician's Exam Prep book, which helped somewhat. I also used another book, Master Electrician's Review by Richard Loyd, which didn't help much. The exam consisted of a 25-question section, open book, and a 50-question section that was closed book.
The open-book questions were all code-related. Some of them were along the lines of "which of the following is permissible under such-and-such circumstances", and others were things like "what is the minimum size EMT required if you are going to have this many #12 THHN plus that many #14 THHN, etc." All questions required a code reference to get credit for a correct answer, so you couldn't guess or just know the correct answer and still get credit. It took a while to find all the code references, but I got all the code questions right.
After completing the open-book section, you have to turn in the questions, your answer sheet, AND the code book. Then they give you the remaining 50 questions, which you have to answer with no reference material. This is where things went awry for me. I was shocked to find quite a few straight code questions here, the kind of simple stuff that you would expect to be able to look up. For example, there was a question about maximum distance between supports of a certain wiring method. There were other questions about how many #12 wires fit in a certain size box and how deep the trench had to be for a certain kind of outdoor circuit. I had no idea I was supposed to memorize information out of tables! I later found out that my guesses on questions like this were very close to correct, which of course means that I got the questions wrong.
The other area where the exam was different than what I expected from the exam-prep books I used was that there was a fair amount of theory involving motors and transformers. One question asked how you would go about the increasing the power factor on a circuit with inductive motors. Others gave a description of a transformer or motor and then asked you to choose which of the following schematic diagrams matches the description. And another asked about determining the speed of a squirrel-cage motor. This stuff isn't covered very well in the exam-prep books.
Overall, I was surprised how the exam didn't have much math on it, and what calculation questions they had were not complicated at all, whereas the exam-prep books focused a lot on doing a lot of calculations.
Having taken the exam, I can say objectively that it's not a really hard exam, but you have to make sure you study the right material and have memorized certain tables and other information in the NEC if you want to pass it. Unfortunately, there's a law in Minnesota that you have to wait six months before you can take the exam again, even though it's offered every week.
-Jeff