State Electrical Exams

[superdave02]

I would some to get some feedback on State Electrical Exams. I'll go first. Toughest - Florida, Easiest - Arkansas, Worst - Wisconsin

 

[paullmullen]

Just passed the Wisconsin Master exam. As a first-timer, I didn't know what to expect. Here's what I learned:

1. The rumor is that the Journeyman exam is mostly code lookup and the Master is mostly calculations. That matched my experience on the Master exam. I followed the general guidance to go through the exam and answer everything you can from memory and then go back to do the harder questions. I went through the entire exam on the first pass and could not answer any of them because they almost all required at least some calculation.
   
   
2. The exam is four hours, 50 questions, open book. I had answers to all of the questions in about 3 hours and 20 minutes and had 40 minutes remaining to double check. See point 4 below for more.
   
   
3. Bring any resource you want. Everything has to be bound. Putting something in a 3-ring binder counts as being bound. No scratch paper is permitted. A simple calculator is permitted. No mobile phones, smart watches, etc are permitted.
   
   
4. The exam was harder than any of the practice tests I took, but there were only two questions for which I ran into total dead ends. There were no questions that asked for an entire load calc from end-to-end (single family standard, for instance); instead the questions asked for portions of a load calc.
   
   
5. The test begins with guidance to always use standard calcs unless specifically told to use the optional calcs.

I'm going to post separately about how I prepared in case it helps others.