What referrences are best/ most useful?

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rook81108

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I am sure some of you are better educated or just better connected to continuing education and referrence materials than I am so what do you use or have used to sucessfully re-educate yourself with code updates? I was wanting to get some of Stalcup's Guides but I have never opened one up to see if it is any good to me.

I will be taking my master electrical license this year and the test has changed from the one I studied for.
 
Although it has been a long time since I was actively taking exams, the Tom Henry materials were excellent for that but not really that good for understanding of the code. All the excercises and sample questions are geared for taking the Block/Experior/whatever it is now test. Period. They are not tools for really understanding the code. They are excellent materials for learning how to pass the test. This is a dated opinion though and his stuff may have changed since the mid-late '90's.

I don't have any Mike Holt materials but I have seen numerous excerpts in various publications and they are much better than Henry's as far as explanatory material and real-world examples go. I can't comment much more than that on Mike's stuff. He may have materials geared toward passing the test too.

I have some of the Stallcup books and don't find them overly helpful.

The NEC handbook is a good resource in itself but not too helpful for helping you pass the test.
 
bbaumer said:
They are not tools for really understanding the code. They are excellent materials for learning how to pass the test.
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While this is important, I need both. The Stalcups books vs the "pass the test" guy's products might be a better match up for me to request your opinion on.

Anyone hate or love or appreciate the value (cost) and information (understandable) these guys offer?

I have a family and a job that thinks I am family (endless work). I got to make every hour spent on learning count while holding back the money for silly things like bills and food. My wife isn't working right now so what I make feeds basically 4 adults. My kids are in junior high and the costs for everything go up daily.
 
mike holts understanding the nec is money well spent. also get the exam prep book. doesnt cover business but you can get a state business book from your local testing agency. in MA PSI sells material on there website
 
I have had my masters for 34 years and I used Tom H. books, that guy has been around a long time, or at least his books.
 
The input is appreciated.

I hope others are able to benifit from this discussion.

I thought someone might have seen some obscure resource I hadn't come accross. This forum is nationwide and further isn't it?

Ugly's was gold for field referrence and I got a "Mad Knoledge" preparation book for '05 code that was cheap and user friendly even if the typos were not edited out.

As a consumer, all of your opinions on the newest stuff for '08 code is my request from here. Got opinions....and details?
 
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