How To Study For and PASS Your Electrician Exam (FIRST TIME)

what's going on my friends this is dustin stelzer with electrician you and today i'm going to talk about everything that i did to prepare for my master electrician exam and how i passed it my first time [Music] yeah all right so what you see before me is all of the physical pieces of paper that i've studied and made and read and went through for an entire year before going in and taking my test that may seem super overwhelming to any of you right now that are like studying and trying to pass your test what i did is i studied for a year and i knew that when i took that test it was going to be the hardest test out of all of them but i wanted to make sure that i passed it the first go around i didn't wanna have to go take it four different times and see what was on it and then maybe try again and then fail and try again and fail and keep doing that i wanted to be sure that i knew what i was doing and so i got a hold of everything that i could have so to start out first thing that i did is i got a hold of this dewalt licensing test um this thing i mean this was 2011. so this was a while ago but there's a whole bunch of things dewalt comes every time there's a new code cycle they come out with a new one of these and it's got every kind of electrician practice exam in here plus there's a final exam that you can take there's some suggested times and things in here but it's pretty good for navigating the code book so this is the first thing that i would study because it got me in my code book and digging through pages and trying to find things um the master tests and here are a lot more obscure knowledge and there's a little bit more calculations so that helped me just start to go through the motions and practice next thing that i did was i got a hold of a bunch of mike holt's books because they're diagram heavy and i'm a visual learner so i got the electrical exam prep book i got grounding and bonding which i didn't really study too much grounding bonding for the exam it was more just for my own sake of wanting to know then i got understanding the national electrical code volumes one sorry too much in my hand volume one and volume two basically breaks down the entire code has a little bit of commentary in there it's like buying another code book put together but with some commentary and with some pictures there's a handbook too like i've got right here which is a hardcover nec that i guess oh everything's going to fall this should be in the pile too because i went through and highlighted and did a bunch of stuff and there's all these like extra notes and things that aren't in your code book so it's extra information that helps you study so throughout the year i was constantly using this and i was referencing back and forth when i would come across something i didn't really understand or that i didn't know why i didn't want to just try to find answers i wanted to really understand this stuff in depth and know what was what and why things were the way that they were so if i found something in here and i'm like that doesn't make any sense i would go over the handbook and be like oh there's a whole explanation like dope that's why they did that so those are some of the things that i use on a pretty constant basis it took me a while to get through both of these because i was going through like page by page literally reading every single code article highlighting in here writing notes i kept a binder right here full of notes so every time i would read something and i write itty bitty i would come up with practice questions i would replicate things that were in those books but i would change the numbers a little bit and i would follow the same math and i would just kind of regurgitate the problem solving and i would come up with my own question so i came up with hundreds hundreds of practice questions that i did myself and i you know i double checked everything and and double checked the math on them at least but it was just running through equations running through math running through um you know services and and things like that a lot of code articles i even had a stack a huge stack of note cards which they're not on here because i don't know what i did with them but i would put uh actual code articles on here you know like have like 430.250 and then i'd flip it over and try to see like oh that's an flc chart for you know like three-phase single-phase i don't even know i don't remember it anymore i know it's an flc chart i just don't remember if 250 or 247 or 248 was like the three-phase single-phase dc whatever it doesn't matter the point of code is not to memorize everything but i wanted to memorize at least the layout of the code so that when i'm trying to find information on this timed test like okay i know that that's not grounding and bonding so it's not going to be anywhere near 250. you know it's pool stuff so i know it's going to be in the 600s at least i was kind of making myself a map in my head so the note cards were helping me so that i could just flip through and remember the the where everything was another thing that i did and a lot of these questions in here stuff that i hand wrote up uh i got from these magazines too so these are all like years worth of ec m magazine so i even have the old school logo back when it was actually a cool logo i don't know mike holt your whole guy your team what you're doing with this like this new logo it just looks cheesy man sorry it's always good information not knocking the information but like this logo was awesome it was like a technician kind of font and it made me feel like i was learning something there's colors and it just seemed really technical and cool this seems like you're trying to convert to leds you know i don't know that's just my opinion go back to the old style or like maybe i'll design you a logo i don't know i do a lot of design stuff if you want a new logo oh anyways um great information though so in ec m i think this is the best magazine out in the industry there's electrical contractor in here too but that's really more like people magazine for electricians it's not a lot of useful stuff it's like articles of like what new led lights are going in the industrial environments today and you know like this is like pictures of what's going on in code right now and are you stumped by the code like do you want to know more so there's a lot of material stuff you know things in here that you don't really need to know i would say 75 percent of this magazine is not a technical learning type of environment at all but the parts that are are like really really good so they have in-depth write-ups a lot of them they have code articles in here that kind of break down a specific part of code and then a lot of times later on they have like what's wrong here it's usually near the back but it shows you a violation and then you can like write in and guess what you think the violation is and if you win you get you know i don't know like a subscription or something um but you know it's cool it's it's a good way to study so i would do this all the time and i would copy and print and i started printing like whole sections like i've got them in here uh just one after the other everything that i thought that i needed to know so like standard method an optional method for calculating services for residences you know and then i would write down all the different steps and i just i was creating learning manuals for myself based off of how i learn so it's really hard for me just to take in a whole bunch of information and then try to retain any of it i actually have to rewrite things and like you know i have to when you use when you write something down you actually use a different part of your brain than you do when you think this is why journaling is such an important thing if you're like in therapy or whatever they tell you to write things down because you're engaging your optical nerve your optic nerve and you're engaging the back part of your brain so you're actually writing something down which is uh is kind of locking information in a different part of your brain than the standard part of your brain like frontal lobe that would just kind of regurgitate information and hold on to some and lose some so anyways that was my methodology i wanted to be like reading things writing things and like committing all of it as much as i could to process not necessarily to memory i wanted to have kind of muscle memory of going through a lot of these things so when test time came i was fast at doing a lot of them i knew that all the information a lot of the weird obscure references and the weird parts of code that i'd never come across i knew there was going to be tons of that on the code book so like it's impossible to go in there really prepared you just have to know how to find things know where things are practice doing all the calculations practice trying to find information so much that when the test comes you're like i know where this is i know where i can find ah shoot i might not be able to find that one so i'm going to skip it for now because that's a time waster going on the next one boom and you just want to be able to fly through the test like that so those are some of the things that i went through um i also when i was um well i kind of have always done this but like when i was starting out and i was going to get my journeyman's license i would create diagrams like i would take the equipment ground conductor table which was table 250.122 i took circular mill chart grounding electro conductor chart put some like voltage drop calculations kva stuff conduit fill and i just kind of like made visual references for myself so when i was out in the field i didn't have to go through all of that it was like all the pertinent information that i needed right here um and you know like strapping for pipes and stuff like that but then when i would come across manuals like i've got relays and contactors that came with manuals wiring diagrams i've got like emergency ballasts and stuff that i would run into over and over and over that just showed you the different wiring configuration based off of what kind of ballast you have but i saved a lot of information and i went and took a journeyman's test at their journeyman course at the iec and they had a manual that they you know put together and it was kind of like this but uh practice tests a lot of information and handouts and stuff then i had another guy that was a journeyman that i knew gary jackson shout out to gary he gave me his study material from a completely different school that he went to when he was studying for his journeyman license so i went through all of his stuff too and kind of cherry picked took the best of um any of you that i don't know where you're at in the country or if you think about who you're getting training from stall cups is a good resource for training the neets manuals n-e-e-t-s i've got every single one of them it's the naval um naval electrical electronics i don't know something navy made it's called neats it's pretty neat i need a zap that's pretty neat uh but there's it's really comp uh complex and comprehensive and so it's another great thing to read if you're trying to study but it's not really necessarily gonna help you code wise so that's the other thing it's okay if you want to read all these like electrical courses for apprentices and you know electric motors and and all of these other cool things but that's not going to help you take your master exam that's just all extra knowledge that you should just thirst for and you know because you love your job and you want to do it but what you need is like even wayne robinson he's got some great manuals uh his son mike so wayne and mike robinson but they come up like you know there's a transformer disconnect and has some calculations in here and like charts and tables and it really just explains how transformers work and and you know like how to size conductors and stuff like that so they've got some great training too mike holt's got some great training paul abernathy has a really good podcast master the nec he also has a lot of really good diagrams that he draws up that kind of show you little bits of information so if you're on linkedin or facebook you can see a lot of his diagrams his facebook group's great too so he he just he spends a lot of time training people and he knows the code very well he's actually on code making panels which a lot of the people that come up with these publications actually are or were at some point on the code making panel but i like paul's podcast because that was something that i was listening to to just try to like get extra little drops of information you know while i was driving in my truck or whatever and if you don't retain all of it and you can't pull your code book out and sit there and listen to him like he tells you to you're still at least hearing information and it's like oh wow i had no idea so it's really the answer is submerge yourself in code for a year and uh you may not even have to do it for a year that's just what i did i i'm i'm divorced now but i even went on my honeymoon this is how ambitious i am i'm the most ambitious person i know uh but on my honeymoon i was studying for my master electrician's license um it meant that much to me it meant that much to me i'm passionate about this stuff i love it i still don't consider myself a code guru i just don't care that much really like to sit and talk about table 250.122 the grounding electric like oh jesus it just bores the out of me but i have to no code and i have to at least be able to be familiar enough with the book to flip through it and find anything that i need on jobs so there's still you know i fail inspections every once in a while because i forgot something or like you know i'll do something a certain way and then i'll find out in code like oh i missed that like i was supposed to do this and so i have to go back and change it you're never going to know everything and if you do know everything you belong on the code making panel really you should be out there creating code and probably trying to teach people code um i just don't care let's not be i like to wear tools i like to do stuff i like to train out in the field and like shoot the with the guys i'm a field guy like y'all or field guys i'm not a suit and tie sitting in front of a damn camera talking about code articles and you know stuff like that so anyways that's just to say i was able to do it i studied for a year regurgitated a lot of information every single day didn't matter for a year every day even if i could only put like 10 15 minutes in i would crack something open and be doing something but for a year i studied and went in and i don't even remember what i got um it wasn't like near failing it was probably a b somewhere you know in the 80s um but that's it so let me know if you guys have any other questions if you want some some of these resources like i can't just give out people's resources i'm pretty sure mike holt would be pissed i've started printing pages and putting this up but if you go to my book section on my website electricianu.com forward slash books you can actually order a lot of this stuff i've kind of put it all together into something that's that you can order and go on amazon or whatever but at least keeps everything together i get a lot of these books too like stuff that i like reading their stuff about tesla and motor controls and how electric motors work and stuff like that just books that i've read throughout my time doing this that i think are quality and i think they're worthwhile for y'all to buy if you're just a nerd and you like to know what the difference between a series one and a motor is whatever um so love you crazy people let me know if you got any other questions in the comments below please like and subscribe this stuff it really really helps me out hit that little notification bell so you can find out every time i have a new episode out and the best part of all of this is that you can go to electricianu.com forward slash practice hyphen exams and i've got three exams on there you can take your residential wireman journeyman and master electrician exams they're timed tests you sit on a screen in a test environment just like you would for your state exam so you can get practice doing this so if you're interested in doing that check it out again electrician you dot com forward slash practice hyphen exams link in the description below there's also like merch out there if you guys want you know shirts and mugs and masks and notebooks and stuff like that so love you crazy people thank you so much and i will see you in the next one

Channel: Electrician U

Views: 408,377

Keywords: electrician, electrical, electricity, dustin stelzer, journey 2 master, apprentice, journeyman, master, electrician vlog, construction, industrial, commercial, residential, electrical vlog, electrician show, electrical show, trade school, electrical courses, electrician courses, electrical class, electrician class, electrician school, practice exams, practice tests, electrician test, electrician exam, master exam, journeyman exam, journeyman test, master test

Id: iF_N5c-HBQo

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020