Short answers

How many questions are on the NASCLA exam?

Compiled by the Sitonce editorial team from the PSI Candidate Information Bulletin, NASCLA's own published material and the federal standards named belowUpdated 5 September 20262 min readFacts verified 4 September 2026

The short answer

125 questions are administered and 115 are scored. The other ten are unscored experimental items scattered at random, so answer all 125 as though they count.

125 administered. 115 scored.

Both figures are correct and they answer different questions, which is why you see each quoted on its own.

The ten that do not count

Experimental items PSI is trialling for future forms. They gather performance data before a question is ever used for real.

They are scattered at random and look identical to everything else. There is no marking of any kind.

Why that matters

The pass mark is 81 of the 115 scored questions. You do not know which 115 of your 125 answers are being counted.

Administered: 125
Scored: 115
Unscored experimental: 10
Needed to pass: 81 of 115
Sensible target: 90 of 125

So answer everything

There is no penalty for a wrong answer and no way to spot a free question. Treating all 125 as scored and aiming for 90 clears 81 whichever ten turn out not to count.

How they divide

PSI publishes the counts by category. Procurement and Contracting is 31, General Requirements 25, Site Construction 15, and the remaining nine categories share 44 between them.

Those are PSI's own counts rather than percentages we have derived, which is unusually helpful.

What the count means for pacing

125 questions against 330 minutes is about 158 seconds each. The average is comfortable and the spread is what causes trouble, since a lookup in an untabbed book can take four minutes.

Work a first pass on everything answerable without opening anything, then spend the remaining time on lookups knowing exactly how much of it there is.