Practice and exam technique

How to work 125 questions in 330 minutes without running out of either.

Timing 125 questions in 330 minutesYou have about 158 seconds a question. Take a first pass on everything answerable without a book, then work the lookups with a known amount of time re…
Lookup questions against recall questionsA lookup question asks for a specific figure or provision. A recall question asks whether you understand a principle. Recognizing which is which in fi…
How NASCLA questions are writtenQuestions come in three shapes: a lookup for a specific figure, an application of a rule to a scenario, and a calculation. Recognizing the shape in fi…
How to eliminate wrong answersEstablish which activity the question describes before looking at the options. Most distractors are correct figures from a different activity - the ge…
NASCLA practice tests, used properlyPractice with the actual books, tabbed as they will be, and against the clock. A practice score from closed-book study or without a timer measures som…
Practice questions: procurement and contractingProcurement and Contracting is 31 of 115 scored questions. These four cover the order of precedence, bond types, retainage and the markup-margin disti…
Practice questions: general requirementsGeneral Requirements is 25 of 115 scored questions and is largely OSHA. These four cover fall protection triggers, scaffold capacity, reporting deadli…
Practice questions: site constructionSite Construction is 15 of 115 scored questions. These four cover the protective system trigger, soil classification, spoil pile setback and an earthw…
A full mock, walked throughSit it in one 330-minute block with the actual tabbed books, using the two-pass strategy. Review the next day by category, classifying each wrong answ…
Why your practice score is misleadingPractice scores mislead when the books were untabbed or absent, when there was no clock, when questions were repeated, or when the set was weighted ev…
Free practice questionsFree questions are useful for meeting the format and testing your index. They are less useful as a score predictor, because most free sets do not matc…
Practice: concrete and masonryConcrete carries 9 questions and Masonry 3, so 12 of 125 between them. Both are heavily lookup-based and the questions reward a tabbed reference more …
Practice: metals, wood and thermalMetals carries 5 questions and Wood and Plastics 8. Both are span-table and connection categories where finding the right table matters more than reca…
Practice: thermal and moistureThermal and Moisture Protection carries 6 questions. Most of them test sequence and detailing - shingle lapping, flashing order, vapor barrier placeme…
Practice: mechanical and electricalMechanical carries 4 questions and Electrical 3, so 7 of 125. The questions test what a general contractor coordinates rather than what a trade licens…