Speaker 1: Welcome to the Master of the Neez podcast, the ultimate
destination for anyone passionate about the electrical trade.
Speaker 2: Whether you're a season electrician and eager apprentice, or.
Speaker 1: Just someone who wants to dive deep into the world
of electrical work, You've come to the right place.
Speaker 2: Join your host, Paul.
Speaker 1: Abernaviy, a true authority in the industry with over thirty
eight years of trade experience as he electrifized your mind
with in depth discussions, expertips, and valuable insights that.
Speaker 2: Will keep you ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1: Each episode, Paul will illuminate the complexities of the trade
de code, the National Electrical Code, and share the latest
industry trends, all while empowering you to take your electrical
career to the next level.
Speaker 2: So hear up, plug in, and get ready to supercharge.
Speaker 1: Your knowledge because with the Master of the Neez podcast,
the power is in your hands.
Speaker 2: Now get ready. Here is your host? What up?
Speaker 3: Everybody? Welcome to another episode a Master the nec podcast.
My name is Paul Abernathy, your host. As always, I
want to thank you for joining me on the podcast.
However you're listening to the podcast, whether it's on Spotify, Spreaker, Deezer, iHeartRadio,
Apple Podcast, Google podcast. Gosh, there's so many ways that
you can listen to a podcast these days. You can
even listen from our mobile app, which is free over
on fasttrackssystem dot com. You can listen over there for free,
just download the free app. There's a bunch of other
tools there, blog, access, message board, all this good stuff
over there if you just want to gain more knowledge
about the National Electrical Code and just make you a
better electrician all around, and share it with your friends.
But thanks for joining me for this podcast. Today's podcast,
we're gonna talk a little bit about mastering the Electric Exam.
It's basically what every future electrician must know when you're
preparing to take an electoral exam. So we're going to
cover a bunch of topics today. And of course, there
is no better way to learn the NEC than getting
a true program that's designed to be give you the
basics right, take you from point A to point B.
And there is no better program than our fast Tracks program.
It's a trademarked program. It's available on our website. The
link will be down into the description. If you really
want to learn the NEC, you want to reduce the
amount of time that you spend flipping through the codebook
and just get better at it. I mean, let's face it,
if you're an electrician or inspiring to be one, you
really need to know the a NEEC. Everything you do
is based around the ANEC. Yes, you know how to
pull cable, install conductors and raceways, bend raceways. Yeah, but
you need to understand why you do it. And that's
what we develop the fast Tracks programs for. Whether you're
exam prep or you just want to get better knowledge,
we have courses for you as well as grounding and bonding.
Check that out over on fast tracks System. That's t
R A X by the way, fast tracks system dot com.
Check it out. All right, So let's get started a
little bit today. In this episode, we're going to talk
about the importance of a structured program, how it has
to be engaging, and then again the focus on not
only the visual means good illustrations we're necessary, but also
just kind of things that help you truly understand the
NEC better and again break it down. You want a
course that breaks it down. So it's easy because the
National Electrical Code is is not an easy document to
understand it can be complicated. OK, So we're going to
set the tone. We're going to be kind of trying
to get you informed, and it's we're gonna you know,
the goal here is for apprentices and journeymans who journeyman
electricians or apprentice electricians or even helpers that are going
to be preparing to take their electrical exam. Now, first thing,
it is very daunting to understand the process of getting
your exam. But in most states, you know, the first
thing you'll need to do is make sure you get
your hours. You've got to put the time in and
in many states you have to have formal training, so
it may be two hundred and forty hours of vocational training.
In some states it may be even more than that.
Some states it may be just a certain number of
years under the tutelage of a master electrician who's willing
to sign off that they instructed you for a period
of time. So you really need to look at your
state licensing board and find out what you need to do.
That's the first thing you should do before you start
stressing out about an exam or what you have to
do is make sure that you understand and that should
be the first thing you really do when you get
in this trade is set your roadmap. Where do I
need to be? Do I need to be somewhere in
two years? A year? Is it three years? That's what
you need to do. Also along the way, if you're
really focused and people forget about this. You want to
be an electrician, you want to be a professional at
this trade. You need to start getting used to keeping
records and taking notes and get you I always had
a little notepad that I kept in my pocket that
I would write things down the moment I hear them,
I would write down. Okay, if my state requires me
to get this many hours, then I'm going to be
recording my hours. Whether I keep a paycheck stub that
shows it and keep it in a folder, whatever you
need to. This is a modern electrician. You need to
start keeping track of these things and don't assume that
other people will keep track of that for you. Especially
in your career where you may be an apprentice or
a helper and you may be going between employer to employer.
Don't expect that employer to be as diligent as you
would be with your own information. Okay, so it's very
important now in today's episode, we'll also remove some myths
and we're going to you know, we're going to got
to build your confidence a little bit in how you
should structure your learning process so you're really not wasting
time because again you're going to start out as a
helper or apprentice. You're not going to be making the
money that you like to make eventually, and I get it,
we want to always make more, but you need to
work from A to B to see. You need to
work through it and gain the experience to knowledge that
does move you up the ladder so that you can
get a higher pay, But you have to start somewhere.
I hear from a lot of people who say, I
want to be an electrician or whatever, and they think
they can just leave from one career career and jump
into electrical and make the same they made in another career.
That is not going to happen. So this is going
to be talking about that. So it's for you apprentices,
it's for you journeymans, it's for you masters who may
be taking tests in multiple states, and you have a
master's exam you're going to have to take in multiple
states because maybe maybe you're the license holder for your
state or these for the company in these various states. Also,
we do a lot of training for electrical inspectors because
most of the exams, like the ic C E one,
E two, and E three E one being residential, E
two being commercial, and E three being Plans Examiner, they're
still based on the National Electrical Code. The only difference
is with the E one they try to base it
more on using the residential Building Code with the electrical
portion in there of the module. But I tell people
ignore that and still just learn the NEC. It's going
to help you because then if you move on to
the E two, which is commercial, you will not be
using the International Residential Code or the International Building Code.
You're going to be using the NEC National Electrical Code.
So might as well start early learning the code, and
then as you move on to your E three, if
you're an inspector or you have a desire to be,
E three is just more of really E two, but
it throws on top of it a little bit about
the plans review. So you just got to be used
to looking at some plans. Get some plans and look
at it and make sure you understand where a lighting
schedule is, how to look up the circuit, how to
tell where it's at, how to look at a symbol
that's on the drawings and what that symbol means, like
maybe looking at a disconnect and seeing what its frame
is versus what the actual overcurrent protection is in there,
or whether or not it has overcurrent protection at all.
And how to look on a schedule and find things.
That's really the only difference between E two and E
three for you inspectors out there, that type of things.
So all right, so kind of that's what we're going
to do. So no, if you can read the codebook,
you can pass the exam. Okay, today we'll just kind
of talk about how you do it. Now, a couple
talking points why people fail on an electric exam. Well,
Number one, they don't understand the question structure. Now in
our programs, and you've heard me talk about this on
my podcasts, and I've been talking about this for decades now,
you have to understand how to structurally read a question
and understand it may give you a paragraph of information,
but there's only one sentence in there that means anything.
Everything else is just fluff to mislead you. Now, they're
not trying to do this to trick you. It is
all about comprehension and being able to read it the
question and dissect what it's asking. Now, it's simple to
say that when you're in school and you're doing these
SATs and you're doing these exams in school, one of
the big things is reading comprehension, and so they'll give
you questions and you have to try to figure out
what the topic is. This is no different, This is
no different, but it's electrical and it's tough jargon in
the neec Okay, it's very technical, and so you have
to get familiar with breaking it down. How do you
do that? Well, if you're studying for your exam, you
need to take your questions. For example, in our program
give you over eight hundred plus questions. Plus of course
you get competency questions, but there's a certain number of
practice exams that we tell you do not time yourself.
Just take your time and look at a question and
go over that question, even if it takes you twenty
minutes and people say, oh no, don't do that, you'll
run out of time. You're not preparing for the exam yet,
you're gaining your knowledge. But what you're doing is look
for every possible term that's in that question that could
lead you to the table of contents or to the index,
or cross referencing or certain terminologies that they use that
can help you find the answer. And if you can
start finding multiple ways to dissect a question to get
to the answer you're looking for, and they could be
in different locations in the nec but give you the
same answer, then that's called dissecting a question. And again,
I've been preaching this for decades and it's just now
people are starting to understand that. That's why they call
me the Godfather of instructured exam prep because I've been
talking about this stuff forever and younger guys that learned
and are now starting to incorporate that in their teaching style.
And you're welcome, because I've been doing it forever, because
it is the proper way to study. Now. One of
the things that I also tell people is one of
the big problems that folks have, and this is why
those crash course things that you do on weekends. You know,
people say, hey, take this two day course before you're
exam and you'll be fine, and then ultimately, sadly, I
get tons of calls from people that fail and they
want to know. Look, I paid eight nine thousand dollars
for this crash course. They told me that I could
get a guarantee I could come back and take it again,
and that's great, but at the end of the day,
you're wasting a lot of time and to guarantee is
not going to get your money back. There is fine
print to all those things out there that say you'll
get your money back. There is fine print. Okay, I'm
just telling you don't believe everything you read because if
you dig into the fine print, basically it says, well,
you're free to take the course again until you pass
that type of thing. Okay, nobody's going to let you
take an exam and then you fail and say I
want my money back after they've invested time in you. Okay,
it's not how it works. However, the ultimate goal is
what the ultimate goal is for you to pass the exam, right,
So don't rely on memory instead of navigation. You know,
there's people out there that are on Instagram. They put
these videos out there and they say that you don't
need to memorize the code. You don't. You really don't
need to memorize the code at all.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: One of the things that you have to realize is
that there's nothing that's you not necessarily have to memorize
anything to be successful. What you have to understand how
do I navigate it? How do I look things up?
How do I find things? That's the key, that's the
fundamental key, is how do I move through this book?
How can I look at a question and start to
understand the logic of how I find the answer? Now,
this is the difference between flipping through a cobol and again,
some of this is going to sound like a commercial,
but I can't help it. We develop the fast Tracks
program because of this, whether you're preparing for an exam
or you just want to get better out in the field,
want to be more knowledgeable, fail less inspections, things like that.
Is that you really have to understand that we feed
you the content in our program from nineteen units and
so subconsciously you're going to remember a lot of things
in our program because that's just the way it is.
Because what we do is we give you these little chevrons, right,
we give you the code reference, you go look it
up in the code, come back to the lesson. The
lesson you'll get another chef run send you to the code.
So you're going back and forth, back and forth with
a structured plan, not just a free willy type of
plan where you're just going from here. Then I'll think, well,
I'll assume they'll last me something about motors, so I'll
go to four thirty. Or they'll soon they'll last me
something about it, so I'll go, No, it is there is.
There is a rhyme and reason why we do it
the way we do it in our programs. I can't
speak for everybody else. I can only tell you that's
why we do it the way we do it. And
in along that journey, if you're in like our enhanced program,
you also can go over to the fast tracks tube
and watch a related video that may hammer home an
important concept. And all of that helps you maintain and
it makes it a little easier for you to remember
some of those key things. Like I said, you don't
need to remember the whole code, it's unnecessar if you've
got your codebook with you. But what you will realize
is that these these exams are timed, so even though
you may be really good at navigation, it's still timed
so it does behoove you to understand certain elements that
are just you just know it by heart because you've
done it over again. You followed the structured plan, so
you know that two tens brand circuits two fifteen or
feet or two twenty five or outside branch circuits and feeders.
You understand the different nuances and the tables for motors
FLC for thirty two forty eight, two forty nine to
two fift you get it. And you understand the two
foot four foot rule or the six foot twelve foot
rule and two ten point fifty two. You understand these
things because you do it every day, but now you're
learning this is why I do it. And those kind
of things will last in your memory because you just
do them repetitively. There's the little nuances that are in
the code that are usually low hanging fruit for an
electrical exam that you're not going to necessarily do every day,
and so we try to spoon feed those things to
you over and over, and then we test you with
competency reviews, and we change the test the questions a
little bit so they're not exactly what you went over
in the lesson. We don't want to do that. That's that
that that that would be cheating. We want to make
the competency reviews tough, so you have to read them
very carefully. Right. But so again, like I tell people
navigation and understanding, you don't have to commit things to memory.
But the more that of the basic stuff that you
can commit the memory, it's going to reduce the time
you're in there on the exam and it's just overall
going to help you move through it much quicker. Plus
it's going to help you in the field. And we
teach it that way. But no, you don't have to
memorize the entire in NEEC to be successful on an
exam or in the field. Now that's why your codebook's there. Now,
there's also an element where you may be weak in
your fundamentals. Okay, and we're talking fundamentals like understanding Owms law.
And there may be only one or two questions on
an exam that has to do with Ohms law or
Watt's law or something like that. Well, you certainly don't
want to get them wrong. If you can help it.
Maybe there's something on series or parallel circuits. And again
it's not going to be overcomplicated, but little things. You know,
you want to get those little ones, okay, but it's
not the end of the world. But the other fundamentals
that you need to understand is you really need to
understand the concept of conductor sizing, and conductor sizing is
one of the most confusing things in the National Electrical Code.
I mean, if you've got a good grasp of understanding
three ten sixteen in the opacity tables, and you understand
how three ten fifteen B one one and three ten
fifteen C one work when it comes to more than
three current current conductors, or if you have ten current
current conductors, or or if you're dealing with an ambient
temperature other than thirty degrees celsius eighty six excrease fahrenheit,
what do you do? How do you do this if
you don't understand the eighty three percent rule that we
have in three ten dot twelve. And again it's not
an exception, that's a rule it's permissible to use. If
you don't understand those things when it comes to conductor
sizing and understanding one ten dot fourteen, when it comes
to terminal and temperature limitations, then that is fundamentally a
large part of a lot of exams as well as
in the field, picking the wrong size conductor because you
didn't do a proper adjustment of correction can ruin the day.
I'm just saying. Also, load calculations on electrical exams, they're
not typically going to ask you to do the load
calculation for an entire building or house or commercial building
or anything. What they're going to ask you is any
potential component. Like they may ask you something about the appliances,
and you need to understand its standard method. If you
have four or more, then you're going to have a
demand factor that you can apply. If you're doing the
optional method, you're taking name plate and the demand is
figured into the entire equation. So critically important for you
to nail those things down. Now. In our program, we
give you these print out sheets that you can print
them out and you use them. They're like templates. And
you use these templates not because it's like, well, why
do I want a template, I'm cheating? No, no, no,
no no. The templates are there in order to explain
these steps so that if any exam question comes up
that asks you any of the steps, whether it's for appliances,
whether it's for dealing with the general use in general
lighting application, or whether or not it's talking about.
Speaker 2: Ranges or dryers.
Speaker 3: You understand fully how to do each piece of it
because in the real world you got to do at all.
But on an exam, very rarely do they ask a
full load calc. Now, somebody's gonna immediately reply to this
podcast and go, oh, in my state they make you
do a four story building. What okay, that is the
exception to the general rule. How do I know this
because I've served on these committees that write the questions
for exams and just not how we write a question
That is not what we're trying to do. And you're
going to drive yourself crazy if you try to study
that way. You really are. So that's not just learn
the basics and the fundamentals. Okay. The other thing is
fear of time. You've got a three hour or four
hour deadline. There is a process that we call the
three way method that you can listen to over on
fast tracks Tube. We talk you through the best way
to go through an exam. It is literally not bring surgery,
but it is going to yield the best chance. So
go to fast tracks tube. That's fast tracks trxtube dot com.
Search for three wave or three wave method. If you're
a subscriber, you should be able to find it with
no problem. Watch that because that is how you should
tackle a timed exam exactly that way. There's another thing
that I get from people is the anxiety. Okay, why
people fail is they're overstressed out about an exam. Don't
be don't worry about anything that you think is a
trick question. Don't let that little thing get in your
head because every question is solvable, so it's, in theory,
not a trick question. It's just a difficult question. But
don't dwell on it. Because when I get calls from
people who say, hey, Paul, I failed my exam by
one point, and I'm like, okay, so the passing score
was seventy you got a sixty nine. It was one
hundred questions, they go yes, I'm like, do you realize it?
In my world, you actually fill thirty one questions short,
and there is a plethora of potential questions in there
that you could have gotten right and passed. But in
their mind they're focusing on one thing. They're like, oh,
if I just had gotten that motor question right, or
if I just had got this stop. That is not
the way to target it. That is not the way
to think. Okay, you blew it by way more than
one point. Yeah, I get it. One more you would
have got your license, Okay, But the reality is you've
already failed. That is not the mentality you need to take.
The mentality is that you're saying, look, when I take
this test again, this is not even going to be
in the equation because I'm going for the record. And
it's a mental approach to how you study. And so
many people don't do it that way, and they just
go flipping through a codebook and they think that's not
Some people pass, and then they'll go out there on
social media and say I didn't have to study. Not
everybody's created equal. When is everybody going to get that?
When are these people out there on social media say
this is what I did and you don't need to
Not everybody is created equal. And I have taught over
eighty thousand students how to pass exams, and they've all
been different. I've worked with students who struggle and some
that just get it right away. Everybody's different. And the
instructor who can't realize that is not worthy of you
giving them a dime, okay, because you have to develop
a program that's going to be appealing to masses of
different levels of technical skill or understanding or comprehension. And
that's what we tried to do. And again, if I
can give one thing back to the industry, it's like
change how you teach, okay. And then at the end
of the day, it's the lack of practice with the
real nec And that's why we give you all these
competency reviews in our program to test your knowledge before
you should move on to the next unit. If you
really bond that you need to go back into the
unit that you're working on because there's something you didn't comprehend.
And of course, in our program, we have a feature
called fast Tracks Interact, which means that you're never alone.
It means that you can ask us questions at any
time in the program and copy and paste the question
in there, whatever screen, capture it on your computer and
paste it in there, whatever you want to do, and
we will explain it to you. Nobody else does that,
but I believe in your success. So that's why I
created this fast tracks system. And that's what it is.
It's not just a code exam, a code prep course.
It's an entire system with the interactive features, the video
backing it up, the everything together. That's what we bring. Okay.
Now the next thing we think is your blueprint. How
do we develop a blueprint for your success? Okay? So
how the exam isn't testing your memory, it's really testing
your ability to find answers fast and over time. If
you do like I say, and you use a lot
of the practice questions for dissection, take your time, use
them to try to find the answers many ways, then
it's only going to make you better. Okay. The NEC
is just a reference manual, it's a reference document. The
better you are with moving through it, the better you're
going to be. There are certain things, like I said,
that you're going to commit to memory because you do
them every day. But you're certainly not going to do
everything that's in that codebook. And you're going to be
testing on things that you may never touch. You may
have never done EV okay, but you might get a
question on EV and so at the end of the day,
you need to know where to go. And so that's
why you're studying, So get used to scanning the articles
and we cover that. Know the layout of the code.
Like I said, it's so fundamental to understand that chapters
one through four are mandatory rules that apply throughout the NEC,
but they can be supplemented and modified in chapters five
through seven. If you're in the twenty twenty three, if
you're in the twenty twenty sixth edition, in you're studying
when that comes out or when we produce a course
for that, or if you're just studying in general and
your exams on the twenty twenty six, then it's going
to be the same. But chapters five through eight can
supplement or modify anything in chapters one through eight, So
a little bit of a change there for the twenty
twenty six makes sense. But it just takes discipline and
learn how to use that index and the only way
you're going to get better at navigating. And I tell
people all the time, they've watched me on some of
my videos where I can spend ten minutes in the index.
Why do I do that? Because I want to learn.
My mind is being trained to know what's in there
and what's not in there, So I know not to
go here for something because I'm just going down a
rabbit hole. You'll get better as you do it. You'll
just get better in it. Okay, now the core concepts.
Every test taker, you must master these things. And we're
going to focus on six pillars that show up on
generally every exam. And I say generally you're going to
get some OHMS law questions maybe one or two or three,
but they do show up on exams. And you need
to understand OWMS law. It's not brain surgery. If you
can write down, if they let you write things on
scratch paper. The first thing you do when you sit
down is do your OWMS wheel. Do your power wheel.
The best you can get you set and a lot
of states give it to you, like Texas, they'll give
you an OHMS wheel or power wheel. So, but just
understand how to do it. You really need to understand
conductor apacities, folks, whether it's feeders or brand circuits, whatever,
you need to understand three ten sixteen opacities. You need
to understand the adjustments and corrections in three ten fifteen
B one one and three ten fifteen C. You need
to understand that you need to understand three ten dot
twelve when it comes to the eighty three percent rule
and when you can apply it and when you can't.
Okay fundamental things. And in our fast Tracks Tube video platform,
we have a program called d Rating Demystified and it's
part three. Version three is out now and we're working
on version four for the twenty twenty six edition. But
it's the same principles. It walks you through how to
do adjustment and corrections properly, really does, and so that's
important for you to check that out. Next is box
field colcs. Just make sure you understand you have a
firm grip on box Field, whether it's one or two questions. Again,
if many of you are focusing on just passing missing
any one of these, which you should be able to
study properly for is like throwing away a question. These
should be no brainers. It's the awful wall ones that
should be giving you trouble, but these should be something
that you study. In our program, we have an extensive
unit that talks about Boxville, goes over all the details
about Boxville with the devices, the conductors, all those type
of things, connectors, clamps, all this is covered in detail
with examples and illustrations. Of course you got fast tracks
interact if you want to ask a question. But it's
all pretty straightforward, but it's important that you do understand it.
And of course you use this every day out in
the field, so you might realize, oh crap, I'm actually
violating Boxville out in the field. And it's never really
brought it up because they're not going to really stop
and look in every box. But you need to understand
how to do it. Whether it's for the exam or
even in real life, you need to understand box fill.
Whether you agree with it or not. Whether you think, ah,
what the hell's one more conductor in a bout, it
doesn't matter. You underst need to understand it. Also, service
and feeder load calculations Article two twenty. You need to
understand how part two, Part three, and Part four fundamentally work.
Whether it's the standard method we call it or the
optional method in part four, you need to understand how
they work. And we cover this extensively in our program.
And you NIT eight eleven and thirteen, and we give
you those little handouts as well that you can print out.
You can get them laminated. You can use a dry
race pin and use it over and over and over
and even come up with some fake scenarios. Just kind
of drow out a dwelling and put all these things
in it that you would want to put you maybe
your dream home, and then do the calculation on it.
It's only going to make you better. But the key
thing is know how to do the calculation to the
point where if you get asked any single element, you
know how to calculate it out. That's it. Understand that
the next is the equipment grounding and bonding shows up
a lot on exams. Make sure you understand grounding, electrode
conductor sizing sixty six, make sure you understand different things
about the electrodes and two fifty two, and then of
course bonding requirements. It's important for the NEC that when
you're thinking about Article two fifty understand fundamentals, whether it's
sizing of a supply side bonding jumper, a load side
bonding jumper, okay, a main bonding jumper, a system bonding jumper, again,
equipment bonding jumper. I might have said that equipment grounding conductor.
I probably already said that all these things are fundamental
that you should go through now our course will systematically
give those to you, but if you're studying without a course,
you still need to create some structure. These are there
important things to focus on, okay, because that is the
important stuff that's usually going to be on an exam.
Understanding that you could still get some obscure question is
grounding and bonding driven. But if you start out by
focusing on the important low hanging fruit aspects that typically
show up on exams, then you have a higher probability
of success. And as you're looking for these things, you'll
stumble across the other questions that get asked from time
to time about grinding and bonding. Of course, we do
make a course on grounding and bonding, which I helped
co write originally actually for the twenty twenty three edition.
I did not for the twenty twenty six one. There's
a books out there, but our program is based on
the twenty twenty three and I had a hand in
writing that book, and so check it out on our website.
It's a great and it doesn't expire, so you can
keep it and it's a good reference down the road.
If you have a grounding and bonding question, you're like, ah, crap.
Do I use a bonding bushing Do I use a
can I use a bonding wedge or bonding locknut? Can
I all these type of things? How do I size
the supply side bonding jumper? What about if I want
to do a daisy chain versus individual connections to each raceway,
then you can open this app. You can open it
up in your on your phone, go right into your
course and boom, it's in logical flow. We follow the
NEC's flow when it comes to the course. Okay, so
that means from two fifty dot four to eighty two
logical flow, So you can look things up easily and well,
we sell a lot of our courses on grounding and bonding,
So that's just a good long term resource for you.
If you're interested, check it out. And then of course
Raceway phil make sure you understand the fundamentals of raceway
fil calculations, how to use chapter nine tables one, two, three,
or make sure you understand all of those aspects of
how to do it. And of course we have a
great video of that. We we cover this in detail
in our program. But if you're study, if you're studying
and you don't have a structured program and you're saying, well,
I just don't know what to study. Well, I'm giving
you those tips exactly how to do your own self
structured study. We just make it easier for you. And
easier means you spend less time on it, and it's
a it's a you know, a better investment of your time. Okay,
so you're not wasting time. But again you can do this.
Understand what NXC means, and that is just for the
number of conductors I can put in there and not
exceed the raceway. Phil. It has absolutely no nothing to
do with adjustment and corrections. That's a totally different thing
that you have to take into consideration. The chapter nine
that the well, the informative ANXC is just telling me
how many conductors can I put in a raceway and
not exceed the percentage? Fil. That's all it does, right.
It doesn't account for oh I can put that many
in there, well, yes, and not exceed raiseway Phil. But
what is the opacity of those conductors in there? When
you start bundling them all in there? Then it could
be nothing is as pointless to do it. So you
need to understand why you can use anexc but why
you still have to take into consideration other aspects of
the code like a like an adjustment of corrections. Okay,
important things. Okay, Now, there are some speed techniques that
you can do to help you prepare for the exam
as you're studying. As you're going through the codebook, a
lot of students will everything that we reference in the
course with chevrons. They instead of just going willy nilly
and start highlighting everything, and then it becomes more confusing
if you're able to highlighten your codebooks. So some states
allow you to, some states don't. That's your responsibility to
determine whether or not your state will allow it. So
you need to get with the state testing whoever's doing
the testing, whether it's PSI or what have you, and
they have a bulletin out le's go to their website
and look and see what you can and what you
can't do in your codebook. Some codebooks you can't do anything.
Some you can underline, some you can highlight, some you
can even make notes in. Okay, but you need to
determine that. But when you highlight, you don't want to
go crazy because it negates the benefit of highlighting. But
some people have learned that when we do a chevron
or we call out something, then when you go to
the code to read it, that is what you highlight
and only that as we lead you through the nineteen units,
so you're only highlighting things that we reference. Okay, trusts me, folks.
Things are done for a reason, and I don't you know,
rather than go into the details of how we came
up with it, that way, that's just the way it is,
and you need to trust it it. Okay. It's kind
of like the stock market. I hate it. I hate
the stock market. I hate having money in the stock
market because it goes up and down, up and down.
But you've got to trust in it. Over the long haul,
it has been up. So same thing here. Trust in
what we do in our program. We're doing it for
a reason. Okay. Also, why you don't need to highlight
everything again, like I said, is because it's going to
draw your mind away from an important thing. Okay. Next,
I'll remind you again one of the biggest things that
can help you or speed techniques is to practice our
three wave method technique, and that is basically in a nutshell,
is when you first sit down for your exam, you're
going to go through and answer everything you know right
away in less than a minute. If you don't know
it and it's over a minute and you kind of
you don't have to sit there and keep looking at
the clock because trust me, it's going to be ticking away.
You'll get that anxiety in you when you spent too long. Okay,
it's at that mental internal clock that says, okay, I dude, nowhere.
I've been sitting this for a little bit and I'm nowhere.
But don't go into this analysis by paralysis or is
it the other way around, it's paralysis by analysis. Yeah,
don't get into that, okay where you end up next thing?
You know, five minutes is gone and you're on one question.
Do not do that. You'd say death sentence for your exam, folks,
death sentence. So you just mark it electronically, or if
you're taking a written test, just right down on your
scratch paper what question it is and circle it and
then go on to the next one so you can
come back to those questions you have written down later
in the next wave. But that first wave, move through,
answer what you can in less than a minute, move on,
hopefully answer it quicker, and if you've taken our course,
there's going to be a lot of those things that
you will be able to answer right away because it's
right there in your mind, because you've been studying, you've
been putting the time in. Okay, and just go through it,
and then when you get to the end, you'll go
to the second wave, and if it's an electronic test,
you'll be able to say you want to review all
the questions that you marked. Then that's what you do.
You review, and it'll take you back to the beginning
and you spend another minute on that question. If you
find the answer, you uncheck it and you move on
to the next question. If you spend over a minute
to minute and a half and you still can't find
the answer, you leave it checked, but you still go
to the next question. So everyone that you answer subsequently
you uncheck and you keep on moving through the second wave.
Then your third wave is you're going to answer all
the ones that are still remain checked, and before you
leave that question, you're going to select an answer. Now,
whether you use logic and deductive reasoning or elimination obviously
removing the obviously wrong question so that you increase your odds.
You do want not want to leave it in the
third wave. You do not want to leave a question
without providing an answer. Now, if you want to leave
it checked so you can com back for even a
fourth wave if you want, that's fine. But on that
third wave, you want to not leave that question until
you have answered it and you do the best you
can to use logic to give you the best odds. Okay,
instead of being a twenty five percent odd you want
to you want to increase it to a fifty to
fifty that type of thing. You see what I'm saying,
and then move through. Now, I will tell you in
the first two waves, at least if the if, the if,
it's a calculation, and after a minute you're like, this
is a complicated calculation, then you market and you move on.
You save it for when you've built up some more
time in the third wave, okay, or subsequent waves. Do
not take away from that first and second wave, because
that's gonna be where you're gonna be generating the extra
time to spend in the third wave or of subsequent
waves okay, or calculations, Okay, It's important to understand the
flow and if you. If you put your mindset in
this way, then you're going to be Okay, you're going
to be You say, okay, I've got a plan, and
that's half the battle, folks, that is half the battle. Okay,
all right. Other tip that to remind you is take
a ruler if they'll let you, unless they give you one,
because again, with a lot of things like indexes, the
text is very small. You want to make sure that
you're using a ruler in your codebook to make sure
that you're on the right line, that you're not making
a simple scanning mistake, okay, looking at the code and
looking at you just want to make sure that you're
on the right line. Especially for a lot of these
tables the text is very close together. You just want
to if they let you do it, or they give
you one, or use the edge of your scratch paper,
whatever you use. You know, when you're going through your codebook,
make sure you have something to make sure that you're
picking doing that and making sure you're staying on the
right line. Okay. The other thing that I will tell
you is there is a way to read a question, okay,
And it's fundamentally to pace your reading style to read
the question. Okay, so you read the question. Once you've
read the question, you're looking for what in the question
is the trigger word? Okay? What is the word that
that that you know is not slang that you or
the slang that you can break down into a common
term that is likely to be in the National elegtcal
code if it's an index, okay, that type of thing.
So for example, for me, if I'm reading a question
that says, uh ompacity adjustments for a ninety degree c
thhh in conductor in a three quarter e m T
with seven current caring conductors. Okay, So the first thing
that I'm thinking about in that question is that it's
th hhn. So I'm going to be able to do
adjustment and corrections okay in this case since it's thhn
two h's, it's rated ninety degrees okay, So I'm already
know the terminal and I'm thinking, okay, well it's three
quarter EMT and it's seven current carent conductors. Now, the
reason I gave you that question that way is that's
not typically how it's going to be on an exam.
Why because what did they not tell you? Well, they
didn't tell me the size of the conductor, So I
don't know where to start. Right. They told me it
was three quarter EMT with seven current carent conductors, right,
but I don't know what size these conductors are. But
that question alone is one that we use a lot
when I was tutoring to just trigger thoughts from the student.
I just want to hear what they say, and they go, Okay, Paul,
I can't do this because I don't know what the
conductor size. So how can I do an adjustment correction
for a number of current current conductors if I don't
know it's It's just says ninety degree c T. It
didn't say what size conductor. It didn't say what the
amps were. It didn't It didn't give me anything to
be able to get from point A to point B.
And that's exactly what I wanted you to do. That
is how you take a question now in our exam
prep program, that's not how it is because all of
our questions give you what you need. Okay, it gives
you what you need to do. Okay. So but I
like thought provoking type of questions just soose students can
come back with, well, I need to know this, or
I need to know that, and then some questions will
give you you'll think that it's not enough information, but
it is more than enough information there, more than enough okay.
Another thing that might you might get a question says,
do a box fill you have four to twelves plus
two devices? Okay. So your mind is thinking, okay, if
this was a box fill and I have a raceway
coming in, is it total of four to twelve gauge okay?
Which is basically three ten in um? What is it?
Three fourteen dot sixteen? So you're basically saying, okay, I've
got two point twenty five cubic inch per conductor, okay,
And you're telling me I have twelve four twelves and
the devices are going to be obviously these are twelves.
They are going to connect to the devices, so it's
two times the largest conductor that's connected to it. So
that means I've got four twelves, but I've got two devices,
so that's two per device because it's a double volume.
So I've got four, five, six, seven eight twelves overall
at two point twenty five okay. So that just tells
me what the fill is based on these things, and
sometimes You may say, well, I don't know, are there
any equipment grounds? I'm just saying, look, the point of
this question a lot of times for students is to go,
all right, well, the reason we were doing this one
is to get you familiar with three fourteen dot sixteen,
and two is to realize that just answer what's given
to you. Don't assume anything. I don't know what box
we're using. I don't know what the qubcinches of that
box is. I don't know any of that. But I
wasn't asking any of that. All I was asking is
I got four twelves and I got two devices, So
what's the box fill? Well, logically, if they're twelves and
you look at three fourteen pots sixteen, you're gona say
it's two point twenty five qbkinches per twelve conductor. I've
got four of them, and then I got two devices,
and the devices are a double volume each based on
the size of the conductors that are connecting to it,
which obviously are twelves. Because i've got four twelves there,
and that's how I'm going to come up with two
four And I've got four plus two for each device,
so that is eight conductors at two point twenty five each.
So these are just thoughts. That's it, thoughts, and believe
it or not, when you're studying, that's what's gonna gonna
help you learn. And so that's kind of it. Sometimes
even a bad question is a good question because all
it's really trying to do is make you think and
not read something into it. And that's one of the
things that we do on purpose a lot is is
we want you to not let the mind wander. We
want you to very much focus. There's a couple quite
a few questions in our competency reviews that really, if
you don't read it well enough, it can screw with
your mind. Okay, it can literally screw with your mind
and you're like, Jesus, I don't get it. What am
I doing wrong? Okay type of thing. Right, So there
you go. Now, a lot of times with students I
also tell them, how do you manage the mental game
when it comes to preparing for an exam? And you
better start now why you're preparing is how to manage
your anxiety. Some people are really knowledgeable in the code.
They could, in my mind, they could pass any exam
that's put in front of them, but yet they still fail,
and usually it's because they don't test well. They have
test anxiety. They realize that there is so much pressure,
whether it's getting a promotion, whether it's getting to be
my own boss, or owning my own company or starting
my own business, or making things better for my family,
or I put in all these years, damn it, I
should be able to nail this exam. Why am I
so stressed out over it? Well, it's because it is
important and in licensing and testing is the benchmark. It
doesn't mean you're the best in the world just because
you pass an exam, but it means that you're on
your way and you've got to get past that entry.
So it is very stressful. So get used to breathing
and pacing yourself. Three way method can incredibly help you.
Structured programs reduce the stress because you got this. You
put in the time. I recommend people ask me all
the time, Paul, how much time should I spend studying
for an exam? Now we've been studying these numbers in
our programs for well over a decade, okay, And the
way to think about this is you need to spend
anywhere between ninety five to one hundred hours of dedicated
study that's not with your significant other breathing down your
neck or the kids playing the TV or gaming in
the background, by yourself in your environment, focused plotting the
time out to make sure you've got you time so
that you can put in what's necessary you need at
least ninety days. Now. I have a guy that was
mad at me lit just last week. He reached out
and he was going to buy our course, and he
purchased the course, and you know, I could tell he
wasn't very tech savvy because he ended up in emails
saying I can't get in, or I couldn't get in
or something. He was having some kind of problem and
he was panicking and he just bought the course. He
just bought it, and he was panicking already. I could
tell it the way he was going crazy, And you know,
he was worried born about his money. And I was like, dude,
my courses ain't that expensive, so chill out, relax, But
he was already freaking out. So I responded back and
said he said, he says, I got to take my
test in twelve days. And my response to him is,
why on earth did you buy my program because I
say enough on everywhere on my website. There are a
lot of people out there, Folks, trust me. They will
sell you a program. They don't care whether you're one day,
they don't care whether you pass or fail. I care. Now,
you can say all kinds of shit about me you
want online, or you can hide behind your Facebook group
or whatever and knowing that I'm never gonna come there
and debate you. You could say what you want about
me but I and you can be a little home
inspector somewhere and think you're knowledgeable about something. But the
reality is I've been doing this for this industry for
damn near forty years. I care because I wouldn't give
away as many tools and do different things in this
industry to not care. Yes, I make a living, but
I do these things because I care. I create tools,
free quizes things that I do because I care. Now,
with that said, you have to understand that you need
to put in at least ninety days of dedicated study
in the program. That's at least two hours a week,
excuse me, two times a week, at least four hours
each session. Okay on once got that backwards, Okay, At
least two times, whether you're doing it on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
but you need to at least do that for four
hours of dedicated study in our program where you were
just locked in. Now, if you want to do it
more than that, that's fine. If you think, well, i'll
do it twice that in that way, I don't need
to spend ninety days. I can do it in sixty days.
That's fine. But remember there is an element of where
you can spend way too much time and now it
just becomes a big, jumbling, gobbly goop. And if you
are going to do it quicker, make sure that at
any moment you get confused, because you're really overloading the
learning that you use something like our fast tracks enhanced
excuse me fast tracks interact to ask a question, because
I don't want you moving forward if you're confused just
because you're on a fast pace. You still need to
make sure you're studying the right way, learning it the
right way, handing it the right way. These are important factors,
but you need to think about the commitment. Now. Everybody
starts out saying, well, I'm gonna study every day. I
gotta have this. I'm gonna do this and look anyway,
the long story short with the gentleman, I ended up
refunding him, and I don't didn't really do refunds because again,
your goal is to pass an exam, and that's what
we're here for. I mean, why should I refund you.
You got into the program because you wanted to learn.
I'm telling you right now, everything you need to pass
is in our program, everything and more. The only reason
you don't pass is on you. It ain't on us,
it's on you, because I'm here to answer any questions
you want. So but he was like, He's like, I'm
testing in like two weeks or whatever, and I'm like, dude,
you should have never bought our program. Well, he replied back,
he says, you're arrogant, blah blah blah, And I'm like, dude,
I've already refunded your money because I don't want to
set you up for failure. Now, some people still buy
our program with only a week out or two weeks out,
and you're going to learn something. And if you don't pass,
you can always keep studying because it doesn't expire and
it's a good resource to have moving forward. So that's
a positive way to look at it. But I could
already tell this dude was so high strung that no
matter what happened, he was going to find everybody else
to blame for his problems of why he wasn't successful.
And I don't want that. I don't have no desire
for that. I want you to learn, and yes, can
you do it quicker than ninety days, Absolutely, But if
you need to be you need to be very honest
with yourself and realize that life gets in the way.
You have family to take care of, commitments to take
care of. Sometimes when you're studying you're not as focused
as you should be. When you get stumped by something,
you end up just saying, oh, I'll figure it out later. No,
you need to stop and use our course the right way, folks.
That's what's different between our program and anybody else's. Whether
it's the ones you buy. DVDs are great produ ducks,
the books get they that's fine. But what sets us
apart is I'm gonna be very honest. And again people
can say it's conceited, but it's what you get is me.
I am here to answer your questions in our program.
It's built into the program. You don't get that with
any other program. You don't get the bait and switch
stuff on YouTube where everybody advertises free courses, free courses,
free courses, and then they end up wanting you to subscribe.
That's not how it works with me. I sell courses
because I make a living, and so we're mutually invested.
You're invested in me, I'm invested in you. That's how
I do it. Everybody's different, but that's how I do it. Okay,
So again, trust in the code, not in your memory, focused,
put the time in uh and uh. That is uh.
It's going to pay dividends for you. Okay. Now, as
far as resources out there to learn, folks, I'm gonna
tell you obviously, our structured program is the right way.
But we also have tradehog dot Net which you can
ask questions in there. Okay. You also have the nec Quiz,
which is an app that we have which you can
it has some online quizzes. Okay. You've got fast Tracks
Tube if you get the enhanced program, and the only
difference between our basic and enhanced is it we just
go on and give you a year's subscription to the
fast Tracks Tube included in there at a discounted price.
That's the only difference. Same program. But what you do
is it allows you to reaffirm these things by watching
specific tailored videos on certain things like range calculations, box fill,
single family, multi family. Okay. They help supplement your learning
and it helps increase your comprehension. Okay. I don't believe
in the video only courses. I believe in a two
pronged or three pronged approach, right, verbiage, images and video.
That's how I believe people absorb it and they keep
it mentally for a longer period of time, so easy
to forget things. Okay. So we give you all of
those resources that you can utilize. Okay, Right, So that's
you know, if I had to wrap this up for you,
think of it this way. If there's five step formula
that can help for that final exam on that test day,
the strategy, okay is utilize the three wave method. Practice
dissecting questions up till you get to about two weeks
before you're examed. Then you can start timing yourself. Don't
time yourself until you get to that period. Take your
time and dissect the questions. Okay, follow the three wave
method if you don't know what that is. Again, you
can rewind this back I explained it earlier, or you
can go watch our three way three Wave method video
on fast Tracks two. Follow that structure and going there
mentally prepared, mentally prepared. It's not a matter of whether
or not you're going to pass it, the matter of
whether or not you're going to set the record. Okay,
you've got this, folks. I've been doing this again nearly
forty years. It just seems like a blur to me.
I've been doing this for so long, but I still
genuinely enjoy helping people be successful. And hopefully you got
something out of this podcast and it will help you
out in your future. And just again we encourage you
if you really do want to get into a structured
program and really learn the NEEC, whether or not you're
preparing for an exam or an inspector's exam or you
just want to get better at the NEC and have
a resource in your pocket. Our courses don't expire. We
have them for the twenty twenty twenty twenty three NEC.
We have grinding and Bonding. We have even a motor's
course over there video series. Check it out. Folks, we
encourage you. If you just want a good collection of
database questions. We have the database questions that are available
that it's nearly eight hundred exam style questions. Check that out.
We appreciate it and we look forward to seeing you
on an upcoming podcast or watch one of our videos
over on fast Tracks too. We'd love to have you
as a subscriber over there as well. Take care, God
bless and we'll catch you on the next Master the
NEC podcast. Take care.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into another electrifying episode of the Master
the ANC podcast. We hope you're feeling more powered up
and ready to tackle the electrical world with the knowledge
and confidence you need to succeed. Remember, in the electrical grade,
knowledge is power, and we're here to make sure you
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If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave
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the next amazing Master of the NEC podcast episode