The rating of a branch circuit comes off the overcurrent device, and the Texas paper tests the direction

Where this sits on the paper

Ratings sit inside the heaviest block on the Texas journeyman knowledge portion. Branch circuits and conductors carries 10 of the 56 scored items there, tied with wiring methods and materials and with equipment and devices. On the calculations half, branch circuit calculations and conductors carries 4 of 24, tied with services for the largest share.

Ratings earn a page of their own because they sit underneath other items. An item about permitted loads needs the rating settled first, and so does one about which receptacle may go on a circuit or how much continuous load it may carry. Each of them hands you a plausible wrong answer if you settled it the wrong way.

The 500-question bank shows the same layering. Thirty-three of the 500 questions turn on a continuous load, spread across seven of the eight subject areas, with 10 in conductor sizing and 10 in motors. Both journeyman portions pass at 70 percent and are scored separately, and in fiscal year 2025 the calculations portion passed 1,301 of 6,328 candidates while the knowledge portion passed 1,402 of 5,731.

The direction the reading runs

A branch circuit is rated at the maximum permitted ampere rating or setting of the overcurrent device protecting it. Article 210 says so in a short section near the front, and almost everything else in this subject follows from it.

So a 12 AWG conductor on a 15-ampere breaker is a 15-ampere circuit, and what may be connected, which receptacles may sit on it and how much continuous load it may carry are all read off the device.

Candidates invert this constantly and the reason is honest. The conductor physically carries the current, so it feels like the thing being rated. In the code the conductor sets a ceiling on which device you may install, and once the device is chosen, the device is the rating.

The bank carries this as a plain item too. A branch circuit is wired with conductors of higher ampacity than the device protecting them, and the question asks which of the two gives the circuit its rating. The trap line on the conductor option says it in a phrase: heavier conductors pulled to hold voltage drop down leave the circuit the size it was.

How the rating gets settled

Before the device can be read, it has to be chosen, and that part is conductor arithmetic.

1. Size the conductor for the load, correct it for ambient temperature and adjust it for conductor count, then compare the result against the termination limit in NEC 110.14(C).
2. Find the largest standard device that conductor may have, applying the next higher standard rating permission at NEC 240.4(B) where its three conditions are met.
3. Hold the small conductor sizes to the cap at NEC 240.4(D), whatever the derating produced.

The device you land on is the rating. Write it in the margin before answering anything about loads.

The 240.4(B) conditions are where the bank puts its traps. One question gives a corrected and adjusted ampacity of 42 amperes on a branch circuit supplying several receptacles for cord-and-plug-connected portable loads, and the answer is 40, because that circuit is one of the kinds the rounding permission shuts out. A near-identical question with a feeder at 244 amperes gives 250. Same arithmetic, different answer, and the stem tells you which case you're in.

That layering is why order matters under a clock. Working the load question before the rating is settled means holding two unknowns at once. Conductor sizing and ampacity carries the correction and adjustment side.

What a circuit of that rating may supply

Article 210 sets out permitted loads by circuit rating, and knowing the shape of that section beats remembering one row of it.

The smaller ratings are general purpose. They feed lighting outlets, general use receptacles and cord-and-plug-connected equipment, with a limit on how much of the circuit a single piece of that equipment may take. The permitted loads narrow as the rating climbs, and at the top of the range they are few and named, with general use receptacles left out. An option putting ordinary receptacles on a large circuit is there to be eliminated.

The clause candidates forget is the fraction. Where a circuit supplies a cord-and-plug-connected piece of equipment alongside other loads, that piece is limited to a share of the circuit rating. The bank has a clean example: a cord-connected room air conditioner on a 20-ampere circuit that also supplies lighting is held to 50 percent of the rating under Article 440, and to 80 percent where the circuit supplies nothing else. The stem decides which by telling you what else is on the circuit.

An individual branch circuit supplies only one piece of utilization equipment, so the restrictions written for circuits with more than one outlet leave it alone. That is why the same appliance can be the wrong answer on one circuit and the right answer on another of identical rating. The phrase doing the work sits in the stem: supplies only, or individual branch circuit.

Receptacle rating against circuit rating

A single receptacle installed on an individual branch circuit has an ampere rating at least equal to the rating of the circuit. One receptacle alone on its own circuit can be asked for the whole thing, so it has to be able to take the whole thing.

Where a circuit has more than one receptacle on it, a receptacle rated below the circuit rating is allowed, and the permitted pairings sit in a short table in Article 210. The reasoning is diversity: two receptacles are unlikely to be loaded to the full rating at the same instant.

The trap here is a definition. A single receptacle is one contact device on its own yoke, so the duplex you install without thinking is two receptacles and the first rule above never reached it. Items get written on that distinction on purpose, because it separates candidates who read Article 100 from candidates who assumed they knew the words.

The same yoke-counting habit pays off in the calculation article. NEC 120.14 assigns 180 volt-amperes to each single or multiple receptacle on one yoke, and one bank question counts 96 outlets in a commercial space for 17,280 volt-amperes. The option at 34,560 belongs to whoever counted each face of a duplex.

Where the 125 percent lives now

The ceiling on what a branch circuit may carry lives in the load calculation article. NEC 120.11 caps it twice over: the total load stays within the rating of the circuit, and it stays within the maximum loads that 120.11(A) through 120.11(C) set for particular kinds of load under the conditions those subdivisions name.

That is a limit on the load. The continuous load rule is separate, and the two get fused so often that the 2026 edition wrote a sentence to keep them apart. NEC 120.5(E) is new in this book, titled Percent Multiplier, and it releases a load calculation from carrying continuous loads at 125 percent. The note gives the reason plainly: continuous duty drives the size of the conductor and of the overcurrent device, a different question from how many volt-amperes the installation draws.

Two questions with two homes. How much load is there gets answered in Article 120. What the copper and the breaker have to survive gets answered at NEC 210.19 for a branch circuit, and at NEC 215.4 and NEC 215.5 for a feeder conductor and its device. The bank has a question built on that seam, and the trap line on the wrong option is worth quoting to yourself: the habit belongs to sizing, and most study material carries it into every calculation.

Feeders works the same multiplier from the other side, and the worked arithmetic for both sits in the question set.

The 80 percent shorthand

Somebody turned arithmetic into a slogan. One divided by eight tenths is one and a quarter, so where every ampere on a circuit is continuous, holding the load to 80 percent of the device matches raising the device to 125 percent of the load.

Put one noncontinuous ampere on that circuit and the two stop agreeing. The code adds the noncontinuous load at full value and applies the increase only to the continuous portion, which NEC 210.19 does for a branch circuit. One bank question puts a feeder at 44 amperes noncontinuous and 52 continuous and asks for minimum conductor ampacity. The answer is 109, and the option at 120 belongs to whoever applied 125 percent to the whole load.

The case that costs the most points is the circuit carrying no continuous load at all. Its total load may reach the full rating of the circuit under NEC 120.11, so a candidate treating 80 percent as a rule will call a good installation overloaded, or size the conductor a step high and find that answer waiting on the list.

Carry the code's own direction. The increase is something you do to the conductor and the device, and it reaches the load running for three hours or more. A bank question puts the whole definition of a continuous load in that phrase, and its trap lines come from moving one of the two objects and leaving the other.

Reading the stem under the clock

You get about 4.2 minutes an item on the calculations portion and about 2.2 on the knowledge portion. Most of the saving here comes from deciding what kind of question you're holding before you open the book.

Before test day, tab Article 210 at the rating section and at the permitted loads section, tab 240.4(B) with 240.4(D), and flag 120.5(E) because it is new and it settles a question people answer from memory. Then run thirty free timed questions and check which direction you read the rating when you're hurrying.

Questions people ask

Is a branch circuit rated by the wire or by the breaker?

By the breaker. A branch circuit is rated at the maximum permitted ampere rating or setting of the overcurrent device protecting it, so a 12 AWG conductor on a 15-ampere breaker gives you a 15-ampere circuit. The conductor decides which devices you are allowed to install, and once the device is in, the device is the rating. The clean test is a conductor upsized for voltage drop: the loads permitted, the receptacles permitted and the continuous load allowed all stay exactly where they were.

Where does the 125 percent for continuous loads apply in the 2026 code?

On the conductor and on the overcurrent device. For a branch circuit that is NEC 210.19, and for a feeder it is NEC 215.4 for the conductor and NEC 215.5 for the device. The load calculation article keeps clear of it: NEC 120.5(E), titled Percent Multiplier, is new in the 2026 edition and it releases a load calculation from carrying continuous loads at 125 percent. The informational note explains why, since continuous duty drives conductor size and device size, which is a separate question from how many volt-amperes the installation draws.

Is a duplex receptacle a single receptacle?

No. Article 100 defines a single receptacle as one contact device on its own yoke, so a duplex is two receptacles. That matters twice. The rule requiring a receptacle rated at least equal to the circuit applies to a single receptacle on an individual branch circuit, and a duplex there never triggered it. It matters again in the load calculation, where NEC 120.14 assigns 180 volt-amperes to each single or multiple receptacle on one yoke, so a duplex counts once.

Is there an 80 percent rule for branch circuits?

No general one. The 80 percent figure is arithmetic that became a slogan, because one divided by eight tenths is one and a quarter. It agrees with the code only where every ampere on the circuit is continuous. The code adds noncontinuous load at full value and raises only the continuous portion, so a mixed circuit gives two different answers. Where nothing on the circuit is continuous, the total load may reach the full rating of the circuit under NEC 120.11.

When can I round up to the next standard overcurrent device?

Only where all three conditions in NEC 240.4(B) hold, and one of them shuts out a branch circuit supplying more than one receptacle for cord-and-plug-connected portable loads. Our bank puts the two cases side by side: a feeder at 244 amperes rounds to 250, while a branch circuit with several such receptacles at 42 amperes drops to 40. The arithmetic is identical and the stem tells you which case you are in, so read what the circuit supplies before you round.

How much time do I get per question on the Texas journeyman exam?

The NEC Knowledge portion runs 130 minutes over 59 items, which is about 2.2 minutes each, and the Calculations portion runs 110 minutes over 26 items, which is about 4.2 minutes each. Fifty-six knowledge items and 24 calculation items are scored, and the rest are unscored pretest items mixed in with no marking to tell them apart. Pace on the total item count, because a plan built on scored items alone runs out of clock.