There is no single pace on this exam, because there is no single paper

Two clocks, and two paces

TDLR split the journeyman examination on 11 March 2025 into a knowledge portion and a calculations portion. The master examination was already built that way. Each portion carries its own item count, its own time limit and its own 70 percent standard, and time left over on one stays where it is.

So the average that matters is the one inside the portion you are sitting. A journeyman answers 59 knowledge items against 130 minutes, which is 2.2 minutes each, then 26 calculation items against 110 minutes, which is 4.2. A master runs 2.0 minutes an item on the knowledge portion and 5.2 on the calculations portion. Counting scored items alone those four figures come out at 2.3, 4.6, 2.1 and 5.7.

Both bases are worth knowing and the one to pace against is the total, because PSI adds time for the items that do not count toward your result and says so in the bulletin. Pacing against the scored count builds a plan that believes it has room it does not have. The journeyman paper and the master paper carry the full item counts with their sources.

Checkpoints you can read off the screen

The screen counts down, so a checkpoint works better as a clock reading than as elapsed time. The arithmetic is the same on every portion. When the countdown has halved, you want half the items behind you. When a quarter of the time is left, you want three quarters of them done.

The clock column is the countdown reading on the screen. The item counts and time limits are PSI's and the quartering is ours, and it assumes an even pace, which nobody sits. So treat a checkpoint as a question. Four items behind at the halfway reading means the next twenty minutes go to banking quick ones.

Being ahead is information too. On a portion that is going well the spare minutes have no other use, because they do not follow you to the second portion, so an early finish is worth less than a slow re-read of the four items you were unsure about.

What the software allows

Two sentences in the bulletin decide the whole shape of a pacing method and neither one is widely quoted. The first says one question appears on the screen at a time, with the minutes remaining displayed at the top and updated as you record your answers. The second says that after you have entered your responses you will later be able to return to any question and change your response, provided the examination time has not run out.

Read together they settle two things. The paper never appears as a whole, so surveying it and picking off the easy items first is a move that does not exist here. And anything you have already answered can be revisited while the clock runs.

No flag or marker is described anywhere in the bulletin, so build your plan on a record you keep yourself. Electronic notepads are provided and nothing else is, so that notepad is where your list of item numbers to revisit lives, and keeping it is the single habit that makes a second pass possible. Test day covers what else reaches the workstation, which is very little.

A two pass method

Five moves, and the one people skip is the first.

1. Answer every item before you leave it, even when the answer is a guess. Returning to change a response is documented in the bulletin. Returning to fill a blank you never touched is something nobody has promised you.
2. Write the item number on the notepad when you leave one unresolved, with one word for why. Two minutes later you will have lost track of which of the four you meant.
3. Run the first pass at the checkpoint pace and let the awkward ones go. On the knowledge portion the expensive habit is browsing near the right article. On the calculations portion it is restarting a chain from the top.
4. Second pass: work the numbered list, longest chain first while the clock is healthy and shortest first once it is tight.
5. Last few minutes: re-read the items you guessed before the items you worked, because a guess is where a minute buys the most.

When one item eats the clock

Set the abandon threshold before you sit down and set it as a clock reading, because a question you almost have does not feel like four minutes while you are inside it.

A workable version is two items of budget and no more. On a knowledge item that is about four and a half minutes. On a journeyman calculation item it is about eight and a half, and on a master one closer to ten. Past that you have stopped working the item and started funding it out of the ones you have not read yet.

Before you abandon a calculation, spend thirty seconds on the three places a chain usually breaks. Our own question bank records a reason against every wrong option it carries, and these three recur across every calculation area.

• One factor applied where two multiply. Ambient correction and conductor count adjustment are separate and they compound, and applying either one alone lands on a number that is frequently sitting in the options.
• The wrong column against the termination. A conductor started in a higher temperature column and never checked against the lowest rated termination in the path produces a clean and plausible wrong ampacity. The conductor sizing questions are where that one lives.
• A one way length in a voltage drop. The tape measure reads one way and the calculation wants the round trip, so the answer comes out at exactly half.

If your figure is missing from the options, running the same arithmetic again reproduces the same error, because the error is in the setup and the keystrokes were fine. Check those three, record your best option, note the number and move. Write the value you have on the notepad with its basis beside it in four words, because a second pass that starts from a written figure costs a fraction of one that starts from a blank screen.

Guessing, and what is published

This one is a reading of published material and it is worth marking as such.

PSI states the standard as a minimum score of 70 percent on each portion. Nothing PSI or TDLR publishes describes a penalty for a wrong answer or says how blanks are treated. A blank cannot be a correct answer, and the sentence about returning to change a response describes returning to responses you have already entered.

So the position the documents support is to put something on every item as you pass it and improve it later where the clock allows. If you want that confirmed in writing, PSI is the organization that can confirm it, and it is a fair question to ask when you book. Where the published documents fall silent we say so, which is the same treatment the eligibility period gets on the score report page.

What our bank shows about hard items

Our bank runs 500 questions with a difficulty grade on each one, and the spread explains why a pacing plan built on an average misfires. Ninety six items sit at the hardest level and 236 at the level below it, so two thirds of the bank sits in the range where a chain has more than one step or an article number has moved.

Fifty one of the 500 sit in the exam administration area, and eleven of those 51 are at the hardest level. That is a heavier share of hard items than the bank as a whole carries, and the reason is that a navigation question puts four plausible article numbers in front of you and every wrong one holds real text. Those items eat minutes quietly, because you feel productive the whole time you are reading the wrong section. Finding the rule in the book is the counter to that particular clock loss.

The practical consequence for pacing is that the expensive item on the knowledge portion looks cheap while you are in it. Two minutes is the budget, four and a half is the ceiling, and a note on the pad costs eight seconds.

Practice against a clock from week one

Untimed practice teaches the material and teaches nothing about the failure it is being used to prevent. Put the clock on in the first week, at the pace of the portion you are practicing, and treat an overrun as an error worth logging even on an item you got right.

The two portions want two different rehearsals. Knowledge drills are short and repetitive and they train the decision about where to look. Calculation drills are long and few and they train a sequence. Practicing both in one evening at one pace trains an average, and no portion of this examination measures an average. The four week plan puts those two rehearsals in an order.

The worked arithmetic behind every chain you will be timing yourself on lives in the question set, which handles the method step by step. Here the subject is the clock. Thirty free timed questions will give you a first reading on your own pace tonight, and the timer is yours to switch on.

Questions people ask

How long is the Texas journeyman electrician exam?

One hundred and thirty minutes for the NEC Knowledge portion and 110 minutes for the Calculations portion. The two run on separate clocks and minutes left on one stay where they are. Measured on the total items in front of you, 59 and 26, that is about 2.2 minutes for a knowledge item and about 4.2 for a calculation. Measured on scored items alone, 56 and 24, it comes out at 2.3 and 4.6. Pace against the total, because PSI adds the time for the unscored pretest items and you sit for them either way.

What pace should you keep on the Texas electrician exam?

Read it off the countdown. When the clock has halved you want half the items behind you, and when a quarter of the time is left you want three quarters of them done. On the journeyman knowledge portion that is thirty answered at clock 65 and forty four at clock 33. On the journeyman calculations portion it is thirteen answered at clock 55 and twenty at clock 27. The item counts and time limits are published and the quartering is our own, so treat a checkpoint as a question about the next twenty minutes.

Can you skip questions and come back on the Texas exam?

You can return to a question and change a response, which the bulletin states directly, provided the examination time has not run out. What the bulletin never promises is a flag or a marker, and it never describes returning to an item you left blank. So the safe method is to answer everything as you pass it, even where the answer is a guess, and keep your own list of item numbers to revisit on the electronic notepad the room provides. One question appears on the screen at a time, so surveying the whole paper first is a move that does not exist here.

When should you give up on a question and move on?

Set the threshold as a clock reading before you sit, because an item you almost have does not feel like four minutes while you are inside it. Two items of budget and no more is workable: about four and a half minutes on a knowledge item, eight and a half on a journeyman calculation, closer to ten on a master one. Past that you are funding the item out of ones you have not read. Before you leave a calculation, check the three places a chain breaks, then record your best option and write the number down.

Is there a penalty for guessing on the Texas electrician exam?

Nothing PSI or TDLR publishes describes a penalty for a wrong answer or says how blanks are treated. The published standard is a minimum score of 70 percent on each portion. A blank cannot be a correct answer, and the sentence about returning to change a response describes responses you have already entered. So the position the documents support is to put something on every item as you pass it and improve it later where the clock allows. PSI is the organization that can confirm that, and it is a fair question to ask when you book.

Does time left on one portion carry over to the other?

No. Each portion carries its own item count, its own time limit and its own 70 percent standard, and the bulletin states that time left on your first portion does not roll over into the next administration. So an early finish produces minutes with no other use, and the best thing to spend them on is a slow re-read of the items you guessed. That is also why the average that matters is the one inside the portion you are sitting: 2.2 minutes an item on journeyman knowledge and 4.2 on journeyman calculations.