The journeyman exam is the most important test in your electrical career, and it’s worth taking seriously. Most states administer it through a testing vendor (PSI, Prometric, or a state-specific system), and the pass rate on first attempt is typically 50-65% depending on the state. The exam is based on the NEC - usually the most recently adopted code cycle for your state. It’s open book, which means you bring the NEC to the exam, but that’s less of an advantage than it sounds.
Study strategy: start by getting the correct NEC for your state’s adopted cycle. Don’t study the 2023 NEC if your state is still on 2020. Get a practice exam book - Mike Holt’s exam prep materials are widely used and well-regarded. Upstryve has an excellent online platform with practice questions categorized by NEC article. Take practice tests until you’re consistently scoring 80% or better.
Common exam topics: load calculations (Article 220), conductor sizing (310), overcurrent protection, grounding and bonding (250), wiring methods, and motor calculations (Article 430). The motor calculation questions trip people up because of the locked-rotor current rules for motor circuit protection - study Article 430 carefully. Transformer sizing and protection (Article 450) is another area where test writers love to write tricky questions.