Checked against primary sources 2026-09-05

Six weeks, if you have them

Georgia Electrical Exam Study Plan: Six Weeks of Work

This plan is built backwards from the paper rather than forwards from a syllabus. Eight hours, 140 scored questions, a fixed reference list and a scaled 70 to pass, so the hours go where the questions are.

Test yourself: thirty free questions, timed

What you're preparing for

Two four hour parts on one day, with a break between them. 155 items on Class I, 162 on Class II, of which 140 are scored either way.

Thirty of those 140 are business and law. One hundred and ten are technical, split across six areas with published counts.

The pass mark is a final scaled score of 70, and nobody publishes the raw count behind it. Plan to be clear of the line rather than at it.

Week one: buy the books and tab them

You can't practice an open book paper without the books. Order the seven references in week one, because two of them take longer to arrive than you'd like.

Tab the 2023 code from its own table of contents. Tab the NASCLA business book by subject: liens, contracts, employment, insurance, close out. Tab Circular E at the deposit rules and the withholding tables. Tab CFR 1926 at the electrical, fall protection, scaffold and excavation subparts.

Then run the article drill for ten minutes a day for the rest of the six weeks. Lookup speed is the difference between finishing and running out of clock.

Week one, second half: find your real weak spots

Run the diagnostic. Twenty four questions across the main areas, scored per area and ranked worst first.

Then run the free practice test, thirty timed questions with the working shown on every miss.

Write down the two weakest areas. Those get the extra hours in weeks two through four, and everything else gets maintenance.

Weeks two to four: the technical 110

Work the six technical areas in the order the counts give them for your class. On Class I that's interior systems first at 30 questions. On Class II, transformers at 21 and rotating equipment at 16 both move up sharply.

A workable week

1. Two topic sets of 25 questions from the free sets, book open, no clock.
2. One calculator session where you work the problem on paper first and compare the steps, not the totals.
3. One lab: box fill, grounding electrodes, switch wiring or conduit bending.
4. Ten minutes of lookup drill on the days you don't sit down properly.

Log every miss with the section you had to look up. Twenty logged misses point at your two real problems better than any diagnostic can.

Week five: the thirty questions people skip

Give a full week to regulations, laws and administrative functions. It's 30 of 140 scored questions, and it's the block a working electrician has done the least of.

Read the NASCLA book rather than skimming it, and tab as you go. Work through payroll and withholding in Circular E until the vocabulary stops being foreign.

Then read the licensing rules themselves. The contractor page, fees and renewal and continuing education cover the Georgia specific parts, all cited to the board.

Week six: rehearse the day

Sit a four hour block. Not questions in five minute gaps, an actual four hour block with your books, at the time of day your appointment is.

Do it twice in the week, because the paper is two of them. What you're testing is whether your tabs work under pressure and whether your handwriting on scratch arithmetic survives hour three.

Then stop. The night before is for your identification documents and your book bag, not for a new topic.

One thing to keep straight all six weeks

Georgia tests on the 2023 National Electrical Code. Our question sets and tools are written on the 2026 numbering.

The rules and the arithmetic carry across. A short list of section numbers doesn't, and one value doesn't: the dwelling general lighting unit load is a single 3 volt-amperes per square foot in your 2023 book, where the 2026 edition splits it into 3 for branch circuits and 2 for feeders and services.

Which edition the exam uses carries the full list of moved numbers with the 2023 number beside each 2026 one.

If you only have two weeks

Cut it to three things and accept that the rest is luck.

Day one: the diagnostic, then buy and tab the books. Days two to nine: your two weakest technical areas plus the whole business and law block, because thirty questions is too many to leave. Days ten to fourteen: two four hour timed sittings and the lookup drill every day.

Two weeks is enough to fix pacing and lookup speed. It isn't enough to learn an area from nothing, so spend it on what you can move.

Questions people ask

How long should I study for the Georgia electrical exam?

Six weeks of steady work covers the six technical areas and the business and law block without cramming. Two weeks can fix pacing and lookup speed but won't build an area from nothing.

What should I study first?

Buy and tab the seven references, then run the diagnostic to rank your areas worst first. Studying before you know your weak areas spends hours where you're already fine.

How much of the exam is business and law?

Thirty of the 140 scored questions on both papers, a bit over a fifth. The NASCLA Contractors Guide for Georgia is the reference for it.

Do I need to practice with the book open?

Yes. It's an open book paper with a fixed reference list, so finding a rule quickly is part of the skill being tested. Ten minutes of lookup drill a day is worth more than another topic set.

How do I practice the eight hours?

Sit two four hour blocks in your final week, at the time of day your appointment is, with your actual books. The second half of the day is where tired arithmetic costs points.

Are the practice questions written on the right code edition?

They carry the 2026 numbering and Georgia tests on the 2023 book. The rules and arithmetic carry across, and our which edition page lists every section number that differs.

What this page cites

• PSI candidate information bulletin 4783, Georgia electrical contractors PSI's own bulletin for the Georgia electrical contractor examinations. Source for the item counts, the content outline, the eight hours in two parts, the scaled 70, the reference list, the marking rules, the identification rules and the review course after two failures. Read 5 September 2026. source
• Board Rules, Department 121, State Construction Industry Licensing Board The rule set behind the Class I and Class II definitions, the four years of Primary Experience, the four low voltage classes, the minimum score of seventy and the review course after two failures. Read 5 September 2026. source
• Georgia DCA, current state minimum standard codes The page that lists the 2023 National Electrical Code with Georgia Amendments among the mandatory state minimum standard codes. Read 5 September 2026. source
• NEC 2026 renumbering, article by article Our own record of the article and section numbers that changed address between the 2023 and 2026 editions, each one read in the 2026 text before it went on the list. source
• Georgia State Board of Electrical Contractors The board's own landing page, with the restricted and non restricted licenses, the GOALS portal and the renewal dates. Read 5 September 2026. source