If you’re preparing for the electrical exam and staring at your NEC 2023 code book like it’s some ancient puzzle box, don’t worry, you’re not alone. But here’s the truth: You don’t need to memorize the NEC. You just need to know how to use it the way it was designed to be used—efficiently, strategically, and under pressure. This is what we teach our students inside our prep course, and it’s one of the biggest differences between those who pass and those who freeze up during the test.
The Test Isn’t Just About Knowing the Code—It’s About Knowing How to Use It
The Journeyman and Master electrician exams are full of real-world scenarios. You’re not being asked to recite the code word-for-word—you’re being asked to interpret it, apply it, and find what you need fast.
Speed matters. Accuracy matters more.
Which brings us to strategy.
Know the High-Yield Articles
Some NEC Articles are tested more heavily than others. If you’re short on study time (and let’s be honest, most of us are), here’s where to focus first:
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110 – General Requirements
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250 – Grounding & Bonding
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310 – Conductors
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314 – Boxes & Enclosures
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430 – Motors
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Service calculations – Don’t avoid them. Learn them.
These areas show up again and again. Know how to navigate them, and you’ll save time and earn points.
Use the Right Edition (This Matters More Than You Think)
Sounds obvious, right? But we’ve seen it happen: someone walks into the exam room confident, only to realize they studied from the wrong edition. And guess what? They fail.
If the exam is based on the 2023 NEC, then you need to train with the 2023 NEC. No exceptions.
Pro Highlighting Tip: Make the Parts Pop
This is one of our favorite tips—and almost nobody else teaches it:
Use a completely different color highlighter just for the Parts (Part I, II, III, etc.) of an Article. Especially for large ones like 110, 230, 240, 250, 430, 680, etc.
Why? Because those Part headings are small. They blend in. And when you’re flipping pages under time pressure, they vanish.
Use your main color for the body of code, then use a second color to highlight every “Part I,” “Part II,” and so on. This trains your eye to spot where a section begins—and makes hunting through the NEC 10x easier.
Bottom Line:
The NEC isn’t your enemy. It’s your open-book advantage—if you know how to use it.
Train with it. Tab it. Highlight it with purpose. Practice with it under timed conditions.
Because when test day comes, you don’t want to be reading—you want to be finding.
Ready for more test-day strategies like this?
👉 Check out our online NEC exam prep course and start sharpening your skills today.
