Way to go, Tyler!..onward and upward!
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Hi Tyler,
Do you mind if support staff uses your story as an example when we new students ask us how to study for the NHIE?
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I’m happy for you to use my story to help others. I wasn’t sure what to do with regard to studying for the NHIE. I just knew I didn’t have hundreds to buy their study material. I posted that to give others confidence in studying those free NACHI study questions. Thank you
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Tyler,
Yes this is tremendously helpful. I am in Nevada. My test is scheduled on Sept 4. I have been studying what I can, but I have heard horror stories that material on test was not discussed in class, and that the test is a lot of code questions but we aren’t code inspectors… so naturally there’s some concern there.
I plan to complete all the classes in InterNACHI to get their certification, as well as study the practice questions and I am hoping that doing that, plus completing the state required 101 class of 40 hours, I will have a good time passing the test.
Any other recommendations you have, please drop them in chat.
Much appreciated.
David
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Welcome to the forum 
David, You got this.
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Thank you much. I am looking forward to getting this done and starting my new career, this subject matter has always interested me.
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When you are reading your course material highlight the important parts then study them it is a time saver.
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Sir, are you still able to send the questions? Thank you.
I’m going to chime in here, even though I feel like I’m ranting in vain. But I feel that I might be able to help others avoid the frustration and anger felt by me and my 2 sons and my intent is only to everyone to better understand their pursuit to pass their state’s Home Inspector exam.
First of all, I want to say that I do feel the required course of study through InterNACHI is the absolute best where we can learn and apply best methods of home inspection.
However, I want it understand that… not every state uses InterNACHI’s testing standards to build their state exam; we found this out the hard way in hindsight of taking the South Carolina Home Inspector Exam.
So here’s the story…
Over the span of about 3 months, we studied through ALL of InterNACHI’s curriculum and became Certified in all pertinent areas of home inspection in order to actually become Certified through InterNACHI. DONE! With our InterNACHI Certification, in hand, we could finally schedule into our state exam; we were so excited and ready to get it done and get our family business off the ground. We had already spent about four months getting all of our ducks in row, legally getting our business name, copy-written name and logo as well as designing our marketing materials. All we needed to do now, was pass our state exam.
For someone who doesn’t know anything about us, you might easily feel like maybe… my sons and I might not be the brightest bulbs on the tree. To that thought, let me just say we’re all very intelligent. Both of my sons, were “straight A” students through high school with scholarships offered to them to go to college; instead they chose to go into the Marine Corp straight out of high school to serve our country for 5 years. While in the Marine Corp they both received high honors and one son came out with a college degree in Electrical / Mechanical Engineering and the other with certifications in Aviation Mechanics that would allow him to work on any type aircraft; and they both came out with a rank of Corporal in the 2nd Quarter of 2020. For myself, I grew up in construction, but for the past 24 years owned my own commercial insurance agency and sold it to the 5th largest insurance agency in the world. So… to make the point; we’re not the dullest knives in drawer.
We scheduled into the state exam for Tuesday, October 13th.
While waiting for our exam date we were taking InterNACHI’s Final Home Inspector exam every single day, sometimes twice each day up until the exam date; of course never taking the same exam twice, since InterNACHI’s has over 1,000,000,000 exam possibilities. Awesome!
In fact, the day before the exam, on Monday October 12th, I took InterNACHI’s Final Home Inspector Exam (6) SIX times! I passed every single time with a grade of 92 to 96; I just knew that we were about to walk into PSI’s testing center the following morning and knock this test out of the park. I had no doubts!
The morning of the exam, we were all three excited to get there and get this done. One by one, we each walked out of the PSI testing center feeling like we had just been kicked in the nuts. All three of us failed the exam! What the hell just happened?
Frankly, I was upset to say the least and I returned home searching for answers. I took full responsibility, feeling like I had somehow missed something and misled my sons; that’s a horrible feeling!
I immediately began searching for what went wrong only to conclude that different states have different testing standards and not all states build their state exam from InterNACHI’s Final Home Inspection exam or InterNACHI’s Ultimate Practice Questions; and that includes SOP.
In fact, what you need to understand is, for us in SC, there were only about 10% of InterNACHI’s material that was even relevant to our South Carolina exam questions. It was a rude awakening only 20 questions into the exam; we all knew at that point we were in trouble.
After failing the exam, we found out that South Carolina only uses the NHIE (National Home Inspection Exam) Manuals and the ASHI (American Society of Home Inspectors) for the Standards Of Practice.
Is the NHIE study material that different from InterNACHI? I’m here to report that only about 10% of what we studied through InterNACHI may have be on our state exam; maybe 10%!
It was night and day different for us. In fact, the method of which our state exam questions were written was unlike anything we had studied through InterNACHI. We might as well have walked into take our state exam without ever having cracked the books of InterNACHI; it was that much of a difference.
How could we have missed this? How could I have missed this?
I felt totally responsible for not having dug deeper to find out more about South Carolina’s Home Inspector exam methods; rather I trusted that everything we had studied to gain our certification through InterNACHI would be enough; boy… was I ever wrong!
Now 1 of our 3 times to take the exam inside 12 months had been burned. I was disheartening and a big disappointment; but we are not quitters. Marines don’t know how to quite or give up but only intensify their fight and pursue their attack with even more focus; only attack, destroy and accomplish the mission.
We immediately began to refocus, trying to figure out what we had done wrong and what we needed to do in order to correct our studies and prepare ourselves to take the exam again at least 30 days out. We are now in that process about to retake the South Carolina Home Inspector Exam.
I realize that by InterNACHI’s standards for becoming Certified through InterNACHI, their test is absolutely spot on, the best. I have no hard feelings towards InterNACHI, since we have learned a tremendous amount of information that absolutely applies to home inspection out in the field and it absolutely applies to becoming Certified through InterNACHI; unfortunately, it just didn’t apply to our state’s exam.
However, what would have been nice to know on the front end from InterNACHI is the fact that some states do not use InterNACHI as their model for building their state exam. Maybe that light bulb is embedded somewhere on InterNACHI’s site and I missed it.
Understand, whenever we began our adventure of determining what organization we were going to go through to become certified, there were two things that caught our attention. One, InterNACHI being the only home inspector organization that is accredited by the U.S. Department of Education. And two, we first made a phone call to InterNACHI and spoke with someone who told us emphatically that if we could pass InterNACHI’s Final Certification Exam that we should have no problem passing our state exam; and those are the very reasons we chose InterNACHI out of the gate and looked no further. And that’s my fault; I looked no further. Not understanding that InterNACHI might not be enough for our state’s exam since South Carolina didn’t build their exam from InterNACHI’s testing methods. But to be clear, we do still believe that InterNACHI is the best!
In hindsight, now moving forward, we would like to see InterNACHI make a change on this front and inform prospective members / Home Inspectors up front that their state might not adhere to InterNACHI’s standard of testing. No doubt, this is what needs to be done.
What I feel like InterNACHI could easily do, is create a U.S. map on their website, that when your state is clicked on, would indicate whether or not your state has adopted InterNACHI’s testing methods or instead uses the NHIE (National Home Inspector Exam) for their testing method; to me, this should be an easy fix. I also believe a step by step outline for each state’s testing is in order.
So this should be a head up for all newly Certified Home Inspectors through InterNACHI that BEFORE you take your state’s Home Inspector Exam, you absolutely need to find out what your state’s testing methods are built on; InterNACHI or NHIE.
I will leave a few links here that I feel may be of help.
To start; look up your state’s Department of LLR (Labor Licensing Regulation); I believe each state has its own. Once there, search for “Residential Builders Commission” and you should be able to find information about your state’s Home Inspector Exam. If you can’t find it, call them and get’s some direction to find what you need. For South Carolina: https://www.llr.sc.gov/res/
Look up PSI Exams for your state: https://candidate.psiexams.com/
PSI Exams for South Carolina: (READ THIS document from your state!) This document should tell you exactly how your states method of testing was composed and what material you should be studying for your state’s home inspector exam. https://candidate.psiexams.com/bulletin/display_bulletin.jsp?ro=yes&actionname=83&bulletinid=107&bulletinurl=.pdf
Also, you need to find out if your state requires an additional exam, such as Business Management and Law. For South Carolina, we are required to pass both the SC Home Inspector Exam and the SC Business Management and Law exam.
What I found was a prep exam course for the SC Business Management and Law course through Certified Training Institute. https://www.certifiedtraininginstitute.com/ Well worth the $100.
Also, while there you’ll find the Business Management and Law manual for purchase in their Bookstore at: https://www.licensetobuild.com/bookstore/
Choose your state, and find the book; I paid $94 for mine and I recommend buying the tabs for this book which is only another $7.
Here’s a link to NHIE (National Home Inspector Exam): https://nationalhomeinspectorexam.org/
…and a link to NHIE’s study material: https://nationalhomeinspectorexam.org/books/
You might also be interested in purchasing NHIE’s Practice Quizzes: https://nationalhomeinspectorexam.org/practice-quizzes/
And lastly what I found that has probably been more helpful toward our study efforts specific to the PSI / NHIE Exam is a FREE online study type forum called Quizlet. https://quizlet.com
Here you can find sets of flashcards that were specifically built to study PSI / NHIE Exams. In fact, you can find just about any type of study material for any type of state exam here. Create your own free profile and then you’ll be able to find study sets that other people have already created and then you can pull those study sets directly into your own free profile. You can then add them to your own study sets with choices to combine or manipulate to your liking by way of multiple choice, fill in the blank, match, etc. This tool is awesome!
I hope this information is helpful to everyone who is searching. I wish I had been told this information on the front end and I feel it would have saved a tremendous amount of time and frustration.
Best of wishes to everyone!
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Hey Joseph. I know it has been awhile since this post, but could you please send me all the questions and answers you have?
Thanks
Steve
Hi Joseph, could you please send me these question and answer keys , I failed the test last time and really want to pass it this time . Thanks in advance.
Study, and Study more. 
yeah, study and study, but there is one thing that I still don’t understand… I thought that the pool related questions were taken out from the NHIE exam, but I was still able to see them in the test, did I miss anything?
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Hello guys~~~ I took NHIE test it was so hard !! can you please send me 980 questions
I have not passed it 3times and am on my 4th next month. Please send me a those question
tommyny8086@gmail.com
this is my e-mail. please send me question and answer plz…
Do anyone have answers… I am sure i am still getting half wrong. Can anyone email at sid.sapphire@gmail.com… it will be great help.
Welcome to our forum, Sid!..Enjoy! 
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I admire people that pass a test based on their knowledge and not cheating answers. Your my competition…bring it!
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