I am working on the electrical final exam and noticed that some of the questions aren’t answered in the coursework. Or the question on ther exam is asked differently that how it’s explained in the coursework. I have seen this a few times. Has anyone else noticed this?
Example: one of the questions is asking about bootleg grounded receptacles, but out of all 4 of the available answers you can choose from, none of them are explained in the area of the course that talks about bootleg grounds.
The question is: If the ground wire is connected to the ________, it is considered a false or bootleg grounded receptacle. The available answers are - grounded conductor, grounding wire, receptacle box, ungrounded wire
The course description is: Sometimes referred to as “bootleg” grounds, false grounds occur when the ground terminal on the receptacle has been improperly connected to the neutral.
Yes grounded conductor is the correct answer. You have to wonder why they didn’t use the word neutral conductor instead. For a home inspector the term neutral conductor is really the only one you’ll need to know. And while we’re at it, ground wire is not the correct term either.
LOL. If this were a master electricians exam I can see trying to use uncommon language to trick someone but for an HI the word neutral is good enough.
Is it really necessary for an home inspector to know that by definition every neutral is a grounded conductor but not every grounded conductor is a neutral? Your average sparky doesn’t even know that.
Yea I agree, I can look at the picture and see that it’s wrong. It makes total sense. If one of the available answers was neutral conductor, that would at least been close how it was described in that section of the training. Thanks for the help
Isn’t this a switch? For the past couple of years (as long as he’s been posting) @rmeier2 been crying about HIs not using the correct terminology. He’s claimed the following electrician won’t understand the defect if HIs don’t write it up correctly. Now we can use generic terminology!
No one is advocating limiting what inspector should know, certainly not me. Given my track record and the time I put into providing information to people who come here to learn certainly is contrary to your assertion that I want to limit a home inspector’s knowledge. All I’m saying is that the OP asked this specific question because he found the test question confusing due to the term grounded conductor. The NEC added the definition of Neutral Conductor in the 2008 code cycle because the neutral/grounded conductor thing was very confusing to most.
So IMO the test question should just use the common term neutral which was my point. If they had then there would be no reason for this thread. Is it good that an HI knows the difference between a grounded conductor and a neutral, sure more knowledge is a good thing. Is it necessary to perform a home inspection, no. Using the term grounded conductor for a home inspection is unnecessary and probably obsolete because the 2008 NEC gave us a nice new definition of neutral conductor. It would be better if the training and testing materials reflected that. Just my 2 cents.
