The best bit of advice about test taking is kind of silly but it is so true:
Read and understand the question
Answer only the question that was asked
Many people fall into the trap of over thinking questions, also the other common mistake is not reading the question correctly. Our minds have a bad habit of reading what we expect to see rather than what is actually asked.
I suggest for bad exam takers to spend the first 15-20 mins just reading the questions and get used to the style of questions before even attempting to start answering them.
Most good questions have 4 available answers:
1 is plain wrong
1 is wrong as soon as you think about it
1 is designed to throw you as it sounds about right
1 is the only really applicable answer
The NHIE system allows takers to go back to as many questions as you like, so just flag the first 10-15 questions to go back to. Plus don’t forget that you have way more than enough time to get all the way through the questions, the only pressure on the taker is of his her own making.
BTW, watch out for sneaky Ba$tard$ like me who like writing tricky questions.
I found many of the questions not very good and have never been fond of the one best answer kinds of tests. I believe open book tests and harder questions are better. In real life you are going to look up your question if it is something you are not familiar with.
That being said I did pass quickly on the first go round. As the test questions are radomly generated the scoreing from one test to another is hard to compare acurately.
Passing the test does not make one a HI, but it is a start.
Blaine, the website I listed earlier is the EBPHI and when I called them today the helpful lady I talked with was the one who told me the tests are scored between 200-800. She also mentioned that 63% (or a test score of 500) is the passing score, but I understand that some areas require I higher test score to pass. 550 of 800 gets you almost 69%.
To James,
One of the questions I remember in fairly good detail, and it is representative of why I dislike these kind of tests.
Q. A house has a continuous cement sidewalk 15" tall that wraps around the perimeter of the house:
Blaine, the website I listed earlier is the EBPHI and when I called them today the helpful lady I talked with was the one who told me the tests are scored between 200-800. She also mentioned that 63% (or a test score of 500) is the passing score, but I understand that some areas require I higher test score to pass. 550 of 800 gets you almost 69%.
To James,
One of the questions I remember in fairly good detail, and it is representative of why I dislike these kind of tests.
Q. A house has a continuous cement sidewalk 15" tall that wraps around the perimeter of the house:
A. the
Sorry again James, I don’t know what I’m doing to screw up my post. I’ll take another running start here.
Q. A house has a continuous cement sidewalk 15" tall that wraps around the perimeter of a house, your report should state that the:
A. walkway should have a guard rail.
B. walkway should have lighting on all sides of the house.
C. both a & b.
D. neither a or b.
You know that guardrails are safety requirements on decks taller than 30" so the guardrail thing is out which eliminates answers A and C. But then you start second guessing the lighting issue, at least I did. I started thinking, well lighting all the way around the perimeter of the house isn’t a bad idea. Do you see what I mean?
Like I stated earlier, I hate questions like that. I guess the idea is that they are supposed to be representative of real inspecting issues. I worked in construction for 20 years on hundreds of homes and never came across a house with a continuous cement walkway 15" tall that wrapped the perimeter of the house.
I don’t want to get you worried though, not all the questions are that annoying. And you have more than enough time to take the test. I completed the exam in about half of the allotted time, and then spent another hour on the questions that I flagged for review and left the test site with an hour left on the clock.
Again, check out that website, and good luck on your test.
Thanks again Troy. I’m stressed to a degree but I know I’ll do well. Part of it is being forced to take this test. We were told that either 80 hours of HI training or some other HI approved training would be good enough for a license but some ASHI people had it changed to taking the NHIE in order to get a license. My background is 20 years of HVAC, plumbing and electrical trades and taking AHIT’s course. I think that should be enough. I’ll study and be sharp for test day and try not to let the trick questions get to me.
Thanks again everyone.
They will Lobby Legislation Touting an Alleged Independent Exam called…NHIE. Home Inspectors know better. The General Public and Legislators looking for Easy Answers are Easily Fooled.
They will get your Money with a One Time Contribution to ASHI called NHIE.
Packaging can be Misrepresented to Sell any Product. The Product and End Result remain the same…
Joe is correct… and with a required passing score of only 63% needed, there are licensed inspectors out there who don’t know up to 37% of what is on a “MINIMUM” standard exam.
So much for licensing.
The NHIE is why (in part) adopting licensing triples the number of inspectors in the state that adopts it, almost instantly.
Want to triple the number of inspectors and competitors in your state and depress pricing? Now you know how.
Interesting numbers. I can only comment with personal knowledge on what licensing has done here. We went from 50+ inspectors prior to licensing in the county and now have 13. In the adjacent counties in which licensing does not exist, the number of inspectors has doubled, and their pricing is generally $50 to $150 lower than the licensed inspectors charge. Because of that, we obviously have a more difficult time working outside of our county. And when speaking to some of the unlicensed inspectors, they appear to be less qualified, and less thorough.
Here is an example of one of the TRICK ( well not really a trick but…you know )
Q: The dimentions of the working space in the direction of access to panelboards and live parts likely to require examination, adjustment, servicing or maintenance while energized shall be not less than______ in depth.
A.) 36 Inches
B.) 3 Feet
C.) 914 mm
D.) all the above
