What's on the Chicago Supervising Electrician Exam?

What's on the Chicago Supervising Electrician Exam?

The Chicago Supervising Electrician (General) exam has 150 four-option questions in 4 hours, on paper, and you need 70. Continental Testing Services (CTS) publishes the outline in its study guide. The exam has two parts: 25 questions on electrical principles and practices and 125 on the Chicago Electrical Code.

Part I: Electrical Principles and Practices (25 questions)

CTS names the American Electrician's Handbook (16th edition) as the reference for this part and 29 CFR 1926 for the safety questions. Neither book is allowed in the exam room, so these questions are answered from what you know and from the calculator: Ohm's law, power and power factor, three-phase delta and wye relationships, transformer current, and voltage drop. The OSHA questions come from the construction standard (1926), especially Subpart K on electrical safety.

Part II: Chicago Electrical Code (125 questions)

CTS says the answers to more than 75% of the questions are in the 2018 Chicago Electrical Code, and most can be found through the book's index or by section number. Our full-length practice exam uses the middle of each range, adjusted to total 150.

The code is the 2017 NEC, as Chicago amends it

The 2018 Chicago Electrical Code is the 2017 NEC with Chicago's changes in Title 14E of the Municipal Code, in force since March 1, 2018. Chicago has not adopted a newer NEC. The changes matter on this exam, because Chicago rewrites some national rules, adds articles of its own and drops others. A few examples from Title 14E:

• Authority having jurisdiction means the commissioner of buildings, and "approved" equipment must carry the label of an approved testing laboratory; self-certification is not accepted.
• A high-rise building is one more than 80 ft above grade.
• Branch-circuit conductor colors are fixed: black, red and blue at 150 volts to ground or less; brown, orange and yellow above that (210.5(C)(1)).
• Type NM cable is limited to temporary wiring and limited extensions of knob-and-tube circuits in existing dwellings of three stories or less (334.10). Type AC and MC cable are allowed only fished into existing walls and ceilings, with no more than 25 ft between boxes, or in short exposed lengths of 6 ft or less (320.10, 330.10).
• Chicago does not adopt several NEC articles, including electrical nonmetallic tubing (362), liquidtight flexible nonmetallic conduit (356) and flat cable assemblies (322).
• Chicago adds its own Article 560, Residential Occupancies, and replaces NEC Article 700 with its own emergency systems article built around System I, II and III emergency lighting.

When a question turns on one of these rules, the national answer is wrong in Chicago. Learn where Title 14E changes the articles you use most, and tab them.

City law: Titles 2, 4 and 13

The 8 to 10 city-law questions come from a CTS handout, "Selected Provisions of Titles 2, 4 and 13," which CTS gives every candidate at the exam and lets you download to study. It covers:

• Title 2: the Department of Buildings and the commissioner's powers.
• Title 4: electrical contractor registration (Chapter 4-290) and supervising electricians: qualifications, duties, notice when one leaves a contractor, and re-examination (Chapter 4-292).
• Title 13: suspension of permit and license privileges, electrical permits and inspections, wires and poles on the public way, unlawful use of equipment, overfusing, cutting off power, and fines (Chapters 13-8, 13-12 and 13-20).

The handout reflects the code as of December 13, 2017. In 2019 Chicago moved these administrative rules into Title 14A, but the exam still uses the old Title 13 numbering, so study the handout, not current Title 14A.

Older questions

CTS's bank still holds some items written for older code editions, with legacy wording or article numbers. When a question names a section that no longer exists, find the rule by its subject in the 2018 book's index.

How to study

1. Tab the 2018 Chicago Electrical Code by article, and mark where Title 14E changes the national text. Notes and highlighting are not allowed in the exam book; tabs are.
2. Read the Titles 2, 4 and 13 handout once through. It is short, and the same copy is in front of you during the exam.
3. Drill the principles part with a calculator: delta and wye, power factor and voltage drop come up in several areas.
4. Practice finding answers quickly: 150 questions in 4 hours is about 1.6 minutes each.

Start with our free, untimed Chicago Supervising Electrician sample test. Every question cites the 2017 NEC, Title 14E, Municipal Code or OSHA section it comes from. With a subscription you can also take full-length practice exams in Timed Exam mode. For eligibility, fees and exam dates, see the requirements.