Twenty prompts on a clock. Each one is a job you would look up in the book, and you pick the chapter, the article or the section out of four. Every answer is checked against the 2026 code text, and the article index it draws from is printed further down.
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Level one asks which of the nine chapters holds the rule, which is the shape of the book. Level two asks for the article number out of four, and the four are usually neighbours in the same chapter. Level three names the article first and asks which section inside it, using seventeen of the sections the exam comes back to.
An open book exam does not test whether you know the rule. It tests whether you can find it while the clock runs, and the candidates who run out of time are almost always the ones who searched the index on every question.
Twenty prompts is about what a heavy question costs you in lookups. Play level two until the article number arrives before you finish reading the prompt, then use the practice exam to put the rule to work.
The book opens with Article 90, an introduction that is not part of any chapter, and then runs nine chapters. 90.3 is the section that describes the order, and it is worth reading once because it decides where you look first.
Chapters 1 through 4 apply generally. General requirements and definitions are chapter 1, wiring and protection is chapter 2, wiring methods and materials is chapter 3, and equipment for general use is chapter 4. If a rule applies to any installation anywhere, it lives in one of those four.
Chapters 5 through 8 supplement or modify what came before them. Chapter 5 is written for specific occupancies and locations, chapter 6 for specific equipment, chapter 7 for specific conditions and systems, and chapter 8 for communications systems outside and entering buildings. That is why a pool question sends you to Article 680 even though the wiring method also has to satisfy chapter 3.
Chapter 9 is tables, and they apply where another rule references them. Conduit fill lands on Table 1 and Table 4, conductor resistance and circular mils land on Table 8, and neither one is a rule until a section in the first eight chapters points you at it. The informative annexes after chapter 9 are not requirements at all.
The trap on an exam question is the second half of that arrangement. A candidate reads about a gas station and goes straight to chapter 5, which is right, but a candidate reads about a motor in a spray booth and stops at Article 430 without checking Article 516. The article that names the occupancy is the one that gets to modify the general rule.
One more thing that costs people time on the 2026 edition: numbers move between editions. The load calculation article is 120 in this edition and it sits in chapter 1, and inside Article 300 the section on conductors of the same circuit is 300.5 while underground installations is 300.7. This game asks for the 2026 number, which is the number on the exam.
The race shows a metal box is being installed to carry a paddle fan and you need the support rule, and offers 314, 410, 422 and 424.
The answer is Article 314. Boxes, conduit bodies and the fittings that support them are the scope of Article 314, and the support of a box that will carry a fan is inside it. Article 410 is the luminaire article and it is the tempting wrong turn, because the fan hangs where a luminaire would.
At level one the same prompt has a different answer. A box is a wiring method, so the chapter is chapter 3, and the four options are chapters rather than articles. At level three the prompt would name Article 314 first and ask which section, which is a different search again: 314.16 for the volume in the box, 314.23 for how it is supported, 314.27 for the outlet box that carries a fan.
| Chapter | Title | Articles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | General | 100 to 130 |
| 2 | Wiring and Protection | 200 to 270 |
| 3 | Wiring Methods and Materials | 300 to 398 |
| 4 | Equipment for General Use | 400 to 495 |
| 5 | Specific Occupancies and Locations | 500 to 590 |
| 6 | Specific Equipment | 600 to 695 |
| 7 | Specific Conditions and Systems | 700 to 772 |
| 8 | Communications Systems Outside and Entering Buildings | 800 to 830 |
| 9 | Tables | no articles |
Article 90, the introduction, sits ahead of chapter 1 and belongs to none of them. It is the article that says what the code covers, how it is arranged and who enforces it.
| Section | What lives there |
|---|---|
| 210.8 | Ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection for personnel |
| 210.52 | The receptacle outlets a dwelling unit has to have, and their spacing |
| 240.4 | Protecting conductors at their ampacity, including the small conductor ceiling |
| 250.66 | Sizing the ac grounding electrode conductor |
| 250.122 | Sizing equipment grounding conductors from the device ahead of them |
| 300.5 | Single conductors, and keeping the conductors of one circuit together |
| 310.16 | Table 310.16, the ampacities for conductors in a raceway, a cable or the earth |
| 314.16 | The number of conductors a box may hold, by volume |
| 404.2 | The requirement that switches be listed |
| 408.36 | Overcurrent protection ahead of a panelboard |
| 430.22 | Conductor size for a single motor |
| 430.52 | The maximum branch circuit device for one motor circuit |
| 450.5 | Overcurrent protection for a transformer |
| 500.5 | How a hazardous location is classified |
| 517.13 | Equipment grounding for receptacles in patient care spaces |
| 555.35 | Ground-fault protection and leakage current at marinas |
| 680.26 | Equipotential bonding around a pool |
The article numbers, their chapters and the section numbers the third level asks for were read from the 2026 edition's table of contents and checked one by one. The prompts are written for this game in exam wording; no article title or code sentence is printed here. Bring your own copy of the code, which the exam requires, and race it with the book open.
90.3 lays it out. There is an introduction, then nine chapters. Chapters 1 through 4 apply generally, chapters 5 through 8 supplement or modify what came before them, and chapter 9 is tables that apply where another rule sends you to them. The informative annexes are not requirements at all. Knowing that order is what tells you whether the answer to a question is a general rule or a rule written for one occupancy.
Chapter 3. It starts with Article 300 for the general rules, then Article 310 for conductors, Article 312 and Article 314 for cabinets and boxes, the cable articles in the 320s and 330s, and the raceway articles from 342 through 398. If your question is about what the wire runs in or what holds it up, it is almost always a chapter 3 article.
Not in the 2026 edition. The branch circuit, feeder and service load calculations are in Article 120, which sits in chapter 1. Anyone who learned the code on an older edition loses time here, because the habit sends them to chapter 2 and the article is not there any more. The article index on this page is the 2026 list.
Because they are not in the 2026 book. This page was built from a list of twenty commonly tested sections and three of them did not survive the check: 480.3 and 547.10 do not exist as section numbers in the 2026 edition, and 406.4 has no section heading, only a cross reference in an annex. Seventeen were verified and those seventeen are the section level.
It is the table chapter, and it applies where another rule references it. Table 1 gives the percent of a raceway cross section that conductors may fill, Table 4 gives the areas of each trade size of each raceway type, Table 5 gives conductor dimensions and Table 8 gives conductor properties such as resistance and circular mils. Conduit fill and voltage drop questions both end up here.
The Texas journeyman and master exams are open book, so nothing here is about memorizing rules. The clock is the thing being tested. A candidate who knows that boxes are Article 314 and motors are Article 430 opens the book once, while a candidate who is not sure burns two minutes in the index on every lookup.
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