Written against the 2026 NEC and checked section by section, September 2026
Health Care Facilities Practice Questions
Two equipment grounding paths in one run is what makes a patient care space different, and 517.13 is where an item writer starts. These 25 questions work both halves of that section, the space categories and the patient care vicinity as Article 100 defines them, the receptacle counts at a patient bed location, wet procedure locations, and the rule at 90.3 that lets a Chapter 5 article ask for something the general chapters never did.
Pick an answer and the explanation opens with the section it comes from. These are original questions written for this site, not questions from the exam. Have your own code book open: the Texas exam is open book, and looking the section up is the skill being tested.
Read the health care facilities study page first if the topic is new to you.
1. A branch circuit serves a patient care space. How many equipment grounding paths does the article call for?
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C. Two, a qualifying metal raceway or cable assembly and an insulated copper equipment grounding conductor
The section splits into two subdivisions and both apply to the same run. The metal is one path and the wire is the other. An answer offering a choice between them describes an installation that would be fine in an office, which is exactly why it is on the paper.
NEC 2026 517.13
2. A cable with a metallic sheath is proposed for a patient care space. What decides whether the sheath satisfies the first path?
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D. Whether the assembly qualifies as an equipment grounding conductor on the list in 250.118
The wording does real work here. Not any metal raceway and not any armored cable, but a raceway system or an armor or sheath assembly that qualifies in its own right. That question is settled on a list in Article 250, so a stem naming a cable type is really handing you two lookups.
NEC 2026 517.13, 250.118
3. Which conductor satisfies the second path in a patient care space?
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A. An insulated copper conductor installed with the branch circuit conductors
Three words in that sentence each rule something out. Insulated eliminates a bare conductor, copper eliminates aluminum that the code accepts in plenty of other places, and installed with the branch circuit conductors puts it in the same wiring method rather than on its own route.
NEC 2026 517.13
4. The second path lands on the grounding terminals of receptacles, on metal boxes and enclosures, and on certain fixed equipment surfaces. What condition does the code attach to those equipment surfaces?
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B. They are likely to become energized, subject to personal contact, and operating at over 100 volts
The voltage qualifier sits on the fixed equipment and not on the receptacles, and it comes with two other conditions in the same phrase. Reading the sentence once carefully is what lets you spot a stripped down version of it in a distractor. Every one of those words has been the whole answer on an item.
NEC 2026 517.13
5. Which of these is permitted to be connected to a single qualifying equipment grounding return path rather than both?
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D. A luminaire more than 7 1/2 feet above the floor
One exception covers luminaires above a stated height and switches located outside the patient care vicinity. The height and the location are the conditions, so a switch inside the vicinity is not in the exception and neither is a luminaire that hangs lower than the figure. Receptacles are never in it.
NEC 2026 517.13
6. How is the insulated equipment grounding conductor for an ordinary receptacle in a patient care space identified?
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A. By green insulation along its entire length, with no yellow stripes
Green with no stripe is the ordinary conductor, and the striped version is reserved for a different job. Identification along the entire length is part of the requirement, which rules out tape at the ends. Getting the two identifications backwards is the whole item.
NEC 2026 517.13
7. An isolated ground receptacle is installed in a patient care space outside the patient care vicinity. How is the conductor to its grounding terminal identified?
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B. Green insulation with one or more yellow stripes, along its entire length
Two insulated conductors run to that box, and the stripe is what tells them apart. The striped one lands on the isolated grounding terminal, and the plain green one goes to the box and to the fixed equipment surfaces the section names. An isolated conductor still has to be insulated and still has to be there.
NEC 2026 517.16, 517.13
8. How is the insulated equipment grounding conductor in a patient care space sized?
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C. From 250.122, on the rating of the overcurrent device
Article 517 modifies the general rules where it needs to and leaves them alone where it does not, and sizing is one of the places it leaves alone. The redundancy is in the number of paths, not in the size of either one. Nothing in the section asks for an upsize.
NEC 2026 517.13, 250.122
9. How far does the patient care vicinity extend from the bed or other device that supports the patient?
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A. 6 feet horizontally, and 7 feet 6 inches above the floor
The definition is dimensional and both numbers are in it, measured from the normal location of the bed, chair, table, treadmill or similar device. It lives in Article 100 rather than inside Article 517, which readers of older study material get wrong. The vicinity is smaller than the space it sits in.
NEC 2026 Article 100
10. How does Article 100 describe a Category 1 space?
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B. One where failure of equipment or a system is likely to cause major injury or death to patients, staff or visitors
The four definitions turn on what a failure would do, and they say nothing about power. Failure of equipment or a system is much wider than the supply going away, and the injury can land on staff or a visitor as readily as on a patient. The procedures listed in the note are examples, not the definition.
NEC 2026 Article 100
Ten down. If you want these timed and scored by content area, the practice exam runs thirty questions free, and the full bank of 178 plus the calculation ladder is $79 once.
11. A space is described as one where a failure would not be likely to affect patient care in any physical way. Which category is it?
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C. Category 4
The four run from major injury or death down through minor injury and discomfort to no physical impact on patient care. Category 3 is the discomfort one and Category 4 is the last. Support spaces such as sterile supply, laboratories and lounges sit here in the informational note.
NEC 2026 Article 100
12. A risk assessment puts a space in Category 3. May the design be built to Category 2 requirements instead?
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D. Yes, the section permits design and installation to a higher risk category
The section that brings the risk categories into the code lets a designer build stricter than the assessment calls for. Stricter is always acceptable and looser never is, which is the direction to remember. Category 1 is the strictest place to land, so nothing above it exists.
NEC 2026 517.7
13. Which of these does Part II of Article 517 not reach?
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B. A space used exclusively for optometry
A short list says what Part II does not apply to, starting with spaces not intended for direct patient care and going on to name particular uses. Reading that list first is efficient, because a space outside Part II never reaches the grounding rules at all. The other three are patient care spaces.
NEC 2026 517.10
14. What is the minimum number of receptacles at a patient bed location in a Category 2 space?
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C. 8
Eight is the Category 2 figure and 14 is the Category 1 figure, and an item will offer you both. They may be single, duplex or quadruplex or any mix of the three. All of them are listed hospital grade and identified as such.
NEC 2026 517.18
15. What is the minimum number of receptacles at a patient bed location in a Category 1 space?
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D. 14
Fourteen is the Category 1 count, with at least one connected either to the normal system circuit the section requires or to a critical branch circuit fed from a different transfer switch than the rest. Eight is the Category 2 number and it will be offered beside it.
NEC 2026 517.19
16. What is the minimum number of receptacles in an operating room?
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A. 36, divided between at least two branch circuits
The operating room subsection sets its own count and then says how the receptacles are divided, with at least 12 and no more than 24 connected either to the normal system circuit or to a critical branch circuit on a different transfer switch. Locking and nonlocking types are both permitted, and the nonlocking ones are hospital grade.
NEC 2026 517.19
17. May a branch circuit serving a patient bed location be part of a multiwire branch circuit?
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C. No, the section rules it out
Both the Category 1 and the Category 2 sections carry the same sentence, so the answer does not change with the category. A shared neutral means one open connection can affect more than one circuit at a bed, which is the failure the rule is aimed at. Handle ties do nothing about that.
NEC 2026 517.18, 517.19
18. How are the critical branch receptacles at a Category 2 patient bed location identified?
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A. By a distinctive color or marking on the receptacle or the cover plate, along with the panelboard and circuit number
Two things are asked for at the device: something that makes it readily identifiable at a glance, and the panelboard and circuit that feeds it. Staff have to know which outlets stay alive when the normal supply goes away, and maintenance has to find the source without tracing.
NEC 2026 517.18
19. What listing do the receptacles at a patient bed location carry?
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D. They are listed hospital grade and identified as such
Hospital grade is the listing and the code asks for the identification as well, which is the green dot found on the face of the device. Tamper resistance is required elsewhere for certain health care spaces, and isolated ground is an option rather than a requirement.
NEC 2026 517.18, 517.19
20. A patient care vicinity is given a patient equipment grounding point. What is the minimum size of the bonding jumper to the grounding terminals of the receptacles?
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B. 10 AWG
The patient equipment grounding point is optional, and where it is provided the section states a floor for the jumper regardless of what the circuit sizing would give. The jumper may be arranged centrically or looped as convenient, so the routing is left to the installer and only the size is fixed.
NEC 2026 517.19
21. A wet procedure location is being designed. What does the code require for special protection against electric shock?
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A. One of the listed means, either an isolated power system or a supply that opens above the trip value of a Class A device
The section offers the means as alternatives, and the phrase saying one of the following is there on purpose. An item that stacks the two and calls the stack the requirement is the standard distractor for this subject. Isolated power lets a first fault be reported instead of clearing the circuit under the surgeon's hands.
NEC 2026 517.20
22. Ground-fault protection is the means chosen for a wet procedure location that is an operating room. How is it applied?
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C. Each receptacle is an individual device, or each is individually protected by its own device
The subsection counts the protection per receptacle rather than per circuit in an operating room, so one device covering a string of outlets does not satisfy it. The reason is straightforward. A single trip should not take out every outlet in the room during a procedure.
NEC 2026 517.20
23. An isolated power system is installed with a line isolation monitor. What does the code require of the monitor circuits?
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B. That they be tested after installation and before the system is placed in service
The monitor is the part that makes an isolated system useful, since it reports a first fault and lets the procedure continue rather than opening the circuit. A test at installation confirms it actually reports. The section also permits the monitor to be a composite unit with the display separated from the sensing section.
NEC 2026 517.160
24. A Type 1 essential electrical system is described in the code as being made up of what?
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D. Three separate branches, life safety, critical and equipment
Three branches, and the division between them happens at the transfer switches where more than one is required. On a journeyman paper you are unlikely to need more than the names and the shape. Each branch has one or more transfer switches, with a stated exception for small facility loads.
NEC 2026 517.31
25. Article 517 asks for something the general chapters never asked for. Which section makes that possible?
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C. 90.3, because Chapters 5 through 8 may supplement or modify the requirements in Chapters 1 through 8
Chapters 1 through 4 apply generally, and the arrangement rule is what lets a specific occupancy article add to them or change them. It does not replace them, which is why the wiring methods section in Article 517 sends you back to the general chapters except where the article says otherwise.
NEC 2026 90.3, 517.12
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