Hi, I’ve been swinging a hammer for a long time now. I specialized in concrete,trim,framing all at one time or another. I have been looking into writing my ontario qualifying exam, I’d like to have the option of becoming a teacher one day, in the meantime having this lic. will count as years of experience down the line. It will also qualify me for other gov. positions. In the time being I would be able to get gov. assistance to pay for my employees if they were to become apprentices. What I was wondering was if anyone has written this exam in the past. I know all the questions will be in metric, I’m hoping that there will be imperial in brackets. If there isn’t I will have to brush up on my metric conversions. I was also told that we would be using the national building code rather than the provincial, is it more or less the same? Right now I’m kind of figuring that I will fail the test on the first try, but what I will do is pay close attention to what will be on there for the second try. Does anyone have any insight as to what I should be studying, or would I likely know most of this stuff just from past experience.
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
A rear addition provides a small-scale example of how to frame efficiently.
Related Stories
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Fine Homebuilding Magazine
Fine Home Building
Follow
-
Fine Homebuilding
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial Now -
GBA Prime
Get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
Replies
Passing the test would be hard enough... trying to remember what was on it afterwards would be impossible.
I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
Take life as a test and shoot for a better score each day. Matt Garcia
I was kind of hoping to determine the kind of questions I'll be encountering. So I know where to focus my attention. I did start my apprenticeship years ago, we did do practice tests every week. So I think I should be o.k., I suspect I'll be a little rusty thats all.
I wrote it in about 1990.
It was all multiple guess questions.
Four components.
I hope they made it harder because a monkey could have passed it then. Sorry :)
Can not remember any of it.
Did you know that in Ontario you must be a licensed carpenter if you are supervising a crew and a legal dispute ensues. Judge says no tickee no payee you are SOL, case dismissed. Next case please.
Hope this is helpful.
"Did you know that in Ontario you must be a licensed carpenter if you are supervising a crew and a legal dispute ensues. Judge says no tickee no payee you are SOL, case dismissed. Next case please."Do you have anything to back this up? I would be interested in finding out more about it.
Personal experience in a construction lien :(
Escaped by the skin of my teeth.
Learned some years later from a lawyer who had successfully had a lien dismissed for this reason.
The defence lawyer was angling to get me to admit that I was unqualified to supervise the job. Fortunately I had my ticket :) Judges and lawyers seem to think a piece of paper makes you smarter and more able.
Basically there is now Ontario case law that gives the precedent for this.
If the defence lawyer finds it and your job is 'unsupervised' you are screwed.
I guess they dumbed it down in '90 cause when I wrote it in Ottawa in '87 this monkey had to study and memorize nail spacing and shoring techniques, etc., to pass."We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last" Barack Obama Oct.2008
No insult intended to any and all who endeavor to take the test and get their qualifications. Maybe it is a regional thing. Belleville vs. the big smoke.
I literally got the local community college textbook read it through once and wrote the test and and I certainly do not qualify for mensa.
There was a question on balloon framing that had me stumped, but I guessed:) Who does balloon framing anymore anyway?
Honestly though, my results were appallingly high. Not bragging just saying.
Belleville, that explains it, they make special tests for that area ;-)"We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last" Barack Obama Oct.2008
The purpose of questions on old methods, such as balloon framing, are there to determine if you are qualified to do remodel work on the old stuff you will run into out in the field.
Mixing systems, when you don't understand how the old stuff went together can be disasterous.
You are probably correct about renovation issues, but it seems to stick in my mind that the question implied or referred to new construction.
Of course after the test I did try to learn more but have yet to use the knowledge having yet to encounter a single balloon frame.
Lots of balloon strapping on old double brick houses though.
"Who does balloon framing anymore anyway?"It can be a darn good way to build for a second story with kneewalls to avoid a structural ridge.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Agreed but that would be primarily storey and a half construction would it not?
Not that big a demand for sloped ceilings on the upper floor around here.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Yes and yes, but we do have a lot of it here. Have built 2-3 new myself.somebody else didhave a good point about knowing it to be ready for remo work. Gotta have some basic understanding to avoid having to say, "Ooops"but IO know where you are coming from. Back when they started focusing heavily on drunk driving offenses at the DMV, I did not drinkl, and had not had a drink for ten or fifteen years. So I never studied the part of the book on drinking and driving stats and such, thinking, well, this doesn't apply to me.Lo and behold, a good 40-50% of the test was on just that subject! I got a license renewal by the skin of my teeth.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Here in Nova Scotia, the union does a refresher/exam prep course....you don't have to be in the union to do it. Well worth it if something like that is available. If you fail the first time, you can write it again, but if you fail again, there is a timeout period before you can write again.
My partner just wrote his (and if you are writing the interprovincial/Red Seal exam, it's the same exam across the country)...we're both Red Seal cabinetmakers, but he just wrote the carpentry one. Passed, but he studied a LOT, with help from our caprentry instructors. I'll do mine when I get some time to prepare. One of my former students just wrote the cabinetmakers exam.....he studied a lot as well, and he tells me he squeaked through.
They do rewrite the exams from time to time; I know they redid the cabinetmaker one because of the failure rate (I did the old one, and it wasn't easy). Don't underestimate it.
Interesting the different experiences regarding testing.
I fully expected to encounter a written test but ended up with a multiple guess exam.
I am certain I would have barely passed had I 'written' the exam, but when the answer is written down for you and all you have to do is pick it out of a lineup. A bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
What is the norm out there? Written or guesses?
When I took the engineering exam: the morning session was 8 questions of which you had to answer 4, all long form, showing all work. (I only managed to answer two, because my hand cramped up and I couldn't write any more). The afternoon was 16-sections, (of which you had to do 8), of 40 multiple choice questions. (I got all 16-sections done, and picked the eight I wanted them to grade).
Scoring was based on the average of the morning and afternoon, and they determine pass fail on a curve. You never get to know what your actual score was, just whether you passed or failed.
They can make multiple choice questions really tricky if they want. One method is to make the questions up as long form and give them to students in the trade schools. You then make the choices for the multiple choice answers based on their wrong answers, so that you have the right answer, and the most commonly found wrong answers available as choices. They also give answers that you would get if you dropped a decimal two steps back, or used a wrong equation.
I had this question on an exam once on driving wooden pilings. Given: the length of a piling is 50-feet; the large diameter is 24-inches; the small diameter is 12-inches; and you drive it to rejection at 37-feet. How much earth is displaced? If you have driven wooden pilings or studied them, you know that they are driven large end first, and the question is easy. If you haven't, then you waste the time to figure the volume displaced by the truncated cone, and get the wrong answer.
I think I knew that the large end goes first but not why. More area bearing at bottom of hole? Why tapered? Logs are tapered? Outside of my experience entirely.
was that a trick question? I'm thinking that while the pier is truncated, the volumn displaced to get the hole pushed in is the larger diameter all the way down the 37 feet. It moves in again later, but it does get displaced to receive the pile. Am I wrong?Probably so, since the reason for calculating it is to know the bearing capacity with is end displacement volumn.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I believe the test I wrote was written answers. I agree with you that multiple choice can be easier, though not necessarily on philosophy exams.
Or psychology 101 exams :(
Every answer is right. I met a plumber from Belleville in the Bahamas. (that's for Jaybird if he happens by here)
multiple choice makes for a pretty rough prostate exam too.;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I'd hate to see what the choices are.
Do you know what a cricket* is?
That was the only term that stumped me on journeyman's exam, back in the dark ages.
But it was part of a true and false question so I was able to make an educated guess which turned out to be correct.
Got 100% and I really didn't know squat about the trade back then. I learn something new, almost every day, and have plenty of lessons ahead of me too.
BTW Nick, it helps older eyes and brains like mine when posts are broken up into short paragraphs.
Edit: *chimney saddle
Edited 11/15/2008 7:49 pm by Hudson Valley Carpenter
What exam was that....union maybe? The exam the original poster is talking about is a standardised test across Canada, and I've never heard of anyone getting 100%, although it may happen.....it is administered by the individual provinces, and you get a provincial certification, but as long as you get better than 70%, you get a Red Seal, which means interprovincial standard.....if you go to work in another province, you're rated as a journeyman. We have active apprenticeship programs here, and it does mean something as far as hiring and pay go. More so insome places than others.
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
This thread has got me curious, I gotta dig up my carpenter exam, I keep everything so it must be in storage somewhere. I seem to remember doing pretty well on it. I believe you also hail from the valley IIRC, you might remember how difficult it was to pass the drivers license (this was 30 years ago now), and there was a particular mean lady at Walkley Rd. who failed almost everybody. Many of my buddies went to license bureau's out of town (Rockland, etc.) after they failed from her. I proudly got 98% on my exam first try, which I shamelessly boasted at the time ;-)
Usually, at least now, you don't get to keep the exams.....although this year, one of the trades, millwright maybe, can't remember, had a situation where a copy of the exam got out and everything was compromised. I have two tickets, Industrial Woodworker in Ontario and the Red Seal Cabinetmaker in Nova Scotia.....wasn't allowed to keep either exam, all you get is a score broken down by area. As an instructor, we're not allowed to see the exams.....all we get is a general breakdown by subject area (12% of the questions on this, 20% on that etc.).
Re: driving licenses, I'm originally from West Quebec, so that's where I got my license. Live in a rural area here in Cape Breton though, and there are some funny stories....one of my wife's summer students got her license in an even more rural area, and there was no place to test on parallel parking. So the test was to pull over to the side of the road and stop. She failed it.
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
They actually have a driver's license test in Quebec ;-)
The correct response to an examiners question...."Collisse, dat was close, ah?"
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Tabernac, Sacrifeeece!
Interesting thread. I'm sitting in Winterpeg on a layover from Montreal to Regina.
Just finished a week of looking at cirriculum for plumbers and fitters with the hope of one day having all the provinces teaching the same thing at the same level to allow for mobility of apprentices.
Anyway, some of the guys who were there have also sat on the committees that develop the questions for the test banks. They have to come up with 4 or 5 questions for each task in the NOA. Very tough because you can not have any "wrong" answers, or any misleading ones.
At least in the piping trades, the test is legitimate. I say that because the fitters had problems with students each remembering certain questions and then writing them down after the exam.
What exam was that....union maybe?
UBC&J of America. I don't know how it might compare to Canada's exams.
BTW, I think the kind of licensing Canada has is a good idea, as long as it tests for useful, practical knowledge.
That's the problem with many courses of study and tests. They are put together by conceited academics who have little or no practical knowledge.
In any event, the only test that matters to me is what I see from a new hire on the first day.
I have mixed feelings about the union training....on the one hand, the president and the VP of our local (UBC) are friends and both are guys I teach with, and they are excellent carpenters, serious about training, and the local is doing a good job in that area (although they have a hard time getting the guys in the field to take advantage of the opportunities). I know the UBC in general is very serious about training, and they have some excellent facilities I'm told, and good curriculum resources. My college has both pre-employment programs (certificates and diplomas, that's where I work), and apprenticeship programs going on at the same time, and the UBC is involved at all levels. Same in most or all of the trades; we work with the unions.
On the other hand, I have seen some real horror stories come out of the union programs. I worked with one guy in Ontario who got hired on for a utility job, but only journeymen could work on the site. He got sent down to the hall; walked out that day a third year apprentice, next day he was a journeyman (union certification, not the provincial one obviously). Didn't have a day in as a carpenter at that point. Worked with other guys where something similar must have gone on. Maybe things are tighter now, and that stuff never happens anymore.
Bottom line, there has to be standards for the certifications, union or provincial/state, to mean anything. No back doors, bent rules, or freebie exams. All the guys I work with are very serious about trying to put people out into the trade that can do the work, and most or all still work in the trade. And the employers we train for are not shy about telling us when we screw up.
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
I agree that internal local union politics is the bane of trade unions.
Perhaps part of the solution would be for union contractors to make it a contractural requirement with their unions, that journeymen be tested and certified by the government.
From my experience that would eliminate a lot of the small time deals.
That's essentially what we have here....I don't know if the union even has it's own certifications still active in Canada and I'm not involved in the union... the focus I see is on getting union carpenters, and new people entering the trade, through the Red Seal provincial certification process. As I said, that is a national standard, and every province gets input into the exam. It's not perfect, but I do believe in the system.
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
That's a wise step in the right direction. Even though it's not the "American Way" to regulate so tightly, it would help to end much of the small time corruption in locals unions. The kind of corruption that leads to larger scale pay offs to union officials.
Not really sure how it works in Canada, but in Michigan you become licensed.
Deal with enough clients, and you'll be certifiable in no time.:>)
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
I'm going to try and attach a Red Seal exam prep document that is given out in Nova Scotia....may give you some ideas about what the exam is and how to prepare for it. Good luck.
I am in Ontario and teach apprentices their trade school in Northern Ontario. At present the exam is 3 hours 100 multi guess.
The way I see it you have two choices.
1) write the red seal exam. it is tough but you can prepare for it. If you pass you get your certificate of qualification, but no certificate of apprenticeship which is no biggie. As I recall (15 years ago)I don't think all the questions are in metric. Remember 2.54 cm per inch and you can't go wrong. Check with your local apprenticeship office but if you fail the first time I'm not sure you can write it again without the trade school under your belt (challenge). Also you are lkimited how many apprentices can work under you. Without going over to my desk and looking it up I think it is two. There is a webb site from Alberta that has practice exams you can down load for about 10 bucks.
2) Get on with the union or an employer who will take you on as an apprentice. You might be able to skip level one of trade school. Do 8 weeks 2 more times then you can write the exam I think as often as it takes.
Have a good day
Cliffy
Edited 11/17/2008 7:04 pm ET by cliffy
Where did the OP go?
Must not have lived to tell about it.
Too bad. He was only 26. Still young and idealistic. Should we post an obit.
Maybe he got 'certified' after all.