Technician Exam Course: How the Question Pool Works

The Technician exam is not a mystery test. Every question you can be asked is already published, word for word, with its four answer choices and the correct letter. That list is the question pool: 409 questions for the current Technician exam, and your exam is 35 of them, one drawn from each of 35 small groups. Pass with 26 correct. Once you see how the pool is built, studying it stops feeling like a wall of trivia and starts looking like a checklist.

This is part 1 of the Technician Exam Course. In this part I cover how the pool is organised, how a question ID like T5A05 tells you exactly where a question lives, how the 35 questions get picked, what the pass mark means in practice, how long this pool is valid, who writes it, how the three figures work, and the study method I would use. The rest of the course walks through the pool one topic at a time. If you have not yet looked at the licensing process as a whole, start with the beginner's guide to getting a ham radio license and come back.

What the pool is and who writes it

The FCC sets the frame in Part 97. Section 97.503 says the written exam for each license class is a fixed number of questions, and section 97.523 says all Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (VECs) must cooperate in maintaining one question pool for each exam element. The pool must hold at least 10 times the number of questions on one exam, and it must be published to the public before it is used to make an exam.

The actual writing is done by the Question Pool Committee (QPC) of the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC). Under 97.523, every question has to be prepared by a Volunteer Examiner holding the required FCC license. The QPC also takes suggestions from hams for new questions and changes to existing ones, so the pool is maintained by people who give the exams.

The Technician license is exam Element 2. Element 3 is General and Element 4 is Amateur Extra. If you are unsure which license you need, the three license classes compared side by side lays out what each one gets you. For Element 2, 35 questions times 10 means the pool needs at least 350 questions, and the current one has 409.

Pool validity dates: which pool is current

Each pool is normally used for four years, and the QPC reviews and replaces each one on a four-year rotation. A new pool is normally released to the public about six months before it takes effect, so study material can catch up.

The Technician pool in force now is the 2026-2030 pool, valid July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030. NCVEC released it on December 18, 2025 and placed it in the public domain. On February 19, 2026 it issued an errata that reworded four questions: T1C01, T5A05, T7A09 and T0A10.

The practical rule is simple. Study the pool that will be in force on the day you sit the exam. A book or app built on the previous pool will mislead you on questions that were added, removed or reworded. Every question on HamPost's Technician practice exam and study pages comes from the 2026-2030 pool, including its figures.

How the pool is built: subelements, groups and IDs

The pool has four layers. Subelements are the big topics, groups are the small topics inside them, then the questions, and finally the diagrams that some questions need.

The ten subelements

The Technician pool has ten subelements, numbered T1 to T9 and then T0 (zero comes last, it is safety). Each one tells you up front how many questions it contributes to your exam. Here is the current pool:

SubelementTopicQuestions in poolOn your exam T1Commission's rules686 T2Operating procedures373 T3Radio wave propagation353 T4Amateur radio practices232 T5Electrical principles504 T6Electronic and electrical components464 T7Practical circuits444 T8Signals and emissions474 T9Antennas and feed lines232 T0Safety363

Add up the last column and you get 35. Add up the pool column and you get 409.

Groups

Each subelement is split into lettered groups. T5 has four: T5A, T5B, T5C and T5D. T1 has six, T1A through T1F. Each group has its own short syllabus line. T5A covers current and voltage terms and units, conductors and insulators, and AC versus DC. T5B is math for electronics: converting electrical units and decibels.

The number of groups in a subelement always matches the number of questions it puts on your exam. T1 has six groups and gives six questions. T9 has two groups and gives two.

Reading a question ID

Every question has a five-character ID, and each part means something. Take T5A05:

• T is the Technician pool.
• 5 is subelement T5, electrical principles.
• A is group T5A, current and voltage.
• 05 is the fifth question in that group.

In the official pool file the ID is followed by the correct letter in brackets, and some rules questions also carry the Part 97 section they come from. T1A01, for example, is printed as "T1A01 (C) [97.1]". That bracketed rule reference is handy. When a rules question confuses you, you know exactly which section to read.

How your 35 questions are drawn

Your exam takes one question from each group. There are 35 groups, so there are 35 questions. The test does not pull 35 questions at random from all 409, and it cannot give you three questions on decibels because decibels live in one group.

That has two consequences I think every candidate should take on board.

• Small groups are worth more per question. T5A has 11 questions and T5D has 14, but each gives you exactly one exam question. A group with 11 questions gives each of its questions a better chance of showing up than a group with 14.
• Every topic shows up. You cannot skip a subelement and hope. Skip T9 and you have thrown away two questions before you start, and skip T1 and you have lost six.

Each exam session uses a question set drawn this way, and FCC rules (97.509) do not allow the same set to be given twice to the same person. So retaking the exam means a different draw, from the same pool.

The pass mark: 26 out of 35

Section 97.503(a) sets it: Element 2 is 35 questions and the minimum passing score is 26 correct. That is about 74 percent. You can miss nine questions and still pass.

Those nine misses are a buffer for nerves and the odd question you read wrong. They are not a study plan. I would not decide to write off T5 and T6 together, because that is eight questions gone before you sit down, and one bad guess elsewhere fails you. The HamPost landing page suggests a better target: 85 percent or better on three practice exams in a row, with your missed-questions list cleared, before you book a session.

Worked example 1: a straight recall question

Here is T5A05 exactly as it appears in the current pool, after the February 2026 errata:

T5A05: A difference in which of the following causes electron flow?

• A. Voltage
• B. Ampere-hours
• C. Capacitance
• D. Inductance

The correct answer is A, voltage. Notice how much the ID tells you before you read a word. T5 means electrical principles, and A means the current-and-voltage group. If you know that voltage is the push that makes current flow, the answer falls out. If not, the study page for that group is the place to fix it, and the rest of T5A (current in amperes, power in watts, frequency in hertz) reinforces the same few ideas.

The reworded text also shows why the pool version matters. This is one of the four questions the errata changed, so an older copy of the wording is not what you will see on the exam.

Worked example 2: a figure question

A few questions can't be answered from the text alone. The Technician pool comes with three diagrams, Figure T-1, Figure T-2 and Figure T-3, and they are used only in groups T6C and T6D. The figures are published as part of the pool, so you can study them like any other question.

Here is T6C02:

T6C02: What is component 1 in figure T-1?

• A. Resistor
• B. Transistor
• C. Battery
• D. Connector

The answer is A, resistor. The text gives no hint, so this is pure symbol recognition. Figure T-1 is a small circuit with numbered parts, and the next few questions (T6C03 to T6C05) ask about components 2, 3 and 4 in the same drawing. Figure T-2 gets the same treatment, with its parts numbered 1 to 10.

My advice for figure questions: learn the symbols themselves, not the number-to-answer pairs. Resistor, transistor, battery and ground symbols are worth knowing anyway, and once you know the symbols you can answer every figure question with the drawing in front of you.

How to study with the pool

Because every question is public, the pool is the syllabus. I would use it in this order.

1. Get the right pool. Confirm your study material uses the 2026-2030 Technician pool, valid July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2030.
2. Study one subelement at a time. Open the study page for one subelement, read each question, try to answer before you reveal the answer, and read the right answer as a full sentence.
3. Learn the idea, not the letter. Answer letters and the order of choices are not something to memorise. Know why the right answer is right.
4. Drill each topic until it is solid. Use the drill option on each study page and keep going until you rarely miss in that subelement.
5. Take full practice exams. Run full 35-question exams drawn one per group like the real one. Then work your missed-questions list until it is empty.
6. Book the exam when you are ready. Aim for 85 percent or better on three practice exams in a row, then find a session.

The full 35-question Technician practice test needs a free HamPost account, which also keeps your scores and missed questions. The study pages are open to everyone.

Some subelements make more sense with a picture of the spectrum in your head. The T1 rules questions on frequency privileges and the T3 propagation questions both get easier after reading a plain guide to HF, VHF and UHF bands. And if you would like people to study with, finding a local ham radio club gives you people to quiz you and answer the questions a study page cannot.

Self-check

Try these before you move on. Answers are below.

1. How many questions are in the current Technician pool, and how many are on the exam?
2. What do the T, 6, C and 02 in T6C02 each mean?
3. Can your exam include two questions from group T5B?
4. What is the minimum passing score, and which FCC rule sets it?
5. On what date does the current Technician pool expire?
6. Which groups use Figures T-1, T-2 and T-3?

Answers: (1) 409 in the pool, 35 on the exam. (2) Technician pool, subelement T6, group T6C, question 02. (3) No, each group supplies exactly one question. (4) 26 correct, set by 47 CFR 97.503(a). (5) June 30, 2030. (6) T6C and T6D.

What comes next

You now know how the pool is put together and how your exam is drawn from it. Part 2 of the Technician Exam Course starts on the content itself with subelement T1: the FCC rules and the purpose of the amateur service. T1 is the biggest subelement and gives six exam questions. Before that part, skim the T1 study page once without trying to memorise anything, just to see the kind of questions the rules section asks.