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IBEW APTITUDE TEST · READING COMPREHENSION

IBEW reading comprehension practice, every choice explained.

36 questions in 51 minutes. Every answer is in the passage, so you need no electrical knowledge.

By ProgressTiger. Reviewed . Sources

One passage, four questions

Read the passage, then tap an answer. Every choice tells you why it is right or wrong.

The tool room log

A maintenance shop kept its shared tools in an open room. Anyone could take what a job needed, and most tools came back. Still, about once a week someone lost half an hour searching for a meter or a drill that another crew had left in a truck.

The supervisor first proposed locking the room and issuing tools from a counter. The crews objected that waiting at a counter each morning would cost more time than the searching did. So the shop tried something lighter: a clipboard by the door. Before leaving, a worker wrote down the tool, the truck number and the time. Nothing else changed, and the room stayed open.

After two months the supervisor compared the notes. Tools were still left in trucks about as often as before. What had changed was the search: a missing tool could usually be traced in a few minutes by reading the last line written for it. The supervisor kept the clipboard and dropped the plan for a counter, noting that the log had not made anyone more careful. It had only made carelessness quicker to repair.

01A fact in the passage

According to the passage, what did the supervisor propose first?

View passage

The tool room log

A maintenance shop kept its shared tools in an open room. Anyone could take what a job needed, and most tools came back. Still, about once a week someone lost half an hour searching for a meter or a drill that another crew had left in a truck.

The supervisor first proposed locking the room and issuing tools from a counter. The crews objected that waiting at a counter each morning would cost more time than the searching did. So the shop tried something lighter: a clipboard by the door. Before leaving, a worker wrote down the tool, the truck number and the time. Nothing else changed, and the room stayed open.

After two months the supervisor compared the notes. Tools were still left in trucks about as often as before. What had changed was the search: a missing tool could usually be traced in a few minutes by reading the last line written for it. The supervisor kept the clipboard and dropped the plan for a counter, noting that the log had not made anyone more careful. It had only made carelessness quicker to repair.

Show the answer and every step
  1. A

    The clipboard came second, after the crews objected to the first idea. The question asks what came first.

  2. B

    Correct answer

    Paragraph 2 says it in these words: “The supervisor first proposed locking the room and issuing tools from a counter.”

  3. C

    Nothing in the passage mentions a set of tools for each truck. It sounds sensible, but it is not in the text.

  4. D

    This happened, but later, and it was a check on the trial, not a proposal.

Step by step

  1. The question asks for an order: what came first.

  2. Look for the time word. Paragraph 2 has it: “first proposed”.

  3. The sentence names two things, locking the room and a counter. Choice B says both.

02A word where it stands

In paragraph 2, “lighter” most nearly means

View passage

The tool room log

A maintenance shop kept its shared tools in an open room. Anyone could take what a job needed, and most tools came back. Still, about once a week someone lost half an hour searching for a meter or a drill that another crew had left in a truck.

The supervisor first proposed locking the room and issuing tools from a counter. The crews objected that waiting at a counter each morning would cost more time than the searching did. So the shop tried something lighter: a clipboard by the door. Before leaving, a worker wrote down the tool, the truck number and the time. Nothing else changed, and the room stayed open.

After two months the supervisor compared the notes. Tools were still left in trucks about as often as before. What had changed was the search: a missing tool could usually be traced in a few minutes by reading the last line written for it. The supervisor kept the clipboard and dropped the plan for a counter, noting that the log had not made anyone more careful. It had only made carelessness quicker to repair.

Show the answer and every step
  1. A

    That is another meaning of the word. Nothing in the paragraph is about light.

  2. B

    Correct answer

    The clipboard asks less of the crews than a locked room and a counter. Put “less demanding” in the sentence and it still makes sense.

  3. C

    The shop took the problem seriously enough to run a two-month trial. What is smaller is the effort, not the importance.

  4. D

    The passage compares two ways of working, not two objects.

Step by step

  1. Read the sentence around the word: “So the shop tried something lighter: a clipboard by the door.”

  2. Ask: lighter than what? Than locking the room and waiting at a counter.

  3. Swap each choice into the sentence. Only “less demanding” keeps its meaning.

03A supported conclusion

Which conclusion does the passage support?

View passage

The tool room log

A maintenance shop kept its shared tools in an open room. Anyone could take what a job needed, and most tools came back. Still, about once a week someone lost half an hour searching for a meter or a drill that another crew had left in a truck.

The supervisor first proposed locking the room and issuing tools from a counter. The crews objected that waiting at a counter each morning would cost more time than the searching did. So the shop tried something lighter: a clipboard by the door. Before leaving, a worker wrote down the tool, the truck number and the time. Nothing else changed, and the room stayed open.

After two months the supervisor compared the notes. Tools were still left in trucks about as often as before. What had changed was the search: a missing tool could usually be traced in a few minutes by reading the last line written for it. The supervisor kept the clipboard and dropped the plan for a counter, noting that the log had not made anyone more careful. It had only made carelessness quicker to repair.

Show the answer and every step
  1. A

    The passage says the opposite: the log “had not made anyone more careful”.

  2. B

    The crews talked about time, not money, and the passage never compares costs. This choice adds a claim.

  3. C

    Correct answer

    Before the log, a search cost “half an hour”. With it, a missing tool “could usually be traced in a few minutes”.

  4. D

    Paragraph 3 says tools were left in trucks “about as often as before”.

Step by step

  1. A supported conclusion stays inside what the passage reports.

  2. Paragraph 1 gives the problem: “half an hour searching”.

  3. Paragraph 3 gives the result: traced “in a few minutes”, with tools left behind “about as often as before”.

  4. So the search got shorter and the habit did not change. Only choice C says that.

04The main idea

What is the main idea of the passage?

View passage

The tool room log

A maintenance shop kept its shared tools in an open room. Anyone could take what a job needed, and most tools came back. Still, about once a week someone lost half an hour searching for a meter or a drill that another crew had left in a truck.

The supervisor first proposed locking the room and issuing tools from a counter. The crews objected that waiting at a counter each morning would cost more time than the searching did. So the shop tried something lighter: a clipboard by the door. Before leaving, a worker wrote down the tool, the truck number and the time. Nothing else changed, and the room stayed open.

After two months the supervisor compared the notes. Tools were still left in trucks about as often as before. What had changed was the search: a missing tool could usually be traced in a few minutes by reading the last line written for it. The supervisor kept the clipboard and dropped the plan for a counter, noting that the log had not made anyone more careful. It had only made carelessness quicker to repair.

Show the answer and every step
  1. A

    The shop decided against the locked room. This is the plan the passage drops.

  2. B

    Correct answer

    It covers the whole passage: the trial, what did not change and what did. The last two sentences say it.

  3. C

    True, and in the passage, but it is one detail from paragraph 2. A main idea has to cover all three paragraphs.

  4. D

    The passage is about one shop and one log. “Every workplace” goes much further than the text.

Step by step

  1. A main idea is a summary someone could use without reading the passage.

  2. Check each paragraph: the problem, the trial, the result.

  3. Choice B covers all three. C is too small and D is too big.

The method: find the sentence first

  1. Read once for the shape. What it is about, what changed, and who did what. Slow down at but, however, before, after and only.
  2. Read the question and name what it wants. A fact, an order, a word, the main idea or a conclusion.
  3. Go back and find the sentence. Put your finger on the words that answer it before you look at the choices.
  4. Pick the choice that says the same thing. The right choice often uses other words. A choice that adds something the passage never said is wrong, however sensible it sounds.

Four ways a wrong choice is built

Most of the wrong choices above use one of four moves. Name the move and the choice loses its pull.

  1. True, but too small. A detail offered as the main idea. (Question 4, choice C.)
  2. Goes further than the passage. “Some” becomes “all”; one shop becomes every workplace. Be wary of always, never and every. (Question 4, choice D.)
  3. Swaps the order or the person. What came second is offered as first, or someone else does it. (Question 1, choice A.)
  4. Sensible, but not in the text. It fits what you know about the world, and the passage never says it. (Question 1, choice C, and question 3, choice B.)

What the reading section asks

The electrical training ALLIANCE, which used to be called the NJATC, describes this section in one line: it measures your ability to obtain information from written passages. You read a passage, then answer several questions about it. Its sample shows three kinds of question:

The questions above add two close relatives: the main idea of a passage, and what a word means where it stands.

51 minutes for 36 questions is about 85 seconds each, and that includes reading the passage. The ALLIANCE notes that its sample passage is shorter than the ones on the test, so practice on passages of several paragraphs.

There is no penalty for guessing. If two choices are left, find the one word where they differ, check it against the passage and choose.

The test’s other section is Algebra and Functions: practice the algebra section with five kinds of question, each worked step by step.

Sources

The facts about the test on this page come from the ALLIANCE’s own pages. The passage, the questions and the explanations are ours; they are not from the test.

Read 13 October 2026.