Taking the course and Exam next month in Charlotte NC. API 1104 because I'm already a Level II Radiographer and i work with pipe a lot.
Do you know of anything I should read or study before the class or does the class give me everything I need to know?
I have the AWS Certification Manual for Welding Inspectors, some people have told me that they give you this in the class and it has 14 chapters and review questions at the end of each chapter. People have said that they are about the same questions.
Do I have to know all the conversions by memory or just a few? Or do they give them to you and you do the formula?
Are the symbols questions very hard? What were they like?
If you had it to do over again what would you study more?
What was the biggest surprise of the test to you? Like something you didn't expect.
What were some of the crazy questions they ask?
I'm expecting the worst but after talking to you I'm thinking maybe its not as hard as I thought.
Mark-
If you are taking the 1 week course, you will find, if you pay good attention, most of what they show is on the test.
My instructor, Ken Jobes, went to great lengths to ensure we understood presented material.
The biggest thing on the test is the ability to find what you want, when you need it-in the code book.
Become real familiar with the code your are testing to. Be able to find that "right page" easily. Index your codebook, if necessary.
Pay attention in class, index your particular codebook and you should be fine. Remember that time can be your enemy on this test.
I'm sure you will do fine.
Let us know how you make out...
Good Luck
brande
Mark,
Sounds like you are getting good advise. I was sitting here trying to think of what I could add to what has already been said. I took the course Mon-Fri and tested on Sat. If you do plan to take the course, pay attention as they do go over most of the material that the questions will come from. Marking your code book or at least get very familiar with it so the answers will take little time to find. time will be your enemy, so answer the questions that the answers come easy and then go back and take a closer look at the harder ones. It would be a pity if you get hung up on a hard question and miss 10 easy ones because you ran out of time. I do remember people giving me advise about the test and many said that the "hands on" part was hard for them because the samples they give you to inspect would have .374" of porosity measured and .375" was the cut off for rejection, mine on the other hand were very definitive and they were either rejectable or acceptable by the code they give you. Go by the code they give you to inspect by. Don't reject one because it looks like crap and you would never let one go that looks like that, use the code for your basis. Watch out for the tools they give you, mine were cheap and I had to zero the micrometer back to zero. All of the parts of the kit are numbered and and all this info goes on your answer sheet. From what I've been told there are six different sets of tests that they use, so yours will likely be different from mine. I recommend the course if you were like me and not familiar with metallurgy and the different types of materials. I had only mild steel experience and the different grades of materials were all new to me and they covered enough of it in the course that these did not give me a problem on the test.
Hope I didn't ramble to much for you, I trust you will do fine.
John Wright
Mark,
I’ll give you some input on your questions, these are my observations only. Bear in mind that all CWI’s will have a slightly different take on the examination depending on their background(s).
The seminar is an excellent review tool, but don’t expect the five days to prepare you fully for the examination. I used the seminar to refine and polish the subjects I had studied.
I had an older version of the Certification Manual and the Workbook prior to the examination. Read it cover to cover and take notes. In addition to this I used the training manual “WI-80” , AWS Standard Welding Terms and Definitions, AWS Standard Symbols for Welding and NDT. They give you the most current editions of this material (except WI-80) at the seminar but it is worth your while to get your hands on this type of information ahead of time. Terms and definitions are very important and a good understanding of them may help you narrow down your answer if you are not 100% sure.
Any formulas you need are provided to you on the test.
The weld and NDT symbols are not hard if you take your time. Make sure you fully understand the basic weld symbols, the locations of the elements of a welding symbol, supplementary symbols and the use of parentheses. Study the drawings that each symbol represents.
My biggest surprise was a score higher than I expected. All the studying paid off.
The best tips I learned are: 1. Skip any question you are not sure of & come back later. 2. Double check all conversions before answering. 3. Check your answer sheet every 10 questions or so (especially if you have skipped a few questions) to make sure you are answering the question you are on. 4. Don’t be afraid to answer “none of the above”. 5. Watch out for questions which use “not” or “except”. 6. When measuring, measure twice and answer once.
7. For questions on the open book (Code) or Part B Spec. , don’t assume anything. You will have plenty of time to locate and confirm the answer.
Hope this helps
thirdeye,
Welcome to the forum,
Always glad to see new users.
John Wright
Thirdeye;
Thats was one of the best summaries I've seen. Good job. I strongly reiterate the seminar issues ~ I've been a CWI since 1981 and a Senior since 1997; I would not even think of taking the exam again without attending the seminar but, to further reinforce your point; if you don't already know the material before going into the seminar there is a high likelyhood you will fail the exam.
Mark,
I forgot to welcome you to the forum. Welcome.
John Wright
I was just wondering if you could bring your own Tool kit to the class and use it on the hands on part B?
Also you guys are great, and your responses are very much appreciated. Reading what you all had to say makes taking the exam much less scary. I'm only 35 years old and I only started in the NDT field 5 years ago. I never wanted to be a CWI at first because it can be opinionated at time. With Radiography (which is what I do) what you see is what you get in the picture. But just like anything else, you have to be ready to pull out the code book yo back you up.
Mark,
You can’t bring your own tool kit. You will most likely hear a lot of comments about the quality of the tool kits, but AWS is upgrading some of the tools and have added a nice V-WAC gage for measuring undercut and crown height. The fillet gages are the industry standard type. At any rate, the tools are adequate for the type of questions that are asked. Just measure twice to be sure. Whenever the scale is required, measure in 64ths for the best accuracy (use the magnifying glass along with the scale). Remember to stay within the scope of the specifications (Part B) . Don’t shoot from the hip.
I left off a good resource for welding symbols in my last post. Check out http://nationalboard.org/Classics/classic44.html
This is from the National Board website. The article is not totally complete but does have some good information. Maybe some other inspectors have some additional web pages with this type of information????
Keep studying……………..
Mark-
I, also, started out in NDT and took my first CWI exam on the API 1104 in 1985. The code is small, so study ALL of it! Being a small code, they will ask some questions that you would not even think of as an inspector in order to make a test of it.
Roger
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