The training lesson section, and why it is not a memory test

What the guide actually says

The Test Task for this area reads: "All information needed to answer the questions will be provided in the Training Lesson, and candidates will be able to refer to the Training Lesson when answering the questions." It also says that some questions may require combining information from different portions of the lesson.

So the section is not testing recall. It is testing whether you can find a value quickly and hold two parts of a document in mind at once, under time. Preparation that drills memorization is training the wrong habit, and it costs you time you do not need to spend.

The equipment is not real, and that is deliberate

The guide says the training information "is about a piece of equipment that is not real; it was created for the exam". Nobody has an advantage from prior familiarity, and nothing you already know about real equipment will help — if the lesson says a display reads a particular code, that is what it reads.

The published sample lesson is a wall-mounted monitoring panel with a table of conditions, indicator lights, display codes and the action required for each. Its two sample questions are a lookup and an ordering question about which action comes first.

What to practice

Read the question before you go back to the lesson, rather than re-reading the whole lesson each time. Match on the exact wording of the condition, because tables like these are built so that two rows differ by a single word.

Watch for rows that list two things to do and put them in an order — the guide's own second sample question asks which of them comes first. And expect at least one question that cannot be answered from the table alone, because the answer is partly in the numbered procedure that follows it.

Related guides

• The four subject areas on the New York firefighter written test
• The arithmetic section: one table, one missing number
• The reading comprehension section