How many reading comprehension questions are on the IBEW?

36 — and unusually, that is the publisher's own figure rather than an estimate. electrical training ALLIANCE publishes this paper as 36 items in 51 minutes, timed on its own, which works out at 85 seconds a question. The full-length run on this site is the same length for that reason.

Is this section timed?

Not on this page. These sets are for learning the type — each answer comes with an explanation straight away. When you want the clock, the full-length run is 36 questions in 51 minutes, which is 85 seconds a question.

Are these real questions from the test?

No. Every question here is original, written to the published format. The real item banks are confidential and nobody outside the publisher has them.

IBEW reading comprehension questions

A passage, then questions about what it says and what follows from it.

50 questions in this set Untimed — explanation after each answer Real paper: 36 items in 51 min

IBEW reading comprehension 1 of 10

Before the nineteenth century a lighthouse was not much more than a fire kept burning in a high place. A polished metal reflector set behind the flame could throw some of the light out to sea, but most of it still escaped upward and sideways, and a keeper who wanted a brighter light had little to do but build a bigger fire. The change came from a French engineer, Augustin-Jean Fresnel, who worked out that a lens does its bending at its surfaces and that the glass in the middle is mostly dead weight. He replaced the solid lens with a set of concentric glass rings, each ground to the angle that its own part of the beam required, with prisms above and below to catch the light that would otherwise have been lost. The result stood taller than a person, weighed a fraction of what a solid lens of the same power would have weighed, and gathered light that had previously gone into the sky. Lighthouses that had been visible for a few miles could now be seen from twenty or more.

According to the passage, what did Fresnel conclude about a solid lens?

What this type asks

“This test measures your ability to obtain information from written passages,” the booklet says: a passage, then several questions about it. The publisher’s own sample passage is about the Mayan calendar, not about electrical work, and the booklet states plainly that previous knowledge of electrical work is not required — so the passages below are ordinary expository prose too. Three things are being asked each time: what the passage actually said, what follows from it that it did not say outright, and which of four statements it supports. The wrong answers are the ones that are true in the world but absent from the passage, or true of one sentence and contradicted by the next.

Finding a stated detailDrawing a conclusion the passage supportsWhat the passage does not sayCause and effect within a passageThe main point of a paragraph

Now do it with the clock running.

36 questions in 51 minutes — 85 seconds each. That is electrical training ALLIANCE's own figure for this paper, which is timed on its own on the day. Sitting it to that clock is the part untimed practice cannot teach.

Take the timed Reading Comprehension paper

The other question types

Algebra and Functions Full timed test

Frequently asked

How many reading comprehension questions are on the IBEW?: 36 — and unusually, that is the publisher's own figure rather than an estimate. electrical training ALLIANCE publishes this paper as 36 items in 51 minutes, timed on its own, which works out at 85 seconds a question. The full-length run on this site is the same length for that reason.
Is this section timed?: Not on this page. These sets are for learning the type — each answer comes with an explanation straight away. When you want the clock, the full-length run is 36 questions in 51 minutes, which is 85 seconds a question.
Are these real questions from the test?: No. Every question here is original, written to the published format. The real item banks are confidential and nobody outside the publisher has them.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from one of the documents below, with the day it was read. Requirements change — open the source if you need today's wording.

electrical training ALLIANCE — Applying for Apprenticeship (applicant booklet: the test battery, retesting and what a score tells you) Read September 2, 2026
electrical training ALLIANCE — Preparing for the Test (what each test measures, sample questions, answer key) Read September 2, 2026
electrical training ALLIANCE — Apprenticeship Training (IBEW/NECA) Read September 2, 2026

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