Still taking the practice tests... why the heck do I need to know about some solar event that happened in 1778?
I don't remember seeing a solar event questions. Any chance you're looking at the general or extra ticket? Effects of the ionosphere, troposphere, aurora, and meteor scatter are a class of questions on the Tech exam.
I just took and passed the tech this week ... it was pretty easy. Tricky parts for me were things like starting frequencies and how clubs manage repeaters. I followed the ARRL advice : take the practice exam until you've seen all the questions and figure why you missed the hard ones (about 15 times through it), and you can easily pass the actual exam. Took me a few days couple hours a day to practice and score 91-100% on the practice exams. But I've lived immersed in ohms law and EMF for a long time - so that part was easy. On the other hand, what offset is used on a repeater at 70cm or who's in control of a station when no one is present... heck if I knew (and still missing that last one).
I tried the General practice exam; did very poorly on it. Still can't get their answers either, one question that boggles me was "Why do you stack a bunch of Yagi's into a vertical array? " I know why I'd do it... but it doesn't match the test.
Fortunately, a Tech ticket gets you 2m and 70cm... the two most easily used and most common voice ... err ... phone frequencies us casual users are likely to key on.
PS: My practice scores: between tests 1&3 where I guessed at 50% of them, and test 3, I did read some of the Part 97 rules at
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Part%2097%20-%2004-28-2011.pdf. The reading was very helpful. I also took some of the focused exams like T3C...
From the pool of 396 questions, you have answered 396 of them correctly. For best results, we recommend that you continue studying until you've seen all of the available questions. Once your practice exam scores are consistently above 85%, your chances of passing the actual exam are extremely good.
Your individual scoring history for this course:
t2010 2014-01-06 05:23:17 80.00%
t2010 2014-01-06 07:32:12 91.43%
t2010 2014-01-07 00:32:55 82.86%
t2010 2014-01-07 00:44:18 91.43%
t2010 2014-01-07 00:55:18 80.00%
t2010 2014-01-07 01:04:59 85.71%
t2010 2014-01-07 01:29:57 97.14%
t2010 2014-01-08 02:23:02 91.43%
t2010 2014-01-08 15:00:44 91.43%
t2010 2014-01-08 15:39:27 88.57%
t2010 2014-01-08 16:05:33 91.43%
t2010 2014-01-08 22:58:30 97.14%
t2010 2014-01-08 23:06:04 97.14%
t2010 2014-01-09 00:01:04 97.14%
t2010 2014-01-12 16:10:52 97.14%