"How To Hyper- Highlight Your NEC Codebook for Faster Retreival"

*** OUR WORKSHOP SHOWS YOU HOW TO CUSTOM HIGHLIGHT YOUR CODEBOOK, and more importantly, PROVIDES YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO GET IT DONE! ***

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In this author’s opinion it is better NOT TO PURCHASE a pre-highlighted codebook for several reasons.

First, you will not know WHY these areas are highlighted. People highlight things that are important points to them and your test may have different questions than the next person. It is better to highlight SPARINGLY and for the purpose of your eye’s ability to catch things quickly.

Second, there will be so many highlights in a pre-highlighted codebook that your brain will not associate them with anything important. Each highlighted area would need an explanation. You would have to read over every highlighted area and “burn a pathway into your neuro-network”, so to speak, in order for your brain to remember it. Understanding how your brain stores information is vitally important to retaining data. An excellent resource for improving your retention power is DYNAMIC MEMORY AND STUDY SKILLS COURSE by Brad Voeller. (ISBN 0-9701563-3-2) from www.GlobalLearningStrategies.org. This resource will help you in many aspects of your life, besides this exam.

Third, when YOU highlight your own codebook you are actually “burning a pathway into your neuro-network”. Each time you personally go through your codebook you are assimilating the information and creating a “file cabinet” or filing system for your brain. Forth, your brain requires a systematized method of organizing information and data. When you skip all over the codebook looking up answers to questions, your brain has no redundant pathway to anything. It’s like wandering through a million-acre forest with no reference point.

Your brain likes to categorize things into large parts and then sub-divide, subdivide, and subdivide some more into smaller, more memorable pieces. The codebook is arranged in such a way that your brain can assimilate much of it without reading it in its entirety. Recognizing HOW it’s organized is your first step in mastering its contents.

So, highlight your codebook in this way: Have an ORANGE highlighter and go through all the PARTS (I,II,III,IV,…)as you see in the sample page above. Read each PART title as you highlight. This will burn the first “groove” into your neuro-network. You will also begin to see a pattern of repetition in the PARTS - for example:

I. General, II. Installation, III. Construction Specifications,

and so on. Chapter 3 has the greatest number of Articles in it, but much of it is repeated over and over. Knowing this will make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Use a YELLOW highlighter and highlight all the SECTIONS as you see above – Example:

362.1 Scope.

362.2 Definitions.

362.6 Listing Requirements.

Again, read over the SECTIONS as you highlight. This reinforces the pathway to your PARTS and adds a second organized piece to your cranial filing cabinet. Do this to your entire codebook. Be prepared to spent a good amount of time doing this. It takes a couple of hours to accomplish, so mentally prepare yourself and don’t make yourself become exhausted and quit half way through. Set aside time for just this activity and don’t do it while watching TV! Too much will be lost between competing stimuli. Guess which one will win; it won’t be your codebook!

Next, you’ll want to go through and UNDERLINE any numeric values. Any time you see things like: 12 in., 10 ft., 4 AWG, 75 percent, it would be a great idea to underline these values. It will, again, help your eyes to pick up all the values and quickly notice them.

Lastly, it is important to get to know the differences between the TABLES in your codebook. If you look at the tables in Article 310, you’ll notice several differences. Table 310.16 will be your most referenced table, so make sure you have a TAB for it. Then, highlight in another color (blue, for instance), the other table’s differences; such as in TABLE 310.17 “Free Air” phrase in its heading.

For more on how to highlight your codebook, I recommend the textbook APPLIED CODOLOGY-Understanding the 2005 National Electrical Code, ISBN 1-4018-7993-4 or visit www.thomson.com/learning.