An aid to help pass the NTC class C (A and B) exams.

There is no easy way to pass these exams but I hope this article may help someone to pass and enjoy our hobby of amateur radio.

Information on what to study for the NTC exams is contained in the PARA handbook "So you want to be a Ham" (revised Feb 2008). The handbook also contains class C (reviewer) sample questions and answers and this aid may help with memorizing these Q and A.

That is a total of 211 reviewer Q and A, now is there an easy way to learn these Q and A?

The method I used to teach myself Morse code can be adapted to memorizing these Q and A.

The idea is to make small rectangular cards which have a question on the front and the answer on the reverse. Having made up these cards the user can progress through the Q and A at their own pace i.e. take 5-10 cards to work or travelling to work, watching television, travelling in a car or bus, in the house etc going onto the next batch of 5-10 cards once the previous batch of cards has been memorized.

What is required ? Thin cardboard and a Xerox copy of the Q and A from your copy of the PARA handbook.

First Xerox all the Q and A's from the Para handbook.

Next make the cards from the thin cardboard, they can be of any useful rectangle size as long as they are all of the same dimension with the minimum size of the cards being limited to that which has room for the longest question to be pasted or Scotch taped onto the front of the card.

Using the longest Q and A in the PARA handbook as a guide to the card size, (element 2 - question 33) the minimum card size of all the cards would be 6.5cm x 2cm, so one can make 211 cards 6.5cm x 2cm.

On the top right hand corner of the rectangle cards cut the corners off, this way the user knows that when they are looking at the card with the top right hand corner missing they are looking at the front of the card which has the question and when the cards are in a pile it is easy to arrange the cards with all the top right hand corners missing, the user will then be reading the questions first.

Using the Xeroxed Q and A's, cut out the first Xeroxed question including the question number and then paste or Scotch tape the question onto the front (top right corner missing) of the first piece of cardboard and turn (flip) the card over to show the reverse (bottom right corner is missing) and paste or Scotch tape the answer on the reverse. See examples.

Do this with all the Q and A's

Element 2 - take the first batch of 5 cards of element 2 and look at the first question and then the answer (memorize) and move onto the next card, once all the 5 cards have been memorized, mix them up and look at them one at a time, read the question first and guess the answer. When confident all 5 cards have been memorized go onto the next batch of 5 and so on.

After element 2 has been memorized, mix up all the cards and guess the answers. Do this a few times and move onto element 3.

Element 3 is learned the same way as element 2.

Element 4 is learned the same way as element 2.

When all the Q and A in the 3 elements have been memorized, mix them together and look at the questions at random and guess the answer.

An unforeseen bonus is when one is cutting/pasting the Q and A onto the cards the user will also be learning the Q and A.

If the user comes across any further Q&A's for the class C exam they can be added to the ones already in the PARA handbook by making more cards.

Good luck and lots of enjoyment with the hobby - 73's de John - 4F3EW

3 April 2009