Get the current content sheets and approved reference list before you buy anything. Tab the books before you study, not the night before. Work the content areas in weight order, heaviest first. Then move from guide to quiz to a timed simulation, and do not book a seat until you are holding 80%. Two parts, 60 scored questions each, 4.5 hours each, open book, 70% to pass — and the state does not round.
Phase 1 — Set up before you study anything
- Pull the current Examination Content Information sheets and the approved reference list. The DBPR publishes an ECI sheet for each part that names every content area and the percentage of questions it carries. That document is the syllabus — everything below is just a way of obeying it. Get the versions in force for your test date, not a copy someone emailed you two years ago; the approved book list in particular does change.
- Confirm you are sitting three exams, not two. Contract Administration and Project Management are the trade parts. Business and Finance — 120 questions, 6.5 hours — is a separate requirement for the CGC license, and our sister site flbizfinprep.com covers that one. Plan all three at once so the third does not surprise you after your study energy is spent.
- Buy only books on the approved list, then set them up. Books must remain as published. Underlining and highlighting are allowed. Permanently attached tabs carrying a chapter or page heading are allowed. Post-it notes and any removable tab are not, and you have to strip them before you arrive. Tab as you study, so the tabs mark the places you actually got lost. Full rules are on our reference books and tabbing page.
Phase 2 — Study in weight order, not front to back
Reading a reference book cover to cover gives equal time to a topic worth two questions and a topic worth twenty-four. The state has already told you where the questions are, so follow it:
- Contract Administration, in this order: Project Contracts (40%), Preconstruction Activities (27%), Obtaining Licenses, Permits and Approvals (20%), Construction Procedures and Operations (13%). Project Contracts alone is two questions in five — contract types, conditions and specifications, change orders, draws and the schedule of values, lien law, retainage and closeout. Detail on the Contract Administration part page.
- Project Management, in this order: Construction Methods, Materials, Tools and Equipment (63%), Safety (20%), Reading Plans and Specifications (17%). Methods is too broad to study as one block, so break it into site and soils, earthwork, concrete and masonry, framing and erection, envelope and finishes, and finish one before starting the next. Detail on the Project Management part page.
- Take the heaviest area while you are freshest. Whatever hour of the day you concentrate best, spend it on Project Contracts and Construction Methods.
Safety is the cheapest 20% on the exam. It is a fifth of the Project Management part, the rules are stable year to year, and they are the fastest thing in the reference set to look up under pressure. Anyone short on time who skips safety is throwing away the best points-per-hour on the whole exam.
Phase 3 — Guide, then quiz, then the clock
- Learn the area in the study guide, then test it in the quiz. Reading builds recognition; questions build recall, and recall is what the exam pays for. Do not move on until the current area is scoring.
- Read the explanation on the questions you got right. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that separates a 72% from an 85%. A right answer picked for the wrong reason is a wrong answer as soon as the numbers change. If you cannot say why the other three options fail, you did not know it.
- Finish with the timed 60-question simulation. Same length, same clock, same bar as one real part. Sit it with your tabbed books beside you exactly as you will on the day, so you are practising the lookup as well as the material.
Target 80% consistently, not 70%. Seventy is the bar, and the DBPR states construction exam scores are not rounded to the nearest percent, so there is no free half-point at the edge. Practice is also kinder than the real room: no travel, no clock anxiety, no five hours in a chair. An 80% at home is the margin that survives all of that. How many weeks that takes depends on your background — see how long to study.
Phase 4 — Booking the parts and working the exam day
- Schedule the two parts separately. Testing is daily and computer-based through Pearson VUE, with registration through Professional Testing, so you are not forced into one nine-hour day. Prepare one part, sit it, then start the next. Check current retake and validity rules with the DBPR before you plan a sequence around them.
- Budget roughly 4.5 minutes per question. Sixty scored questions in 4.5 hours. Every question is multiple choice with four alternatives and every one is equally weighted, so a hard question is worth exactly the same as an easy one. Answer what you know, mark what needs a lookup, and come back. Unscored pilot questions may be mixed in — another reason never to bleed twenty minutes into one item.
- Expect your result the same day. Candidates receive an official photo-bearing exam result report immediately after finishing, so you will know before you leave the building.
Start the plan
Work the areas in weight order with 352 questions across all eleven content areas. First 5 free, no account.