so im trying to get my technician license and ive been looking around online and theres like a million different study guides and practice test sites and i honestly dont know which ones are actually worth using vs which ones are just garbage. a guy at the local club told me to just memorize the question pool but that seems like it might not actually help me understand whats going on, you know? like i want to actually understand at least some of the basics not just pass the test and have no idea what any of it means

anyway is there a specific study guide people actually recommend or is the question pool memorization thing really the way to go for the tech exam? i think the test is like 35 questions? not totally sure. any advice would be appreciated ive been putting this off for like two months already

honestly for the tech exam the question pool memorization approach isnt as dumb as it sounds because the actual test questions are pulled directly from the published pool, so if you know the pool you know the test. that said i get what you mean about wanting to actually understand stuff, and hh73.net or whatever its called now has decent explanations alongside the practice questions so you get a little context with each answer.

the ARRL technician manual is the gold standard study guide but some people find it kind of dry. if you learn better from videos theres a guy on youtube, i think his channel is ham radio prep or something like that, who goes through all the material in a pretty digestible way. i used a combo of practice tests on hamstudy.org and the ARRL book when i did mine and passed first try with room to spare. the test is 35 questions and you need 26 right so its not brutal. just run through practice tests until youre consistently hitting 80-90% and youre fine

i just passed mine like three weeks ago so this is fresh lol. i literally only used hamstudy.org and did maybe an hour a day for two weeks. the site tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and drills you on those more which is really helpful. didnt read any book at all. i do feel like i dont totally understand the electrical theory stuff but for actually getting on the air and using a radio it hasnt really mattered yet