so ive been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now, my neighbor is licensed and he got me interested. i downloaded the ARRL technician manual but honestly its kind of overwhelming, like i dont know if i should just read it cover to cover or what. also heard something about a question pool, is that the actual test questions? like they just pull from that list? i took the practice tests on one of the websites and got like a 55% which i know is not great but i wasnt really studying yet just wanted to see where i was at. anyway any advice on how people actually studied for this would be helpful, not sure how long it usually takes either

yeah the question pool is exactly what you think it is, the FCC publishes the actual pool of questions and the test gets pulled directly from that. so theoretically you could just memorize every question and answer and pass without really understanding any of it, some people do that, but i'd say at least learning the basics of what youre memorizing helps it stick better. HamStudy.org is honestly where i'd point you first, it tracks which questions you keep getting wrong and drills you on those. took me maybe 3 weeks of studying maybe 20-30 min a day and i passed with an 85 or something like that. the electrical questions tripped me up at first but once you get the basic ohms law stuff down it clicks pretty fast. dont overthink the ARRL book, its good reference material but you dont need to read every word of it to pass the tech exam

i just did mine like two months ago. honestly just used hamStudy and did practice tests every day for like two weeks. the math questions look scarier than they are, theres only a few formulas you really need. i was scoring around 60% at first too and ended up passing fine. good luck