so i decided i want to get my technician license and i downloaded the question pool from the arrl website but honestly its kind of overwhelming. theres like 400+ questions and i dont really know if i should just memorize all of them or actually try to understand the material. a friend told me to just use ham study dot org and grind the practice tests but another guy at my local club meeting said i should actually read a book first. i dunno, i only have maybe a few weeks before the next exam session in my area and im not sure how much time i really need. any advice on what actually worked for you?

honestly the memorize everything approach worked fine for me but i do think you retain it better if you at least skim the gordon west technician book first. its pretty thin and you can get through it in a weekend. then hammer the practice tests on hamstudy for a few days and you should be fine. the question pool doesnt change that often so what youre seeing now is current. the electrical stuff trips people up sometimes, like the ohms law questions and the basic antenna formulas, but theres only a handful of them and the math isnt bad at all. i passed with like a week of casual studying so dont stress too much about the timeline.

yeah i just took mine last month and did basically all hamstudy, no book. got a 92% i think. the thing that helped me was when i got a question wrong i actually read the explanation before moving on instead of just clicking next. some of the regs stuff like the part 97 rules and the band privileges for tech class, those can be tricky because theres a lot of similar-sounding answers. also dont skip the section on repeaters and CTCSS tones, thats on there more than you'd think