so ive been wanting to get into ham radio for a while now, my neighbor is licensed and he keeps telling me to just go take the test already but honestly i dont even know where to begin. i looked up the question pool online and theres like 400+ questions and i panicked a little lol. do people actually memorize all of them or is there a smarter way to study? i downloaded some app but idk if its the best one. also does the actual test pull questions word for word from the pool or do they change them up? i really dont want to fail in front of people at the testing session, that would be embarrassing

ok so first thing -- yes the questions on the actual exam are pulled word for word from the published pool, no tricks or rewording. that's actually great news because it means you can literally just drill the questions until you recognize them. i used ham study dot org when i was prepping and passed with like a week of studying, maybe 30 minutes a day. dont try to memorize everything in order, just do the practice exams over and over until you're consistently hitting 85%+ and you'll be fine. the passing score is 74% so 26 out of 35 questions. some of the electrical theory stuff is a little weird at first but honestly for tech you dont need to go super deep into it, just learn the formulas they actually ask about. you got this, its not as bad as it looks.

the ARRL Technician manual is pretty decent if you want something physical to read through, some people learn better that way than staring at a screen. that said i know plenty of folks who just used the question pool PDF and a practice test site and never touched a book. depends how your brain works i guess. one thing i'd say is dont skip the stuff about band plans and operating procedures even if it seems boring, there's usually a handful of questions from that section and they're easy points if you just read through it once. good luck at the VE session, the examiners are volunteers and generally pretty chill about the whole thing, nobody's there to make you feel dumb