This project consists of flashcard decks for the complete questions pools for all of the written examination elements used in the Federal Communications Commission's Commercial Radio Operator License Program at the time of release.
These decks are for use with Anki, a spaced-repetition flashcard program. The decks are in CrowdAnki JSON format and may be imported to Anki using the CrowdAnki plugin.
This project includes decks for the following written exam elements:
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Element 1 | Basic radio law and operating practice |
| Element 3 | General Radiotelephone |
| Element 6 | Advanced Radiotelegraph |
| Element 7 | GMDSS Radio Operating Practices |
| Element 7R | Restricted GMDSS Radio Operating Practices |
| Element 8 | Ship Radar Techniques |
| Element 9 | GMDSS Radio Maintenance Practices and Procedures |
Each deck, to my best of my knowledge, contains all of the questions and correct responses that appear in all the question pools in use as of the time of release.
The question pool documents were retrieved from the FCC website between December 2018 and April 2019.
For more information about FCC commercial radio operator licensing examinations and to obtain the original question pool documents from which these decks were created, visit the FCC's commercial operator license examinations page.
Before investing time in study, you are advised to check the FCC website to ensure that the question pools used for these decks are still valid and in use.
- Download and install Anki software version 2.0.x or 2.1.x.
- Install the CrowdAnki plugin for Anki (as of 7 May 2019, CrowdAnki is compatible with Anki 2.0.x and 2.1.x.)
Go to the project's downloads page, select the Tags tab, and download the desired version.
If you prefer, you may instead use Git to download the decks to your computer, by simply cloning the project repository.
After downloading the deck(s), refer to the Import section of the CrowdAnki README. Follow the "import from disk" instructions.
You will need to import each deck individually, so repeat this step as needed for each deck that you plan to study.
Once you have the deck(s) installed, select a deck to begin reviewing that deck.
Refer to the Anki user manual to understand how Anki works and how to use it.
FCC commercial operator written exams are administered in multiple choice form. For these decks, however, I have largely employed a question-and-answer format instead of including the multiple choices on the card. This decision was based on the Anki Manual's recommendations studying for a multiple-choice exam.
For some question types, however, a question-and-answer format is not ideal, as omitting the multiple choices responses sometimes removes important context, making it difficult to answer the question based on the information given. In such cases, I generally have kept the multiple choice options intact.
Here are some examples of question types where this format is commonly used:
- Questions that are phrased as "Which of the following..."
- Questions with compound answers, e.g. where the correct answer is "All of the above", "A and C", etc.
- Negative questions, i.e. those that ask you to identify which of these is not correct, which of these does not apply, etc.
The Element 6 question pool in particular makes heavy use of compound questions; they are the rule rather than the exception. Because of this, I chose to keep the multiple choice options intact for that entire deck.
For the most part, the cards adhere to the following formatting and style conventions.
The front side of each card always contains the question ID and question text. In some cases, for reasons stated in the previous section, the front may also include a list of multiple choice responses.
The back side of each card contains the full text of the correct answer choice. The actual FCC exams will not necessarily list the answer choices in the same order that they appear in the question pools, so memorizing the letter (A, B, C, or D) of each response is not a good study technique.
Remarks from the deck author are enclosed in square brackets and begin with "Edit:" On the front of cards, in cases where the question text alone doesn't make it clear what precisely the question is asking for, I have sometimes deviated from the aforementioned practice of including the multiple-choice responses back and instead have added a remark containing a hint to help clarify what type of response the question is seeking. On the back of cards, remarks may point out suspected errors in the question pools, provide further detail about a concept, or suggest a mnemonic device.
You are encouraged to edit the cards to suit your needs. For example, you may wish to add or remove multiple-choice options from a card, or add your own hints, mnemonics, and so on.
The Editing and More section of the Anki User Manual explains how to do this.
Refer to HISTORY.md
This project is distributed under the MIT License. Refer to LICENSE.md
Refer to CONTRIBUTING.md
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