ASNT Level II practice exam: pacing and score meaning

What you are practicing for

The ASNT examinations page lists the General exam for UT, MT and PT as 50 items in 2 hours. The Specific exam, taken alongside it, is 40 items in 2 hours and covers codes, applications and techniques for a sector. Both are computer-based and taken in person at a Pearson VUE test center or an ASNT Authorized Exam Center, in English.

Two format details shape how you practice:

• The calculator is built into the exam software. Pearson says not to bring your own. Practice on a scientific calculator layout so the keystrokes are automatic.
• Visual acuity, practical and job-specific exams belong to your employer, not ASNT. A written practice exam does not rehearse those. The exam-day guide covers booking, ID and retakes.

Pace it like an exam, not a quiz

Two hours for 50 items averages 2.4 minutes per question. That average hides the real pattern: recall and concept questions take well under a minute, and calculation questions take three or four.

Use this plan in a timed run:

1. First pass at about 1.8 minutes per item. That is 90 minutes for 50, which leaves 30 minutes in hand.
2. Answer what you can, flag what you cannot. If a question needs more than 3 minutes, flag it, take your best guess and move on.
3. Checkpoint at 60 minutes. You should be through roughly 30 items. If you are at 20, you are spending too long on calculations.
4. Spend the last 30 minutes on flags, then on any answer where you remember a unit or sign problem.

Practice the flag-and-return habit on paper too. A question you skipped in a rush and never revisited is a point you gave away.

What a practice score tells you

ASNT's psychometrics page says passing scores are criterion-based cut scores and that its exams are typically in the 70% to 80% range. It does not publish the exact cut score for any exam, whether scores are scaled, or topic weights for the General exams. So no practice score can promise a result.

Use a practice score for three narrower jobs:

• Trend. Is your score by topic moving up across sessions?
• Distribution. Are your misses concentrated in one topic or spread out?
• Time. Did you finish with minutes to spare, or did you rush the last ten?

A practice exam score is also only as good as the questions. An item bank that repeats questions inflates your score through memory, so sit different sets each time.

A three-week mock schedule

This assumes you have already covered the topics once. If not, build that base first with the 30, 60 and 90 day UT plan or the MT and PT short plan.

• Three weeks out: one full timed run of 50 questions under exam conditions. Log every miss by topic and by cause (physics, geometry, calculation, judgment or simple misreading).
• Two weeks out: two short timed sets of 25 on your weakest topics, then a second full run late in the week. Compare the topic breakdown to week three.
• One week out: one last full run, then stop adding new material. Spend two days on the topic that has moved least.
• Two days out: rest, a light read of your error log and a check of your ID and test center details. Do not sit a full run the day before.

Run each mock at the time of day your appointment is booked. If you have a 9 a.m. seat, a late-night mock tells you little about how you think at 9.

Read the outline before you trust any set

Your practice has to match the outline for your exam date. For UT, the guide states that the current outline applies to exams taken up to 5 February 2027, so read the UT outline change guide if you sit later. For MT, ASNT publishes one topic list for exams before 15 December 2026 and another after it. PT has a single list of four topics. Always check ASNT's published outline for your appointment date.

The UT General exam guide walks through the six UT topics, and the UT practice test guide has explained sample questions to start on. If this is a second attempt, rebuilding your plan after a retake shows how to turn the first result into a study list. The retake wait is 30 days, per the exam-day guide.

Next step

Take the free 10-question check to see exactly which topics to fix before you sit a full mock. It is untimed, needs no signup and explains every answer. The full course adds timed practice exams, a lesson for each topic and a study plan built from your exam date, so you can run the schedule above without building your own sets. After each timed exam, the result shows your score change by domain since the last one.

FAQ

How many questions are on an ASNT Level II General exam?

ASNT lists 50 items in 2 hours for the UT, MT and PT General exams, and 40 items in 2 hours for the Specific exam. Check the examinations page for the current figures when you book.

What score do I need to pass?

ASNT does not publish the exact cut score. It says passing scores are criterion-based and its exams are typically in the 70% to 80% range. Aim to be steady on every topic rather than to hit a single number.

Is a practice exam the same as the real one?

No. A practice exam is original material written to the published topics. It trains pacing, calculator use and topic coverage, and it does not predict your result.

Should I take a full practice exam the day before?

Resting is the safer plan. Finish your last full run a few days out, review the error log the day before and keep your ID and test center details ready.