19.1 How the Specific Exam Differs from the General Exam

The ASNT NDT Level II specific exam is not a second copy of the general exam with a different cover page. The general paper asks whether you understand the method — magnetism and flux leakage, capillary action, radiation geometry, wave modes, or visual optics, plus the process controls that belong to that method. The specific paper asks whether you can apply a procedure and a code to a product form in a named industry sector. Candidates who restudy only physics after they pass the general leave the codes, applications, and techniques headings unprepared.

ASNT Certification Services LLC currently administers the written package as a 50-question general plus a 40-question specific for one chosen method. Each sitting is 2 hours, computer-based, in English, at Pearson VUE or an ASNT authorized exam center. This chapter owns the codes heading and the exam-level distinction between the two papers. Applications and techniques are the next chapter. Do not treat the three specific headings as a secret item-count split. ASNT publishes the headings, not an unpublished blueprint percentage for each.

Two papers, two jobs

A Level II on the shop floor does both jobs in the same shift. The written program splits them so the general stays portable across employers and the specific tests document literacy. Passing the UT general does not prove you can apply an ASME Section V Article 4 procedure to a nozzle. Passing a Pressure Equipment specific does not prove you remember Snell's law. Study the paper you are sitting.

The general is also the paper that stays behind when recertification-by-exam rules allow it. The specific is the paper that returns every five years if you renew by examination. That is another reason this distinction is not academic. Physics you already proved can drop off the recert sitting; procedure use does not.

Current specific-exam logistics

The current specific exam is 40 multiple-choice items in 2 hours. That is three minutes per item if you spend the whole clock, which is more time per item than the 50-question general. Use the extra time to read the printed paragraph. Specific items fail people who answer from a remembered number instead of from the stem.

You choose a sector when you apply: General Industry (GI) or Pressure Equipment (PE). You may sit one or both. The initial $740 member / $820 nonmember package buys the general plus one specific for one method. The second sector is the published industry sector add-on: $370 member / $410 nonmember. That add-on is also the published price for a retake of a failed exam and for recertification by exam per listed exam type. It is not a second $740 / $820 initial package, and it is not a free extra paper.

Both sectors are still method-specific. UT General Industry is not MT Pressure Equipment. A VT Pressure Equipment pass does not give you a UT badge. If you need two methods, you buy two method packages.

Delivery matches the general: computer-based, English, no walk-in testing, Pearson VUE or an ASNT authorized exam center. Employers still own visual acuity, the practical, and any job-specific exam their written practice requires. The ASNT specific is not the employer's practical and it is not automatically the employer's procedure quiz on a named traveler.

What ASNT does not publish

ASNT's public Level II examinations page lists three specific headings: Codes, Applications, and Techniques. That is the teaching outline. ASNT does not publish an item-by-item split — not "18 codes, 12 applications, 10 techniques," and not a percentage table. Do not memorize a forum blueprint. Do not invent one. Prepare all three headings.

ASNT also does not publish a single fixed pass percentage for the CBT. Cut scores use Angoff or item response theory. Public language is that exams typically fall in the 70%–80% range. Do not import Recommended Practice SNT-TC-1A's employer-program 80% composite / 70% per-test figures as the central ASNT cut score.

Sector choice: General Industry versus Pressure Equipment

General Industry is the sector whose document stack is usually ASTM method practices, AMS material or process specifications, AWS structural welding codes, and owner or customer specifications that are not the ASME boiler and pressure-vessel family. Typical product forms are structural steel, aerospace hardware, general fabrication, castings and forgings outside the PE stack, and in-service work that is not being examined to NBIC or API in-service codes.

Pressure Equipment is the sector whose document stack is the ASME construction books, ASME Section V as the NDE technique book, NBIC repairs and alterations, and API 510 / 570 / 653 in-service inspection codes. Typical product forms are pressure vessels, boilers, power and process piping, and aboveground storage tanks when those books are invoked.

The two sectors overlap in physics — a yoke is still a yoke — and they diverge in which book owns acceptance and which article owns technique. A GI stem is more likely to hand you ASTM E1444 or AWS D1.1. A PE stem is more likely to hand you Section V plus a paragraph from Section VIII, B31.3, or NBIC. Choose the sector that matches the work you do, or sit both if your shop crosses the line. Passing PE does not silently certify GI.

A Pressure Equipment specific also does not retire the fabricator's job-specific exam. The shop's UW-51 pointer, the exact B31.3 table printed on the traveler, and the vessel procedure revision still belong to the employer's written practice. Central certification proves sector literacy. It does not photocopy the booth binder into your badge.

Recertification by exam can be specific-only

Certification is valid five years and expires on the last day of the month on the digital badge. Renewal is either by application (36 of 60 months of documented Level II work, no significant interruption) or by examination.

When you recertify by exam and you still hold at least one valid ASNT NDT Level II, ASNT's public rule is that you do not retake the general. You take the relevant specific exam for each method you are recertifying. That is why this chapter matters after you are already certified: the recert sitting can be codes, applications, and techniques only.

If you do not hold a valid Level II at the time of the recert exam, the general comes back. Do not assume a lapsed badge still unlocks the specific-only path.

The published recert-by-exam fee is $370 member / $410 nonmember per listed exam type. Three specific exams on the exam path cost three add-on fees, which is why renewal by application is cheaper when you qualify for it. Fail a recertification exam and you cannot switch back to renewal by application for that cycle. Wait the 30-day retest interval, pay again, and obtain a new approval letter.

How a specific codes stem is built

A codes item is a document-literacy item. It is not a request to recite an unpublished ASNT acceptance chart.

Typical stems:

1. Hierarchy. The purchase order invokes AWS D1.1 and owner spec SP-12. The data sheet lists a looser undercut than D1.1. Which document controls?
2. Essential versus adjustable. The procedure lists wet fluorescent, yoke AC, and a named thickness range as essential. Production wants dry visible on a thicker forging. What may the Level II do?
3. Printed table. Using the table in the stem, is a 4 mm rounded indication acceptable on the 12 mm weld?
4. Which book owns which question. The construction code sends you to ASME Section V for technique. Where do you read whether the indication is rejectable?

The winning habit is the same on GI and PE: read what is printed, name the layer (contract, code, procedure, data sheet), and refuse to import a number you memorized from a different book.

Time discipline follows that habit. On a 40-item paper you can afford to mark the paragraph, find the essential-variable sentence, and only then look at the options. The distractors are written for people who see "MT" and pick a physics answer, or who see "ASME" and pick a remembered millimetre that is not in the stem.

What this chapter will not do

This chapter will not:

• Invent an unpublished ASNT split of the 40 items
• Treat SNT-TC-1A employer weights as the central CBT blueprint
• Publish fake UW-51, B31.3, or D1.1 numeric tables as ASNT secrets
• Substitute the employer's practical or vision exam for the written specific
• Teach applications and techniques in full — those belong in the next chapter

It will teach you to tell the two written papers apart, to pick and add sectors without paying the wrong fee, and to walk into a codes item knowing you are being tested on procedure use, not on a second physics quiz.

Realistic exam scenarios

A candidate who just passed the 50-question UT general books only more wave-physics videos for the specific. Wrong paper. The specific will hand a procedure paragraph and ask which variable is essential.

A member already holds UT Pressure Equipment and the shop adds structural work. The second sector is the $370 add-on, not another $740 general-plus-specific package, and not a free extra sitting.

A Level II badge is still valid in month 58. The candidate cannot document 36 months and must recertify by exam. Because a valid Level II is held, the sitting is the specific only. Study codes, applications, and techniques — not a full rewrite of the general outline.

A forum post claims "22 of 40 specific items are codes." There is no public ASNT table that says that. Prepare all three headings.

A stem asks whether the ASNT specific replaces the shop's procedure quiz. It does not. The written practice can still require a job-specific exam on the exact acceptance table hanging in the booth.