Guide to the EPA Refrigerant Handling Certification Exam

Rating:
Summary: Overpriced and poorly done.
Review: This book should have filled a very important void as the only source available which includes samples of actual questions one might find on the EPA exam. However, many, many of the answers given for the sample questions are wrong, which can only be attributed to poor proofreading and checking.

The questions are not coupled with explanations, and many of the questions cover topics not even mentioned in the reading material. Taken together with the number of wrong answers supplied, in my opinion, it makes the book practically worthless.

Many of the questions are misleading. If these are truly direct from the EPA, then the book could have done a great service in explaining the subtle differences in the answers and helping the student develop a rationale for addressing similar questions on the exam. Instead, the student is left to their own resources to figure out why certain answers are supposedly correct. Often, the answer cannot be obtained from the reading material contained in the book, but forces the student to go elsewhere. As noted, when the material in the book does cover the material in the question, the student often finds the author's supplied answer is wrong.

The book is poorly organized. It follows the predicted structure of the Core, Type I, II, and III exam material, but a lot of the basic material is included in an Appendix. This is information that should be reviewed by the student before taking the practice exams, but is not even addressed until you have made it completely through the book. If you get "stumped" on an exam question, more often than not the material will not be covered in the chapter you have just reviewed, or in the prior chapter or the introduction.

The book contains an enormous amount of "filler" which is obviously supplied just to make the book thicker. This includes information such as how to take an exam, a glossary, and copies of the Clean Air Act. It is such a naked attempt to just add pages to the book that it is insulting.

The high price adds injury to insult. I recommend you save your money. Buy the esco institute phamphlet for a quarter of the price and, except for the sample questions, you get the same basic material.