The EEI TECH Test: What Is Actually Published

The EEI TECH battery — the Technician Occupations Selection System — has four tests: Graphic Problem Solving, Interpreting Diagrams, Mechanical Concepts and Reasoning from Rules. Of those four, EEI publishes a question count and a time limit for exactly one: Mechanical Concepts, 44 questions in 20 minutes. The rest are described but not quantified, and the battery as a whole is stated only as taking about two hours to administer. This page sets out what the brochure actually says, and why the very specific numbers you will find elsewhere should be treated with suspicion.

Who sits TECH

EEI's catalog says TECH is used for technician jobs that typically require an associate degree, and names examples: laboratory, environmental or chemistry technician; distribution planning technician; communications or telecommunications technician; drafter; and estimator. It is a different population from the trades battery — more analytical, more document-driven — and the test reflects that.

The four tests

Test	What it covers	Questions and time
Graphic Problem Solving	Working problems from graphical material	Not published
Interpreting Diagrams	Reading and drawing conclusions from diagrams	Not published
Mechanical Concepts	Applied mechanical principles	44 questions, 20 minutes
Reasoning from Rules	Applying stated rules to cases	Not published

"Not published" means exactly that. Two separate vintages of the TECH brochure name all four tests and give counts and a time limit for Mechanical Concepts alone. EEI also states that two versions of the TECH battery exist, each containing the same four tests.

Why the numbers online are unreliable

Search for TECH and you will find confident claims such as "Interpreting Diagrams: 9 questions in 9 minutes" and "Graphic Problem Solving: 12 questions". Those figures do not come from any brochure. They match the parameters of EEI's own practice exercises, which are shorter than the real tests by design — EEI's practice pages note that the suggested practice times differ from the actual test.

The honest position is that if you want to know how many Interpreting Diagrams questions you will face, the answer is that nobody outside EEI and its member companies has published it. We would rather tell you that than invent a number, and it is worth applying the same skepticism to whatever else a site is selling you. We wrote about how to judge EEI prep material, including EEI's own free material.

What you can prepare

The one fully documented test is also the one you can practice properly, and it is not a small part of the battery. Mechanical Concepts at 44 questions in 20 minutes — twenty-seven seconds each — is the same test that appears in CAST, CAST-R, POSS and MASS, which means everything built for those batteries transfers directly. Run it in full blocks against a real clock; the Mechanical Concepts demo does exactly that, and the CAST battery practice includes the full-length version.

For the other three, prepare the skill rather than the format:

• Graphic Problem Solving and Interpreting Diagrams are about extracting values and relationships from graphical material accurately and quickly. The closest well-documented analogue is the CAST's Graphic Arithmetic test, which asks arithmetic questions about drawings. Practising Graphic Arithmetic builds the same underlying habits: find the right value on the drawing, do not assume the scale, check what the question asked for.
• Reasoning from Rules is applying given rules to cases without importing outside knowledge — deciding what necessarily follows, what does not, and what simply cannot be determined from what you were given. That discipline is trainable, and it is close to what the Reading for Comprehension section rewards: answer from the text in front of you, not from what you know.

Scoring

The TECH brochure says component scores are combined into an overall score that predicts the candidate's likelihood of success. It does not publish a numeric range — unlike CAST's 1-to-10 index or POSS's zero-to-15 aptitude index. You will find sites that quote a range for TECH; the brochure does not contain one.

Nor does any employer publish the level at which it hires. As with every battery in EEI's catalog, the bar is set internally, company by company. Our guide to EEI index scales sets out what is known and what is not.

Where the battery came from

The brochure credits HR Strategies, formerly Personnel Designs, working with 23 investor-owned electric utility companies, with the test administered to over 2,100 technician job incumbents during development. Some employers refer to it by an internal number rather than by name — Southern California Edison, for instance, catalogs TECH as test 5107 — so an invitation quoting a number rather than a name may still be a TECH invitation.

Frequently asked questions

How many questions are on the EEI TECH test?

EEI does not publish a total. It publishes 44 questions in 20 minutes for Mechanical Concepts and gives no count or time limit for Graphic Problem Solving, Interpreting Diagrams or Reasoning from Rules. The battery takes about two hours to administer.

Why do other sites give exact TECH section counts?

The figures in circulation match EEI's practice exercises rather than the real tests, and EEI's own practice material notes that practice timings differ from the actual test. Treat any precise TECH section count as unsourced unless it cites a brochure.

Can I practice for TECH here?

You can practice Mechanical Concepts at full length and real pace, and you can build the underlying diagram-reading and rule-application skills through Graphic Arithmetic and Reading. We do not sell a TECH-specific simulation, because we would have to invent the section parameters to build one. See what is included.

Is TECH harder than CAST?

It is aimed at a different population — technician roles that typically ask for an associate degree — and leans more on diagram interpretation and formal reasoning than on trade-floor mechanics. Whether that is harder depends entirely on your background.