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The MASS test

Power Plant Maintenance Positions Selection System

EEI's catalogue describes MASS as covering power plant maintenance positions and names mechanic, machinist, electrician, welder and pipe fitter.

Take a full MASS mockFree demo: Reading for Comprehension
Sections
4
Questions
118
Timed testing
72 min

As published in EEI's MASS test brochure.

The sections, in order

Each section has a free demo you can try now. Counts and time limits are the ones EEI's MASS brochure publishes for this battery — the same section can be timed differently in another one.

  1. 1.Reading for Comprehension

    Standard36 questions · 30 min

    You read passages of the kind of writing the job involves — procedures, safety rules, equipment descriptions, work instructions — and answer questions on each. The wrong options are usually true-sounding statements the passage does not actually support, so the discipline is answering from the text rather than from what you already know.

    Five passages.

    Free demo Full practice

  2. 2.Mechanical Concepts

    Standard44 questions · 20 min

    Simple pictures of mechanical arrangements with a short question: which gear turns which way, which pulley takes less effort, where the pressure is highest, which load is more stable. No formulas are needed and nothing is measured; it is about understanding how everyday mechanisms behave.

    Free demo Full practice

  3. 3.Assembling Objects

    Complete20 questions · 15 min

    You are shown loose parts — shapes with connection points, or pieces of a cut-up figure — and several pictures of them assembled. Only one is a correct assembly; the others have a part flipped, rotated wrongly or joined at the wrong point. It is mental rotation and spatial visualization, the skill a fitter uses reading an exploded diagram.

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  4. 4.Mathematical Usage

    Standard18 questions · 7 min

    Short applied math: convert units, put numbers into a given formula, work out a rate, a percentage or an area. Individually the questions are easy. The section is built around speed, so the practice that matters is doing simple arithmetic quickly and cleanly.

    Short form.

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About the MASS test

MASS is the battery EEI describes for power plant maintenance positions — mechanic, machinist, electrician, welder, pipe fitter. Its brochure sets out Reading for Comprehension (36 questions on five passages in 30 minutes), Mechanical Concepts (44 in 20), Assembling Objects (20 in 15) and Mathematical Usage (18 in 7): 118 questions and 72 minutes of timed testing.

Three of those four sections are shared with the other batteries, so most preparation carries across. Assembling Objects is the exception and the one to spend your extra time on: loose parts on one side, assembled versions on the other, and only one of them uses every part in the right orientation.

One point of confusion worth clearing up: MASS is the maintenance battery, not the meter reader test. EEI's catalogue lists meter reading separately, as the Meter Reader Aptitude Battery, and it is a much shorter perceptual-speed test. Several prep sites get this wrong.

How it is scored

EEI's MASS brochure says the sections are combined into one index score, which is translated into expected probabilities of successful job performance. Unlike CAST and POSS, no numeric range is published for MASS, and no employer publishes a cut score.

Worth knowing

  • MASS is the plant MAINTENANCE battery. It is not the meter reader test — EEI's catalogue lists that separately as the Meter Reader Aptitude Battery.
  • Assembling Objects appears only in MASS among the batteries we cover.
  • Some utilities administer MASS together with POSS in one longer session.

Common questions

How is the MASS test scored?
EEI's brochure says the sections are combined into one index score which is translated into expected probabilities of successful job performance. No numeric range is published for MASS, and no employer publishes a cut score.
Is MASS the meter reader test?
No. EEI's catalogue describes MASS as the Power Plant Maintenance Positions Selection System and lists the Meter Reader Aptitude Battery as a separate, much shorter test.
What is Assembling Objects?
Twenty spatial questions in 15 minutes: you are shown loose parts and several assembled versions, and choose the one that puts every part together correctly. It appears only in MASS among the batteries we cover.

Utility Tests is independent practice. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the Edison Electric Institute or any utility, our questions are original and written from published descriptions, and nothing here is the real MASS test.