Start Practice Test

What This Practice Exam Covers

The Mississippi Marine Construction licensing exam is 40 questions, 120 minutes, passing score 70%. You need 28 correct answers to pass.

This site gives you two ways to prepare:

Free practice exam — 10 questions per attempt, drawn from a limited pool. Retake it as many times as you want. Good for getting a feel for the format and question style before you commit to full prep.

Full practice exam — 40 questions, 120-minute timer, mirrors the real thing exactly. Questions are pulled from a pool of 225+ items, so every attempt is a different exam. No duplicate runs. Questions map directly to the official topic breakdown provided by the exam sponsor. If you're serious about passing, this is where you do the work.

Start with the free exam to get your baseline. Then use the full exam to drill the weak spots.

What You'll Be Tested On

Safety — 6 questions

Six questions doesn't sound like much, but safety questions tend to be cut-and-dried: you either know the threshold or you don't. Four areas show up most:

Fall protection — Know the 6-foot trigger for construction work. The exam tests which type of system applies (guardrail, safety net, personal fall arrest) and when each is appropriate.

Excavation safety — OSHA's 5-foot rule for protective systems. Know the difference between sloping, shoring, and trench shields. Expect a question that asks what protection is required at a specific depth or soil condition.

Crane and derrick safety — Load charts, ground conditions, power line clearances. The exam pulls from Construction Equipment Guide, Chapter 16 - Cranes, including rated loads for both lattice/telescoping-boom cranes and tower cranes. Know that the chart number is your ceiling, not your target.

Confined spaces — Permit requirements, atmospheric testing sequence, entry procedures. Know the order: test the atmosphere before entry, not during.

PPE — Employer payment requirements and correct selection for the hazard. Don't assume; the exam tests specific rules.

Fire protection — Extinguisher ratings, flammable liquid storage, fire prevention programs. Cited references include OSHA 1926.150(c)(1)(i) and OSHA 1926.150(e)(1) and (e)(2).

Miscellaneous Engineering – Pile Driving — 18 questions

This is nearly half the exam. Don't underestimate it.

Pile types — Timber, concrete, steel, sheet, and composite. For timber piles, know quality standards and treatment requirements (Construction Equipment Guide, Chapter 17, Timber Pile Quality and Treated Timber Piles sections). For precast-prestressed concrete piles, know driving stress limits and cushion requirements.

Hammers — Drop, single-acting, double-acting, diesel, and vibratory. The exam tests hammer selection logic (Construction Equipment Guide, Chapter 17 - Hammer Selection) and energy output. Know that hammer type affects both pile type compatibility and driving efficiency.

Load-bearing mechanisms — Friction piles transfer load through skin friction along the shaft. End-bearing piles transfer load at the tip to a hard stratum. The exam will give you a scenario and ask you to classify.

Driving stresses and cushions — Precast-prestressed concrete piles require pile cushions to limit driving stresses. Know why and when.

Vibratory drivers — Used primarily for sheet piles and in granular soils. Know their limitations versus impact hammers.

Compressed air systems — Construction Equipment Guide, Chapter 18 covers distribution systems, portable compressors, altitude effects on capacity, and gas law terminology. Expect questions on standard conditions for air measurement and how altitude reduces compressor output.

Equipment economics — Questions here draw from Construction Equipment Guide, Chapter 2 on repairs, fuel, tires, lubricants, depreciation, and rental vs. ownership breakeven. The aging fleet data (oldest 10% of equipment) is a tested data point — see the worked sample below.

Concrete — 12 questions

Thirty percent of the exam. Most of these questions come from Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures.

Cement types — Portland, blended, hydraulic. Know what differentiates them and where each is used.

Mix design — Water-cementitious materials (w/cm) ratio is the central variable. Lower ratio means higher strength and durability. Know how aggregate size and air content interact with mix proportioning.

Aggregates — Grading, moisture states (saturated surface dry vs. oven dry), and classification. The exam tests aggregate quality criteria and how moisture content affects the w/cm ratio on the job.

Durability — Freeze-thaw cycles, sulfate attack, chloride exposure, and permeability. Each exposure category has specific w/cm ratio and air content requirements. Know the table values.

Admixtures — Air-entraining agents, water reducers, accelerators (including calcium chloride restrictions with reinforced concrete), and retarders. The exam tests both what each admixture does and its limitations.

Placing and finishing — Consolidation methods, lift thickness, vibrator use, and finishing sequence. Know why over-vibration is harmful.

Concrete – Reinforcing Steel — 4 questions

Purpose — Steel handles tension; concrete handles compression. Shear reinforcement controls diagonal cracking.

Bar types, sizes, grades — ASTM specifications. Know standard bar sizes and how the designation number relates to diameter. Reference: Placing Reinforcing Bars, Chapter 7.

Identification markings — Deformed bars carry line markings that identify the producing mill, bar size, steel type, and grade. Know how to read them.

Cover requirements and tolerances — Cover protects steel from corrosion. Values vary by exposure condition. Reference: Placing Reinforcing Bars, Chapter 11, Concrete Protection section.

Bar supports — Chairs, bolsters, and their size designations. Reference: Bar Supports, Chapter 10.

Splices — Lap splices, mechanical splices, and welded splices each have specific applications and limitations. Reference: Placing Reinforcing Bars, Chapter 11.

Worked Sample Questions

Question 1 — Pile Driving: Aging Fleet Maintenance Cost

A contractor analyzes equipment costs and finds that the oldest 10% of machines in the fleet contributes disproportionately to maintenance expense. According to U.S. Army data, this oldest 10% of equipment accounted for what percentage of total equipment maintenance cost?

A. 25%
B. 20%
C. 35%
D. 45%

Correct answer: C — 35%

Repair costs increase with machine age, but not linearly. U.S. Army data shows that the oldest 10% of an equipment fleet drives 35% of total maintenance cost. This is a cited data point, not a calculation — you need to know the number cold. Source: Construction Equipment Guide, Chapter 2 - Equipment Economics, Repairs (aging fleet data).

Question 2 — Concrete: Calcium Chloride and Reinforcing Steel

A remodeling carpenter is pouring a new reinforced concrete slab for an enclosed porch. Cold weather is coming, and a colleague suggests calcium chloride to accelerate the set. What is the most important concern?

A. Calcium chloride will prevent adequate air entrainment
B. Calcium chloride will lower the freezing point by more than 20 degrees, making it too soft
C. Calcium chloride can accelerate corrosion of the steel reinforcement
D. Calcium chloride will cause the concrete to expand excessively before hardening

Correct answer: C — corrosion of reinforcing steel

Calcium chloride works as a set accelerator, but chloride ions attack steel. In reinforced concrete, specifications frequently restrict or prohibit its use for this reason. Also worth noting: Option B is a trap. Calcium chloride is NOT an effective antifreeze — at allowable dosages, it drops the freezing point by only a few degrees. Non-chloride accelerators are the correct choice for reinforced slabs. Source: Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures, Pages 222-223.

Question 3 — Safety: Excavation Protective Systems

At what trench depth are protective systems required?

A. 4 feet
B. 5 feet
C. 6 feet
D. 8 feet

Correct answer: B — 5 feet

OSHA requires cave-in protection for any trench deeper than 5 feet. This is a straight threshold — know it. Don't confuse it with the 6-foot fall protection threshold, which applies to working surfaces, not excavations. Mixing these two numbers is one of the most common errors on this exam.

How to Read Your Score

Passing is 70% — 28 correct out of 40.

Your first practice score is a diagnostic. If you score 60–65% on the first try, that's normal. It tells you where the gaps are, not whether you'll pass. Look at your results by topic. If you're dropping points on Pile Driving, that's your biggest problem — 18 questions means one bad topic can fail you by itself.

Scoring 70–75% on practice is not a green light. The real exam pulls from content you may not have seen in a short practice session. A comfortable passing score on practice — something in the 80s — gives you a real margin on exam day.

Use each full practice attempt to find specific subtopics where you're missing questions, then go back to the reference material. The full exam's 225+ question pool means you'll see new questions on every attempt, which is how you build broad coverage rather than memorizing a short list.

Where Candidates Lose Points

Confusing the 5-foot and 6-foot thresholds. Excavation protection triggers at 5 feet. Fall protection triggers at 6 feet. These are different rules. The exam knows candidates mix them up.

Pile Driving economics questions. Chapter 2 of the Construction Equipment Guide covers fuel, tires, lubricants, depreciation schedules, and rental vs. ownership breakeven — not just pile hammers. Candidates who prep only the physical pile-driving content get blindsided by equipment economics questions that are still classified under this topic.

Calcium chloride misconceptions. Candidates assume it's a freeze protection measure. It isn't — at allowable dosages it barely moves the freezing point. The real issue is chloride-induced corrosion of reinforcing steel.

w/cm ratio direction. Lower water-cementitious materials ratio means higher strength and better durability. Candidates who have this backwards will get durability and exposure category questions wrong.

Bar identification markings. These questions ask you to read a specific mark and identify what it means. If you've never looked at the marking system in Placing Reinforcing Bars, Chapter 7, you're guessing.

Running long on Pile Driving. Eighteen questions with multi-step reasoning can eat your clock. Watch your pace in that section.

Exam Quick Facts