The three FAA A&P written tests, in numbers

The uneven numbers are the point. Airframe and Powerplant carry 100 questions in the same time General gets for 60. That is about 72 seconds a question against 120. So the two tests most people assume are “the same but harder” are also the two where running out of time is a real way to fail.

Every question is multiple choice with 3 options and one correct answer, and each question stands on its own. (The FAA states the format and the single answer in those words. It does not, in any current publication we could find, state the number of options. Three is what every current test guide prints and what candidates see, and we say it without pointing to a document that does not exist.)

All three draw from the 40 subject areas of FAA-S-ACS-1, which §§ 65.75 and 65.79 incorporate by reference. If a study source describes the Practical Test Standards or the old Part 147 appendices, it is describing dead documents: the appendices went in 2022 and the PTS in 2023.

The FAA puts unscored validation questions into every airman knowledge test, to try out items before they count. Its own wording: validation questions are not scored and do not count for or against the applicant’s final score; the listed number of questions does not include them; and the allotted time does include the time required to answer them.

The FAA does not publish how many. So if you sit down to a General test billed at 60 questions and find more items than that, you have not been given the wrong test. And the minutes you spend worrying about it come out of a time budget that is already tight on Airframe and Powerplant.

24 calendar months, from the end of the month you tested. A test taken on 3 March 2026 is good through 31 March 2028. That is the expiry on the Airman Knowledge Test Report itself. And § 65.71(a)(3) applies the same 24 months to all the prescribed tests, written, oral and practical. So the window is really on the A&P, not on the writtens. Let it lapse before the practical and you retake the written to start it again.

There is one narrow exception, § 65.75(d), and it is not a general extension. It applies through 14 CFR § 61.40 to personnel serving outside the United States in support of Armed Forces operations.

If you fail, § 65.19 gives you two options. Wait 30 days, or retest sooner with a signed statement from an airman holding the certificate and rating sought, certifying that you got more instruction in each subject you failed and are ready to retest. After 30 days no statement is needed. Either way you hand over the failed report at the test center, which scans and destroys it, and you pay the $175 again. That fee, and every other one between you and the certificate, is set out on what the FAA A&P tests cost.

Passed, and want a better number? You can retake the same test after 30 days. The catch is that the later score stands whichever way it goes, and you hand over the original report.

Testing runs through PSI Services, LLC under the FAA’s Airman Certificate Testing Service contract. There are three steps, in this order:

The ID rule is all of these, not one of them. What you present has to show all of photo, date of birth, signature, physical residential address, and it can be spread across more than one document. A PO box, a rural route, a a school address, a an employer address is not a residential address and will be refused.

The figures booklet is handed to you. It is FAA-CT-8080-4G, Airman Knowledge Testing Supplement for Aviation Maintenance Technician (General, Airframe, and Powerplant), and it is still current. You do not bring your own copy.

⚠ And it is in the middle of a change. Under the FAA/PSI Graphics Conversion Project, images are moving into the questions themselves, and those images are not in the printed supplement. The booklet has not been withdrawn, and the FAA says the removal date has not been set. So today you get both, and if you have only ever studied from the booklet you will meet figures you have not seen before. Where a question needs a measuring tool, the FAA says you will be given one.

On calculators: aviation oriented or plain arithmetic calculators, including simple programmable memories are acceptable, you must switch it off and on or reset it in front of the proctor to show the memory is cleared, and the center may refuse yours and hand you one of theirs. No written material of any kind, printed or handwritten, and no dictionaries. The rule behind all of it is 14 CFR § 65.18.

One number worth knowing before you plan travel: PSI publishes coverage of 89 to 93% within 35 miles of flight and mechanic schools approved by the FAA and 98 to 99% within 60. The widely repeated “700+ centers in all 50 states” figure only shows up in third party blogs, and we could not verify it anywhere PSI or the FAA publishes.

Your Airman Knowledge Test Report prints the ACS code of every question you got wrong. You keep the original, you present it to the Designated Mechanic Examiner, and the examiner reads those codes at the pretest interview to decide what to ask you.

The math is published. Score 100% and the oral is the minimum 4 questions per section. Barely pass with a 70% and it can run to 22 General, 34 Airframe and 34 Powerplant, because each missed code adds a question. No reference material is allowed during the oral.

You have more company aiming at the mark than you would like. The FAA publishes an average score beside the pass rate for each test, and all three of them sit a few points above 70%. The figures, year by year, are on the FAA A&P pass rates page.

That is the whole reason not to aim at the pass mark. What the oral and practical really involves is on the next page.

This page covers one part of the route to your FAA A&P. The other pages cover the rest.

The reference pages under the guide each answer one question, for when what you want is the number rather than the explanation.

Every fact on this page was read from these on 19 August 2026. They are the authority and we are the summary. If we and one of them disagree, they are right.