All six sections of the UA pipe-trades battery, in the format you will actually sit: no calculator, short arithmetic, answer-from-the-text reading, fold-and-punch, and mechanical intuition. Every answer shows its working, because an answer key you cannot check is worth nothing.
| Section | Here | Real test |
|---|---|---|
| Numerical Computation | 8 | 28 in ~21 min |
| Numerical Reasoning (number series) | 5 | 10 in 10 min |
| Reading Comprehension | 3 | 42 in 25 min |
| Problem Solving (word problems) | 8 | 35 in 35 min |
| Paper Folding | 3 | 12 in 15 min |
| Mechanical Comprehension | 4 | 13 in 13 min |
| Total | 31 | ~140 in ~120 min |
The proportions here are deliberately not the battery’s. Reading is 42 of about 140 questions on test day and only three of these, because one passage teaches the rule that section runs on — answer from the text — and repeating it ten times teaches nothing new. The arithmetic sections get the most items because that is where hand-speed is built.
On the real battery: 28 questions in ~21 min — about 45 seconds per question. Full breakdown of this section.
Straight arithmetic against a clock, by hand. Fractions and decimals of an inch are the working language of the pipe trades, so this is the section where rust shows immediately — and the one that repays drilling fastest.
1. 5/8 + 3/16 = ?
Answer: 13/16
Sixteenths is the common denominator: 5/8 = 10/16. Then 10/16 + 3/16 = 13/16. It will not reduce — 13 is prime.
2. 7/8 − 1/3 = ?
Answer: 13/24
Denominators 8 and 3 have no common factor, so the common denominator is 24. 7/8 = 21/24 and 1/3 = 8/24. 21/24 − 8/24 = 13/24.
3. 2 3/4 × 4 = ?
Answer: 11
Convert first: 2 3/4 = 11/4. Then 11/4 × 4 = 44/4 = 11. Whole-number answers are common when the multiplier matches the denominator — spot it and skip the long multiplication.
4. 3/4 ÷ 1/8 = ?
Answer: 6
Dividing by a fraction is multiplying by its reciprocal: 3/4 × 8/1 = 24/4 = 6. Read it as "how many eighths fit in three quarters" and it is obvious.
5. Write 0.375 as a fraction in lowest terms.
Answer: 3/8
0.375 = 375/1000. Divide both by 125: 3/8. Worth memorising the eighths — 0.125, 0.25, 0.375, 0.5, 0.625, 0.75, 0.875 — because the test will not give you time to derive them.
6. What is 12.5% of 96?
Answer: 12
12.5% is 1/8. 96 ÷ 8 = 12. Converting a percentage to a familiar fraction beats decimal multiplication every time you can do it.
7. 1 1/2 + 2 5/8 + 3/4 = ?
Answer: 4 7/8
Eighths throughout: 12/8 + 21/8 + 6/8 = 39/8. And 39/8 = 4 remainder 7, so 4 7/8.
8. 18 − 7.35 = ?
Answer: 10.65
Line up the decimal points and treat 18 as 18.00: 18.00 − 7.35 = 10.65. Losing the trailing zeros is the standard way this one goes wrong.
On the real battery: 10 questions in 10 min — a full minute per question. Full breakdown of this section.
The shortest section on the battery, and the one with the highest points-per-minute if you know the pattern families: constant difference, changing difference, constant ratio, and alternating two-step patterns. Write the differences between terms underneath the row — the pattern usually names itself.
9. 3, 7, 15, 31, ___
Answer: 63
Each term is double the one before it plus one: 3×2+1 = 7, 7×2+1 = 15, 15×2+1 = 31, so 31×2+1 = 63. The differences (4, 8, 16) doubling is the tell.
10. 96, 48, 24, 12, ___
Answer: 6
A constant ratio of 1/2 — each term is halved. 12 ÷ 2 = 6.
11. 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, ___
Answer: 17
The differences are 1, 2, 3, 4 — increasing by one each step. The next difference is 5, so 12 + 5 = 17.
12. 7, 14, 10, 20, 16, ___
Answer: 32
Two alternating operations: ×2, then −4. 7×2 = 14, 14−4 = 10, 10×2 = 20, 20−4 = 16, so 16×2 = 32. When a series goes up and down, test alternating steps before anything clever.
13. 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, ___
Answer: 4
Same constant ratio of 2 as any doubling series — the fractions are only there to slow you down. 2 × 2 = 4.
On the real battery: 42 questions in 25 min — about 36 seconds per question. Full breakdown of this section.
The rule that decides this section: every correct answer is supported by a sentence in the passage. The moment you answer from job experience instead of from the text, you are being steered by a distractor. Question 16 below is built to catch exactly that.
14. According to the passage, why is water preferred to air for a pressure test?
Answer: Because a liquid is nearly incompressible, so a failure releases very little stored energy.
Stated almost word for word in the passage. Note what it does NOT say — that water is cheaper, or that air gives a false reading. Both sound plausible and neither is in the text.
15. According to the passage, what happens before the pressure is raised?
Answer: The line is filled with water and the air is vented at the high points.
Two steps, both in the first sentence describing the test. "Vented at the high points" is the detail a skim-reader drops, and a question can hang on it.
16. Based on the passage, which statement is best supported?
Answer: A pneumatic test is used only when the system cannot tolerate water.
The passage says a pneumatic test "is permitted only where the system cannot tolerate water". Compare it with a statement like "pneumatic testing is more dangerous than hydrostatic testing" — widely believed in the trade, and never actually asserted in this passage. Only one of those two can be pointed at a sentence.
On the real battery: 35 questions in 35 min — a full minute per question. Full breakdown of this section.
The largest math section, and the one where the arithmetic is the easy part — setting the problem up is what is being tested. Write down what you are solving for before you touch a number, and keep your units visible: inches and feet in the same line is the most expensive mistake available here.
17. A run of pipe measures 24 ft 6 in. It is cut into 7 equal pieces. Ignoring saw waste, how long is each piece?
Answer: 3 ft 6 in
Convert to one unit first: 24 ft 6 in = (24 × 12) + 6 = 294 in. Then 294 ÷ 7 = 42 in, and 42 in = 3 ft 6 in. Dividing 24.5 by 7 in feet also works (3.5 ft) — the failure mode is dividing the feet and the inches separately.
18. A 480-gallon tank drains at a steady 12 gallons per minute. How long does it take to empty?
Answer: 40 minutes
480 ÷ 12 = 40. Rate problems are a single division once you name the units: gallons ÷ gallons-per-minute = minutes.
19. A crew of 4 installs 180 ft of pipe in 3 days. At the same rate per worker, how much would a crew of 6 install in 2 days?
Answer: 180 ft
Find the rate per person-day: 4 workers × 3 days = 12 person-days, and 180 ÷ 12 = 15 ft per person-day. The new crew is 6 × 2 = 12 person-days, so 12 × 15 = 180 ft. The answer being identical is the point — more workers for less time can be the same labour.
20. A first-year apprentice starts at 45% of a $46.00 per hour journeyman rate. What is the apprentice rate?
Answer: $20.70 per hour
10% of 46 is 4.60, so 40% is 18.40. Half of 10% is 5%, which is 2.30. 18.40 + 2.30 = $20.70. Breaking a percentage into 10% and 5% chunks is faster by hand than multiplying by 0.45.
21. A job needs 60 ft of copper tube, sold only in 20-ft lengths at $2.40 per foot. What is the material cost?
Answer: $144.00
60 ÷ 20 = 3 full lengths with nothing left over, so there is no extra to pay for: 60 × 2.40 = $144.00. Watch for the version of this question where the footage does NOT divide evenly — then you pay for the whole length.
22. A system has a working pressure of 80 psi and the procedure calls for a test at 1.5 times working pressure. What is the test pressure?
Answer: 120 psi
80 × 1.5 = 120. Or: 80 + half of 80 = 80 + 40.
23. One pump can fill a tank in 6 hours; a second pump can fill the same tank in 3 hours. Working together, how long do they take?
Answer: 2 hours
Add rates, not times. In one hour the first does 1/6 of the tank and the second does 1/3, i.e. 2/6 — together 3/6 = 1/2 a tank per hour, so the tank takes 2 hours. Averaging 6 and 3 to get 4.5 is the trap, and it is wrong because two pumps must beat the faster pump alone.
24. A fitting reduces flow through a line by 15%. If flow was 40 gallons per minute before the fitting, what is it after?
Answer: 34 gallons per minute
10% of 40 is 4 and 5% is 2, so the reduction is 6 gpm: 40 − 6 = 34. Equivalently, 85% of 40 = 34. Answering 6 — the size of the reduction rather than the flow — is the most common miss on this shape of question.
On the real battery: 12 questions in 15 min — about 75 seconds per question. Full breakdown of this section.
A square of paper is folded, one or more holes are punched through every layer, and you pick the sheet as it looks unfolded. It is not a knowledge question and it is not guessable — but it is very trainable, and the whole skill is unfolding in reverse, one fold at a time, mirroring each hole across the crease you just undid. Two facts do most of the work: a punch goes through all layers, and each fold doubles the layers.
25. A square is folded in half once, then a single hole is punched through the folded sheet. How many holes are in the unfolded square?
Answer: 2
One fold makes 2 layers, and the punch goes through both. Unfolded, the two holes sit as mirror images either side of the crease — at the same distance from it.
26. A square is folded in half, then in half again, and one hole is punched. How many holes appear when it is unfolded?
Answer: 4
Each fold doubles the layers: 1 fold = 2 layers, 2 folds = 4 layers. One punch through 4 layers gives 4 holes, arranged symmetrically about both creases. This is the whole section in one rule — count layers first, and the hole count is decided before you think about position.
27. A square is folded in half twice, and two holes are punched. How many holes appear when it is unfolded?
Answer: 8
4 layers × 2 punches = 8. Position still has to be reasoned out fold by fold, but if your chosen answer has the wrong NUMBER of holes you can eliminate it without doing any of that — which is how you save time on this section.
On the real battery: 13 questions in 13 min — a full minute per question. Full breakdown of this section.
Bennett-style intuition questions: levers, pulleys, gears, and how fluids behave. No formulas are supplied and none are really needed — what is tested is whether you can see which way a thing turns and which way the advantage runs. Ignore friction unless a question mentions it.
28. Two pulleys are connected by a belt. The driving pulley is 6 in in diameter and turns at 100 rpm; the driven pulley is 3 in in diameter. How fast does the driven pulley turn?
Answer: 200 rpm
Speed varies inversely with diameter: the driven pulley is half the size, so it turns twice as fast. (6 × 100) ÷ 3 = 200 rpm. Smaller driven pulley means faster and weaker; larger means slower and stronger.
29. A lever rests on a fulcrum. A 100 lb load sits 1 ft from the fulcrum, and you push down 4 ft from the fulcrum on the other side. How much force balances the load?
Answer: 25 lb
Balance the moments: force × distance on one side equals force × distance on the other. 100 × 1 = F × 4, so F = 25 lb. Four times the distance means a quarter of the force — and four times the travel.
30. A 20-tooth gear drives a 40-tooth gear. The 20-tooth gear turns clockwise. What does the 40-tooth gear do?
Answer: Turns counterclockwise at half the speed
Two gears meshed directly always turn opposite ways. Twice the teeth means half the speed — and twice the torque. Both halves of the answer matter; a question that asks only about direction is testing whether you know meshed gears reverse.
31. Two containers of different width are connected at the bottom by an open pipe, and water is poured into the wider one. Where does the water settle?
Answer: At the same level in both containers
Connected water finds one level regardless of the shape or width of the vessels, because level is set by pressure at the bottom, not by volume. This is the principle a water level relies on, and it is a standard mechanical-comprehension item.
31 questions will tell you which section is your problem. It will not fix it, and it will not build the thing that actually separates prepared applicants from unprepared ones, which is pacing across six timed sections in one sitting.
One email, no spam — the section-by-section plan built around this battery.
Worth knowing before you build a study plan around a number: most locals do not simply pass or fail you, they rank you, and the qualifying score is only meaningful alongside which test your local uses. Three UA locals with published criteria use three different instruments with three different cutoffs — see what score you actually need, and if a first attempt has already gone badly, the retake rules are set by your local rather than by GAN.
No, and nobody honestly selling you practice questions has real ones. GAN Human Resources does not publish its item bank, and an applicant sitting a proctored session does not leave with the questions. These are written in the battery's format — same section types, same no-calculator arithmetic, same answer-strictly-from-the-passage reading rule — which is what practice is for. Anything advertised as "actual GAN questions" is a reconstruction at best.
About 140 across six separately timed sections, in roughly 120 minutes of testing time. Reading Comprehension is the largest at 42 questions in 25 minutes; Numerical Reasoning is the smallest at 10. Exact counts vary slightly by test version, and your invitation letter is the final word on what you are sitting.
Do not. The GAN battery does not allow a calculator on any section, so practising with one trains the wrong skill. Work on paper, the way you will on test day. Every question here is built to be done by hand in well under a minute.
Untimed on the first pass, to see which sections you are weak in. Then timed at the real pace — the section pages give the per-question budget, and the tightest is reading at about 36 seconds each including reading the passage. Getting a question wrong slowly is a different problem from getting it wrong quickly, and the fix is different too.
No — 31 worked questions is a diagnostic, not a study plan. It is enough to tell you which of the six sections will cost you points and to show you what each one feels like. Full-length timed batteries are what build the pacing, and pacing is what unprepared applicants lose on.
We do not publish an answer to that, because GAN does not publish its scoring method and a guess about it could cost you points. Ask the training center when you confirm your test appointment, along with what the qualifying score is. Both questions are fair to ask and the answer is specific to your local.
The app carries 1,500+ questions and ten full-length timed batteries across all six GAN sections, with Piper to explain any question you miss — so test day is your eleventh run at the format, not your first.
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