The following is copied from the National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) website:

The question pools are normally valid for 4 years and the current Question Pools are as follows:

• Element 2 – Technician – Effective July 1, 2018 until June 30, 2022
• Element 3 – General – Effective July 1, 2015 until June 30, 2019
• Element 4 – Extra – Effective July 1, 2016 until June 30, 2020

Each FCC Element or question pool consists of at least 10 times the number of questions required for a single examination and is released to the public normally 6 months prior to becoming effective for use in examinations to allow plenty of time for publication and study.

Each element or pool has a syllabus that is broken down into main sub-element sections (normally 10) and an unlimited number of sub-topic sections under each sub-element. Each sub-element is numbered with a prefix designating the Element number, example T1, T2 etc., followed by the subtopic letter for the section of each sub-element, example T1A,T1B, etc.

The 3 parts of a Question Pool Element Syllabus are:

• Sub-Element ( T, G, E )
  • Sub-Topic (T1A, G1A, E1A etc.)
  • Questions and Answers ( T1A01, G1A01, E1A01 etc.)

The actual questions are numbered in a format that reflects the element, sub-element and subtopic section of the syllabus where the question is found, example: T1A01 etc. Each pool is released with the exact questions and 4 multiple choice answers and the correct answer for each question is designated in ( ) just after each question ; Example: T1A01 (D) some with a rules reference [97.xxx] after the correct answer letter. On the actual exam, the correct answer letter in parentheses, and any rules citations do not appear with the question number.