CSLB exam
General Building (B)
The trade exam for the General Building classification: planning and estimating a job, then framing, the core trades, the finish trades and jobsite safety, against the California building codes. Taken alongside Law & Business.
What Trade Forge Prep offers
This site covers all 5 content areas CSLB tests on this exam. Each area has its own study guides and practice questions; across them there are 9 job scenarios that put you on a real job and ask what you would do next, eight timed practice exams, and a study plan that paces your reading. You'll find the same for Law & Business: all 7 of its content areas, with every kind of practice.
Without an accountYou are here
Start free with Core Trades: its study guides, every practice question, and both job scenarios. Plus the study guides for every other area.
With a free account
Everything above, plus one timed practice exam, and progress that follows you to any device.
With a paid account
Every content type in every area of both exams, eight timed practice exams for each exam, and a study plan that paces your reading.
What CSLB tests, and how much of each
These are the 5 content areas in CSLB's own exam PDF, and the share of the exam each one carries. Everything on this site is organized around them.
- Planning and Estimating
- 15%
- Framing and Structural Components
- 20%
- Core Trades
- 30%
- Finish Trades
- 20%
- Safety
- 15%
Study guides
The guides are grouped by content area. Each one covers what the exam tests, the numbers worth memorizing, and the places people get tripped up, and every rule cites the law or code section it comes from.
General Building (B) is tested against the California building codes, and those codes are not ours to republish. So some areas have two guides: one that maps what the code covers and tells you where to read it, and one that covers the rules the exam asks about.
Planning and Estimating
- Planning and Estimating: Running the Job Before It Runs You This one maps the area and shows you where to read the code yourself.
- Planning and Estimating: The Rules the Exam Asks For
- Job scenario · 4 decisionsThe Twenty Percent That Wasn't You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsPulling the Permit You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
Framing and Structural Components
- Framing and Structural: The Rules the Exam Asks For
- Framing and Structural Components: The Load Path, by the Book This one maps the area and shows you where to read the code yourself.
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsThe Deck That Left the House You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
Core Trades
- Core Trades: Seven Trades, One Section This one maps the area and shows you where to read the code yourself.
- HVAC: The Rules the Exam Asks For
- Electrical: The Rules the Exam Asks For
- Plumbing: The Rules the Exam Asks For
- Building Envelope: The Rules the Exam Asks For
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsSix Circuits and a Closet You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.
- Job scenario · 6 decisionsThe Closet Heater You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.
Finish Trades
Safety
- Safety: When the Rules Kick In This one maps the area and shows you where to read the code yourself.
- Safety Operations: The Numbers the Job Runs On
- Job scenario · 4 decisionsNinety-Eight in the Shade You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
- Job scenario · 4 decisionsThe Cut Station You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid
- Job scenario · 5 decisionsTwo Roofs in One Week You're the contractor. Every call changes what happens next.Opens with a Paid