field experience is best but other than that just review code sections and know the reference materials. be extra familiar with how to best locate topics within your reference materials.
Like most certification examinations, the level of preparation depends on your background, level of exam difficulty, etc; particularly for the S2 (structural welding) exam.
If you can readily comprehend mid to high-rise structural steel/welding blueprints, you can easily pass the S1 (bolting) exam, even if you have no background in structural steel. A short review course will do the trick. However, the S1 certification alone has very little value in the industry.
The S2 exam's plan reading portion (Part 2) is straightforward, however, the open book code and fundamentals portion (Part 1) will be challenging for someone who does not have a background in welding. Relying solely on the reference materials is not sufficient to get through Part 1 of the S2 (structural welding) exam.
About 1/2 of the questions in the S2 Part 1 exam consist of photos/forms etc of: discontinuities, welding processes, NDT, WPSs, PQRs, and so on. Furthermore, the questions are rather wordy...clearly an attempt to evaluate the examinees grasp of the subject matter fundamentals. I guess it was developed to: make it comparable in level of difficulty to the AWS CWI (Certified Welding Inspector) exam; and, weed out those who do not have real world experience from those who do.
While there is no actual experience requirement for the structural steel/bolting cert or the welding cert it's my contention that the experience requirement is built into the difficulty of the questions. Obviously if one has little or no experience in reading structural steel/bolting or welding drawings one is in for a tough exam.
I have all the SI certs except for welding. I have virtually no experience in welding insp. However, I had no experience in structural steel/bolting; I studied the reference material for 30 days and passed the exam. Pretty sure I only missed two questions. Took exam on Sat and by Monday I was out inspecting structural steel/bolting.
Success on these exams depends on effort expended in preparation. studying = success / TV = failure
So I'm going to put henri2's theory to the test. I'm going to study the welding reference material for a couple of months and give it a shot. I have a suspicion I'll be inspecting welds by the end of the summer. Scary!
