Sunday, August 10, 2025

Slow It Down and Think It Through

Working on site is constantly having to problem solve. And the stakes on site are pretty high—even potentially life changing

Manitoba Local 152

By Michael Schroeder Hubert, CLAC Training Manitoba Program Manager

If we’ve met on site, chances are that I’ve put a test in front of you. As a trainer, one way that I check to see if you know enough to be given a safety certificate is to get you to take a test.

I don’t just give tests though. Recently I’ve been taking a lot of tests myself. Some because I have to and some just for fun.

In the just for fun category, Red Seal has sample exams for all the trades on their website that you can use for exam prep. I’ve written six of these practice exams (only about twenty questions per trade) to get an idea of what each trade is expected to know.

The stakes are zero for me, and I’ve sailed through them pretty quickly. I’m averaging about 60 to 65 percent correct answers on my attempts. Clearly, I’m not ready for a certification of qualification exam—much less coming to your house to work on your electrical panel.

A good test is going to have a variety of different question types on it. There are going to be simple do-you-remember-the-fact questions, which you either know or don’t.

There are going to be slightly harder questions that make you remember how things relate to each other to get the right answer.

And there are going to be even harder questions that require you to analyze a situation or problem and come up with the right solution.

What sort of surprised me in the Red Seal tests is the number of questions that I could have figured out if I had just thought a bit more about what was being asked. Sure, there are questions that I got wrong because I simply don’t have the technical knowledge, but there were a few questions on each test that I could have figured out if I had slowed down and taken the time to think through the possible answers.

The correct answer totally made sense when I saw it. I just hadn’t thought about it enough to get to that answer.

Working on site is constantly having to problem solve. It’s an everyday part of the job that you do, whether its deciding how to work around concrete that isn’t poured to the right dimension to how to rig up a load to how to interpret plans that have incomplete data to how to use materials as efficiently as possible to how to work in a team of diverse coworkers to making sure that when you position yourself at height, you aren’t at risk of falling.

No matter what the nature of the challenge, getting the correct solution will probably require you to slow it down and think it through. And unlike me taking tests just for fun, the stakes on site are pretty high. Even potentially life changing when it comes to safety.

Taking these Red Seal tests has given me more respect for what each trade needs to know. It’s also shown me that a common trait needed by every tradesperson is how to solve those problems.

Slow it down. Think it through. You got this!

Slow It Down and Think It Through

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