Part-66 exam format and pass marks

Three answers per question, and one of them is correct (Appendix II, point 1.2). The pass mark is 75% for the multiple choice part of each module and submodule (Appendix II, point 1.7), and it is the same under both authorities.

Penalty marking is not used to decide whether you have passed (Appendix II, point 1.10). The wording matters more than it looks: the rule bars penalty marking as a way of deciding pass or fail, and it does not promise that no mark is ever deducted. In practice, leaving a question blank gains you nothing over guessing.

The two wrong answers are not filler. Appendix II requires them to seem equally plausible to anyone who does not know the subject, to relate clearly to the question, and to match the correct answer in vocabulary, grammar and length. In numerical questions they must come from procedural errors, like a correction applied in the wrong sense or a wrong unit conversion, and never from random numbers. Whoever sets the paper is held to that standard, which is why ruling out obviously silly options is not a strategy that works on a Part-66 paper.

Time is derived, not chosen. Appendix II allows a standard 75 seconds per question, so every figure in the syllabus table is the question count times 1.25 minutes: Module 15’s 92 questions in 115 minutes, Module 11’s 140 in 175.

Exams must be run by a training organisation approved under Annex IV (Part-147) or by the competent authority, which in the UK is the CAA. There is a third route in the regulation, but it applies to category L licences only, never to B1.1.

On what you may take in with you, Part-66 says nothing at all. What you may bring in is set by whoever runs your examination, so ask them before the day. The nearest binding rules are 66.B.200(g), which limits you to the examination documents, and 147.A.135(b), under which having any subject material beyond the exam papers disqualifies you and excludes you for twelve months.

This is the single biggest practical difference between the two regimes. Under EASA a B1.1 candidate writes 2 essays, both in Module 7. Reg (EU) 2023/989 removed the essays from Modules 9 and 10 from 12 June 2024. Under the UK CAA a B1.1 candidate writes 4: two in Module 7A, one in 9A and one in 10.

Each essay gets 20 minutes on top of the multiple choice time (Appendix II, point 1.3). So EASA’s B1.1 set carries 40 minutes of essay time against the UK’s 80, and that is most of the reason the UK total comes to 945 minutes despite having 24 fewer questions than EASA’s 935.

Marking is not guesswork. Each question has a model answer, broken into a list of Key Points, and your answer must contain 75% of the required Key Points with no significant error on any of them (Appendix II, points 1.5, 1.6 and 1.8).

The two parts stand or fall separately. Fail only the multiple choice part or only the essay part and you retake only that part (Appendix II, point 1.9), so a good essay does not rescue a failed multiple choice paper, and a failed essay does not cost you a multiple choice pass.

Prep66 covers the multiple choice part. The essay figures are here because they are part of the official paper, not because we prepare you for them.

After 90 days (Appendix II, point 1.11). That drops to 30 days in one case only: where a Part-147 approved maintenance training organisation gives you a course of retraining aimed at the subjects you failed in that module. It is the organisation’s approval that triggers the reduction, so no amount of private study, and no question bank, can shorten the 90 days.

Attempt limits then differ between the regimes, and the difference is material if you are unlucky. EASA caps attempts at 3 per examination in any period of 12 months (Appendix II, point 1.13). The UK caps them at 3 consecutive attempts per module, with further sets of three allowed after waiting a year between sets. Both regimes require you to declare your recent attempts in writing, and make the examining body responsible for checking the number.

EASA also allows something the UK does not: a long paper may be split into partial exams. An examination with more than 90 minutes allowed may be split in two, and one over 180 minutes in three (Appendix II, point 1.12). For B1.1 that covers Modules 6, 7, 11. The longest B1.1 paper is Module 11 at 175 minutes, so no B1.1 module qualifies for a split into three. The split parts must cover the module between them with nothing examined twice, be of similar length, each be passed at 75% in its own right, contain a multiple of four questions, and be taken within the same organisation. The UK has no equivalent rule at all.

10 years. The direction of the clock is what catches people out: it runs backwards from the date you apply for the licence, not forwards from the date you sat the paper. Under EASA the ten years applies to each module exam on its own (66.A.25(c)), with one exception: modules already passed as part of another licence category, where that licence has already been issued. The UK text applies the ten years to “the training courses and examinations” as a whole and never mentions single modules, so whether it bites module by module in the UK is CAA practice, not rule text.

A pass older than ten years is not automatically dead. You may apply to the competent authority for full or partial credits, backed by an approved examination credit report (EASA 66.A.25(d); UK 66.A.25(e)). Note the wording: you may apply. The authority does not have to say yes, and the report has to be approved before it counts for anything.

Credits then carry their own clock, running the other way: a granted credit lasts 10 years forwards from the date the credit was granted (EASA 66.B.410(b); UK 66.A.25(f) and 66.B.410(b)). When one runs out you may apply again, and the authority will extend it for another ten years without revisiting the merits, but only if the basic knowledge requirements in Appendix I have not changed in the meantime. EASA rewrote Appendix I in 2023 and again in 2025, so that condition really matters.

The experience requirement has its own separate window of ten years, anchored to the same application date. The experience rules and how to apply cover that side.

This page answers one part of the B1.1 route in full. The rest of the guide covers the others.