Revise with instant feedback: the moment you pick an answer you see whether it was right, with the explanation where available. Untimed — ideal before you sit a mock exam. Questions you miss keep coming back until you know them.
Exam-day conditions: no feedback until you submit, each module scored separately like the real test, with a full question-by-question review at the end.
The real exam is passed module by module: Rules of the Road requires 90%, most other modules 70%. Chart-plotting modules are taken on paper and not included.
The free sample gives you 20 to 30 questions per module. The full bank contains every available official question, with written explanations on the popular small-vessel credentials, one-off $29, lifetime access on up to 3 devices, all credentials included.
You must pass each module separately. Most modules require 70% to pass.
The exam covers 4 modules: Deck General, Deck Safety, Navigation General – Near Coastal, Navigation General – Oceans.
This page includes free sample questions drawn from the official USCG sample examinations, with a full bank of around 190 questions across all modules available with lifetime access.
Every question comes from the U.S. Coast Guard National Maritime Center's published sample examinations, which are U.S. government works in the public domain. Wheelhouse Prep is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Coast Guard.
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A selection of free questions from the official USCG sample examinations. Use the interactive modules above for timed, scored drills.
Which term defines when a vessel is swinging from side to side off course due to quartering seas?
Why: Yawing is the swinging of the bow from side to side off the intended heading, typical in quartering seas. Broaching is being thrown broadside in a trough; rolling is side-to-side rotation; pitchpoling is end-over-end capsizing.
What is the difference between net tonnage and gross tonnage?
Which is the BEST way to reduce your wake in a narrow channel?
Which international body is responsible for drafting the MARPOL convention prohibiting marine pollution?
The most likely time for oil pollution while bunkering is when __________.
Why: Topping off is when tanks are nearly full and an overflow can occur in seconds; flow may still be substantial and the remaining ullage is small, making it the most likely moment for a spill.
Your cargo vessel is transiting pirate waters with a temporary security team onboard. The ship has been attacked and starts sinking. The decision has been made to abandon ship. During the muster, the security force leader is determined to be missing. What initial action should be taken?
Your vessel has grounded on a bar. What should you do?
You are the person in charge of a lifeboat when land is sighted. Due to a medical emergency, you have made the decision to beach the lifeboat through the surf. Which of the following is of greatest consideration in making this decision?
A situation has occurred where it becomes necessary for you to be towed. What action should be taken to prevent your vessel from yawing?
Why: Shifting weight aft sets the stern deeper, increasing drag aft so the towed vessel trails straight behind the towline like a weathervane instead of sheering from side to side.
If the gyrocompass error is east, what describes the error and the correction to be made to gyrocompass headings to obtain true headings?
By what means are indications of the master gyrocompass sent to remote repeaters?
What happens to the intensity of a hurricane as it reaches higher latitudes and cooler waters?
Which is the difference between the DR position and a fix, both of which have the same time?
Which is the region containing 3/4 of the mass of the atmosphere and to which are confined such phenomena as clouds, storms, precipitation and changing weather conditions?
Why: The troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, contains about three quarters of its mass and nearly all its water vapor, so clouds, precipitation, storms, and changing weather occur there.
A safe water daymark has what shape?
Why: Safe water daymarks are octagonal and colored red and white. Triangles are starboard-hand marks and squares are port-hand marks, so safe water gets its own distinctive eight-sided shape.
Which kind of conditions would you observe as the eye of a storm passes over your vessel's position?
Why: In the eye, winds fall light and skies often clear while the barometer reads its lowest, but seas, no longer driven from one direction, arrive huge and confused from all directions. The eye is the pressure minimum, so high-pressure options are wrong.
What does the expression "the air is saturated" mean?
What happens to the barometric pressure after a cold front passes?
In which months will the North Equatorial Countercurrent be strongest?
How should a vessel spotted at 45° relative be reported?
Your vessel is being assisted through an ice field in Thunder Bay by the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Alexander Henry. The starboard lookout reports that the icebreaker has run up the code flag "N" (November). Which action should you take?
Stress on the topping lift of a swinging boom can be reduced by __________.
In plugging submerged holes, why are rags, wedges, and other materials used in conjunction with plugs?
The cook has reported a fire in the deep fat fryer. What class of fire would this be?
Which term is used to describe the horizontal port or starboard movement of a vessel?
Why: Sway is the bodily side-to-side (translational) motion of a vessel. Yaw is rotation about the vertical axis, surge is fore-and-aft bodily motion, and heave is vertical bodily motion.
Which term describes a light, feathery deposit of ice by sublimation of water vapor directly into the crystalline form on objects whose temperatures are below freezing?
In most cases, the direction of the apparent wind lies between the bow and which reference point?
How is an occluded front represented on a weather map?
Which class of tide prevails in the greatest number of important harbors on the Atlantic Coast?
The dew point is reached when which condition occurs?
Which is TRUE for the directive force acting on a gyrocompass?
Which is TRUE if the compass heading and the magnetic heading are the same?
Which describes the wind circulation around a high-pressure center in the Northern Hemisphere?
The scuppers had been plugged as required at the time a small oil spill occurs on deck from a leaking dresser coupler. After shutting down the transfer, the engine room should first be informed and then which action should be taken?
How are fusible link fire dampers operated?
Which would you expect to see on a lighted preferred-channel buoy?
Which clouds are described as high clouds, composed of small white flakes or scaly globular masses, and often banded together to form a "mackerel sky"?
While on watch at sea you must maintain a proper lookout at all times. On a 700-foot cargo vessel being hand-steered during daylight hours in good visibility and clear of any navigational hazards, who may be the lookout?
Where a propeller shaft passes through the hull, which device prevents water from entering the hull?
Why: The stuffing box surrounds the shaft where it penetrates the hull; packing compressed by a gland seals against sea water while still letting the shaft rotate. A sea cock is a hull valve, not a shaft seal.
The two factors which make underwater hull repair difficult are accessibility and which other factor?