It's definitely not a joke. At the seminar there were about a half dozen QC professionals, 3 structural engineers, 2 mechanical engineers, 1 nuclear engineer, and about 5 welders, both independent and company mandated. I'm just a welder with a high school diploma, and I funded this whole thing on my own hoping to advance myself. I did well in school, but at 34 years old it's getting to where that was kind of a long time ago. Studying out of a stack of books is a discipline that takes practice, like any other trade. It was pretty hard, but I enjoyed the challenge, pass or fail. I studied like an insane person for 12 weeks solid prior to the seminar, and it definitely helped. Much to my enjoyment as a welder, the engineers all thought it was going to be a 'gimme' and were horribly overwhelmed. If you show up to that seminar without a hell of a lot of prep beforehand, it is going to be pure hell, regardless of your current trade. All said and told, it's a pretty balanced program. As a welder, I had to do a lot of study and research on the NDT, the code, and the metallurgy, but I breezed through the rest of the fundamentals. An engineer will breeze through those parts, but have to do a lot of research into the nitty gritty of the welding processes. Nobody really has a clear advantage.
Solid advice to anyone looking to attempt the CWI exams: you need to know these documents forwards and backwards. And I DO MEAN FORWARDS AND BACKWARDS.
AWS QC1. Certification of welding inspectors.
AWS B5.1. Specification for the qualification of welding inspectors
AWS Z49.1. Safety in welding, cutting, and allied processes
CODE BOOK OF CHOICE. - This is critical. Get a bootleg off the internet and go to kinkos with a thumb drive and stick it in a binder to practice with. A LOT. Just make sure it is the current version. D1.1 is a google search away, even though it will cost about $40 to print it. The practice exams are NOTHING like the real one. The practice tests throw softballs at you, the real deal was nothing but a shitload of oddball peripheral factoids hidden deep within the text of the code. API 1104 has no index as I am told, but even with the D1.1 that I took, most of it could not be indexed. The instructed strategy of using code words was nearly useless with a good portion of those questions. You have to have read it repeatedly cover to cover to know where to look.
The next ones are going to cost you, but I believe that if you don't want to cram 18 hours per day during the seminar, they are absolutely necessary. They will give you all of these at the event, but downloading a bootleg and sticking it in a binder to study ahead of time won't hurt anyone. Just don't tell them I told you to do that.
Certification Manual for welding inspectors. (some of this info is duplicated in the WIT book, but it's still a must have if you're serious)
Welding Inspection Technology - They give you this book and expect you to cram it all in 3 days, which is completely unrealistic for anyone that is human. Buy this ahead of time, and read it cover to cover a few times. Its about 250 pages of textbook and you NEED to know this material inside out and backwards. For part A, this book is absolutely critical. By studying it ahead of time I was scoring 94% on the 220 practice questions the first day of the seminar, while the engineers were freaking out and doing suicide study shifts until 3 am every night because they were only getting around 50%.
Welding Inspection Technology Workbook - Kinda crooked that they sell this part separately, but you need it. Practice softball versions of the questions you will receive on part A.
AWS A2.4 Standard Symbols For Welding Brazing, and Nondestructive Examination - 2012 has some very important revisions that will be on upcoming exams. Variables to the left of the weld symbol used to be "S[Depth of bevel] - E[weld size]" - In 2012 and forevermore it will be shown as "S[size or strength of certain welds] or D[depth of groove] - (S = groove weld size)" It's a little more descriptive, but more complicated. You need to be familiar with weld symbolism up one side and down the other, take that to the bank.
AWS A3.0 Standard welding terms and definitions, including terms for adhesive bonding, brazing, soldering, thermal cutting, and thermal spraying. (What a mouthful lol)
Part A threw a few oddballs out of here just to screw people out of a couple correct answers. They gave this book to us and had us underline about 80 - 100 or more antiquated and bizarre unused terms that you will have to know for the exam.
AWS B1.10 Guide for the nondestructive examination of welds. (This book is critical for someone like me with little to no experience in high end NDT. A lot of very useful detailed information regarding UT and RT, and several good charts / tables)
D1.1 Code Clinic (obviously, only for those that use this particular code for the exam): if you are like me and have little or no experience with the code book, this document, although LOADED with typos, does a great job of breaking down a 570 page code into 231 active pages for the real exam, includes 3 practice tests.
I hope all that is helpful.
