Machinist · Red Seal 429A
Five Machinist Red Seal practice exam questions, answers included.
Five questions from five different work activities — recall, procedural and critical-thinking, the way the exam is built. Pick an answer, then open the explanation. Every question in the bank explains all four options, not just the right one.
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A thin steel rule is pinched lightly between the turning tool's point and round work, and its top leans toward the operator. What does this show?
- The tool point is below centre height.
- The tool point is above centre height.
- The tool point is on centre height.
- The toolholder is not square to the work.
Show the answer
A. Correct. The rule lies tangent to the work where the point touches it. Below centre that tangent tips the rule's top toward the operator, above centre it tips away, and on centre the rule stands upright. Raise the tool until the rule is vertical.
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A 4 in. face mill with five inserts turns at 450 rpm, and the insert maker recommends 0.006 in. per tooth. What table feed is set?
- 2.7 ipm
- 10.8 ipm
- 13.5 ipm
- 54.0 ipm
Show the answer
C. Correct. Feed rate = fpt × N × rpm = 0.006 × 5 × 450 = 13.5 ipm. The cutter's 4 in. diameter matters for the spindle speed, not for the feed once the rpm is known.
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Work zero is on the top face. What does the machine do at N60 in: N40 G00 X20. Y15. Z25.; N50 G81 X20. Y15. Z-12. R2. F150.; N60 X50.; N70 G80;
- Moves to X50. at hole depth, cutting a slot from the first hole.
- Rapids to X50. Y15. without drilling, as G81 is not repeated.
- Drills a hole at X50. Y0., since N60 gives no Y value.
- Drills a second hole at X50. Y15. to the same depth.
Show the answer
D. Correct. A canned cycle is modal: once G81 is active, every block with a new position repeats the cycle there with the same Z, R and F until G80 cancels it. Y is modal too, so N60 drills at X50. Y15.
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Which abrasive is used on a tool and cutter grinder to sharpen a solid-carbide end mill?
- Cubic boron nitride.
- Diamond.
- Aluminum oxide.
- Silicon carbide.
Show the answer
B. Correct. Cemented carbide is too hard for conventional abrasives to grind well; a diamond wheel, usually resinoid bonded, cuts it freely and holds the fine edge and exact clearances a carbide cutter needs.
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An M10 × 1.5 tapped hole is checked with a thread plug gauge. The go member screws in full depth, and the no-go member also screws in full depth. What does this show?
- The pitch diameter is oversize.
- The thread is within its limits.
- The pitch diameter is undersize.
- The tap drill was undersize.
Show the answer
A. Correct. The no-go member is made to the largest pitch diameter allowed. If it screws all the way in, the thread is larger than that limit, for example from an oversize tap or one that wobbled, and the part fails.
Want ten more with every option explained? Free Machinist Red Seal practice questions — no account, no email, printable.
The Machinist Red Seal exam at a glance
What you're walking into.
Question mix — weighted to the blueprint
The Machinist exam is procedural first: 50 to 60 percent of the paper asks you to carry out a method, 25 to 35 percent hands you a situation or a set of numbers to work through, and only 10 to 20 percent asks you to recall a fact. The method is usually a machining one — choosing the work holding, setting a speed and feed from a chart value, planning the order of cuts, setting up a taper or a thread, establishing a work datum — and the wrong answers are the steps people get out of order or the set-up that almost works. Conventional lathes and conventional milling machines carry 28 questions each and CNC machines 27 — 83 of the 135 questions between the three blocks. The largest single task, setting up conventional milling machines, carries 15.
The pass mark is 70 percent, which is 95 correct answers out of 135, and four hours works out to about 1 minute 47 seconds a question. A two-page formula sheet and an acronym list are provided at the sitting. The exam is built on the 2018 Red Seal Occupational Standard for Machinist. Ontario calls the trade General Machinist (429A), a non-compulsory trade with an 8,000-hour apprenticeship; the Red Seal name for the trade is Machinist, and it is the same exam.
The full Machinist Red Seal practice exam
Know your real Machinist exam score before exam day.
Free, Red Seal–style practice for the Machinist certification — General Machinist 429A in Ontario. Every test is weighted to the official exam blueprint — more than half procedure, the rest critical thinking and recall, the way the real exam is built — so the score you get here reflects the score you'd get there.
What the Machinist exam covers
Eight major work activities.
The occupational standard groups the trade into 8 major work activities, 20 tasks and 110 sub-tasks. The question counts below are the official blueprint weightings — our 550-question bank is built to that same map, with every sub-task covered. Machine work leads: conventional lathes and conventional milling machines carry 28 of the 135 questions each, and CNC machines 27. Common occupational skills (13) follows, then benchwork (11), precision grinding machines (11), drill presses (9) and power saws (8). Every one of the 20 tasks carries questions, communication and mentoring (2) included.
- A
Performs common occupational skills · 13 questions
Safety-related tasks — a safe work environment, PPE and safety equipment (2 questions); organizing work — interpreting documentation such as drawings, and planning the sequence of operations (3); communication and mentoring techniques (2); processing workpiece material (4), the largest task in the block: selecting material, hoisting, lifting and rigging, marking for identification, heat treatment, quality control, deburring and sketching parts; and maintaining machines, tooling and inspection equipment (2) — cleaning and lubricating machines, sharpening tooling, cutting fluid and coolant, troubleshooting, machine alignment and care of inspection equipment. Free block A questions: safety, drawings and materials →
- B
Performs benchwork · 11 questions
Hand processes (8 questions) — layout, sawing, filing, hole making, threading, thread inserts, broaching, pressing, forming and finishing — and refurbishing components (3): disassembling, analyzing and assembling them. Free block B questions: benchwork and hand tools →
- C
Machines using power saws · 8 questions
Setting up power saws (5 questions) — choosing the saw type and the blade, installing blades, speeds and feeds, saw adjustments and setting up the workpiece — and operating them (3): straight and angle cuts, and cutting irregular shapes. Free block C questions: band saws and power saws →
- D
Machines using drill presses · 9 questions
Setting up drill presses (5 questions) — drill press types, planning the operation, speeds and feeds, jigs, fixtures and work holding devices, and tooling — and operating them (4): drilling holes, cutting countersinks, counterbores, chamfers and spot faces, tapping and finishing holes. Free block D questions: drill press drilling and tapping →
- E
Machines using conventional lathes · 28 questions
Setting up conventional lathes (14 questions) — lathe types, planning the operation, work holding devices, tooling, accessories such as steady rests, follower rests and taper attachments, setting up the workpiece, and speeds and feeds — and operating them (14): facing, turning external surfaces, drilling, boring, reaming, turning tapers, knurling, cutting grooves, cutting threads and parting off. Tied with milling as the heaviest block on the paper. Free block E questions: lathe turning, tapers and threading →
- F
Machines using conventional milling machines · 28 questions
Setting up conventional milling machines (15 questions), the largest single task on the exam — machine types, planning the operation, work holding devices, tooling, accessories such as the dividing head and rotary table, setting up the workpiece, and speeds and feeds — and operating them (13): milling surfaces, profiles and pockets, slots, grooves and keyways, cutting gears and splines with the indexing calculations behind them, and drilling, reaming, countersinking and counterboring, tapping and boring on the mill. Free block F questions: milling, indexing and gear cutting →
- G
Machines using precision grinding machines · 11 questions
Setting up precision grinding machines (6 questions) — machine types, planning the operation, work holding devices, mounting the grinding wheel, accessories, setting up the workpiece, and speeds and feeds — and operating them (5): grinding flat surfaces on a surface grinder, grinding profiles, internal and external cylindrical and tapered surfaces, tools and cutters, and finishing holes on a honing machine. Free block G questions: precision grinding and grinding wheels →
- H
Machines using computer numerical control (CNC) machines · 27 questions
CNC programming (12 questions) — process documentation, manual input programs, transferring programs to and from control memory, optimizing programs, 2D and 3D models, and programming with CAM; setting up CNC machines (8) — tooling and tool holders, workpieces, establishing the work datum and verifying the program; and operating them (7): adjusting offsets, monitoring the machining process, and interrupting and restarting the program cycle. Free block H questions: CNC programming, set-up and operation →
Where our numbers come from
Every question, anchored to the standard.
Machining practice banks quietly go wrong in two ways: a cutting speed, a feed or an allowance from one handbook or chart presented as the only right answer, and formulas tested as memory when the exam hands you a formula sheet. Every question in our Machinist bank is anchored to a sub-task of the occupational standard and verified against it, with all four options explained. Where a value depends on the chart, the tool maker or the drawing — a cutting speed, a feed per tooth, a reaming allowance, a tolerance — the question gives it in the stem instead of inventing a single right answer. The formula sheet and acronym list are provided at the exam sitting — π = 3.1416, rpm in imperial and metric, feed rate per minute, machining time for a lathe and a mill, thread depth, measurement over wires, tap drill size and bend allowance — so calculation questions that use those formulas are worked from the sheet, as the sheet writes them, and we never test recall of the formulas themselves. The sheet has no taper, sine bar, indexing or gear formulas, and the Red Seal Program's own critical-thinking example is a sine bar gauge block calculation, so the bank asks for those methods the same way: without a formula to lean on. Each question is written in one system, inch or metric, the way a drawing is. The question counts above are the Red Seal Program's own exam breakdown for Machinist, and every question is mapped to a sub-task of the Red Seal Occupational Standard. The current exam and this bank follow the 2018 standard. For what each block covers and where to spend your study time, read the Machinist Red Seal exam guide. Read how our questions are made.
Tools for this exam: the free tap drill chart and bolt torque chart, no account needed.
Last reviewed against the Red Seal Program's published exam information.
Why practice scores mislead
You can ace recall and still fail the Machinist exam.
Only 10 to 20 percent of the Machinist exam asks you to state a fact — an abrasive, a thread form, a term from the acronym list. That is exactly why recall drills leave machinists over-confident. Between 50 and 60 percent of the paper is procedural, and it tests the order and the method behind the fact. Knowing what a canned cycle is does not tell you what the machine does on the block after G81. Knowing the rpm formula does not tell you which speed to set when the lathe has no step at the figure you calculated. Knowing what a go/no-go gauge is does not tell you what an oversize thread looks like on one. Then 25 to 35 percent is critical thinking, a larger share than in most of the trades we cover — a rule pinched between the tool and the work that leans toward you, a new hacksaw blade that sheds teeth on thin-wall tubing, a wheel face showing bright specks of metal — where you have to read the evidence and name the cause. The formula sheet gives you the rpm, feed and thread formulas but nothing for tapers, sine bars or indexing, so that method is yours to bring. That gap is why people walk in confident and walk out surprised. TicketPrep weights every test to the published blueprint, so a weak block here is a weak block there.
How TicketPrep prepares you
Built like a study tool, not a quiz app.
Weighted to the blueprint
Every test matches the published Machinist weightings — recall, procedure and critical thinking in the same proportions the real exam is built from.
Every answer explained
Learn why the right answer is right — and why each of the other three is wrong. That's where the learning happens.
Timed mock exams
Full-length tests that match the real 135-question count and 4-hour limit, so exam day feels familiar.
Know your weak areas
Your score broken out by work activity, so you always know which block to drill next.
Machinist exam questions
Before you start.
How many questions are on the Machinist Red Seal exam?
Is the 429A General Machinist exam the same as the Machinist Red Seal exam?
Is the Machinist practice exam free?
Is there a formula sheet on the Machinist Red Seal exam, and what is on it?
How much CNC is on the Machinist Red Seal exam?
Is the Machinist Red Seal exam in inch or metric?
What does the Machinist Red Seal exam cover?
Are these real Machinist Red Seal exam questions?
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