Standards, Documentation, and Safety
Standards landscape
You must recognize the roles of key organizations and document types without reproducing their text. Know that standards bodies publish test methods, specifications, and guides, and that a specification states requirements while a guide offers recommendations. Understand the inspection roles: the inspector verifies conformance to the project specification, which governs over general standards when they conflict. Recognize common document types - coating specifications, product data sheets, safety data sheets (SDS), inspection reports, and daily logs - and what each contains.
Documentation practice
Questions test whether you know that records must be contemporaneous, legible, and traceable: batch/lot numbers, environmental readings, DFT readings, and nonconformance reports. Understand hold points (work cannot proceed until inspection is signed off) and how deviations are documented and approved rather than silently accepted.
Safety
Know hazards of surface preparation and coating: respirable crystalline silica from abrasive blasting, solvent vapors and flammability, confined-space entry (testing, ventilation, attendant, permit), and lead or other toxic coatings on legacy structures. Understand hierarchy of controls - elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, PPE last. Traps include treating PPE as the primary control or assuming a respirator alone makes a confined space safe.
Rule of thumb: when specification and standard disagree, follow the more stringent requirement unless the specification explicitly says otherwise - and document the decision.