Hair Cutting and Shaping — practice questions
5% of the exam ≈7 real questions 9 free questions here
10% of the clinical exam, about 7 questions. Elevation, guidelines, the four basic cuts, reference points on the head, and texturizing. It is a small domain with unusually clean right answers, which makes it the cheapest points on the clinical exam if you learn the four elevations properly.
Where people lose points
- Elevation determines the shape: 0 degrees gives a blunt one-length cut, 45 degrees gives graduation and a stacked weight line, 90 degrees gives uniform layers, and above 90 gives increasingly long layers. Four numbers, four shapes, asked over and over.
- A stationary guide builds weight or length increase because every section travels to the same fixed line. A traveling guide moves with you and produces uniform layers. Choosing the wrong one is the single most common cutting error the exam models.
- Thinning shears remove bulk, not length. An item describing a client whose hair is too long is not solved by texturizing, however heavy the hair is.
- A razor cuts wet hair only. Razoring dry hair tears the cuticle and the exam treats it as a straightforward wrong answer, not a stylistic choice.
- Learn the reference points — apex, parietal ridge, occipital bone, four corners, nape — because sectioning questions are phrased entirely in those terms and are unanswerable without them.
Drill: Hair Cutting and Shaping
9 free questions from this domain, each with an explanation and a cited source. Timed at real exam pace.
9 questions
Pass line: 75%, same as the real exam
See the answer and explanation right after each question.