Free practice questions for the California CSLB C-27 Landscaping trade exam — with a written explanation on every answer, in English, Spanish, and Russian.
The C-27 Landscaping exam is the trade half of a California landscaping contractor's license; the Law and Business exam is the other half. CSLB's official study guide splits it into six sections — planning and estimating, construction preparation, hardscape installation, drainage and irrigation and lighting and planting, maintenance and repair, and safety. Practice it below: free, no sign-up, with a written explanation on every question.
No account needed. Pick an answer to see whether it's right and read the explanation — the same explanations you get on every question in the full course.
Every question tells you why the correct answer is correct and defines the terms it uses — so you learn the rule, not just the answer.
Questions are written from scratch against the official codes and agency publications for this exam — never copied from the real exam.
Every question and explanation is fully translated, with the English exam term kept alongside — not a shallow machine translation.
LICENA is a practice tool, not a school. We don't promise a pass — we help you understand the material and walk in prepared.
The full C-27 Landscaping course is 500 questions across 5 blocks, drawn from these six official sections.
About 18% of the exam. You read a plan set and turn it into quantities and a price: square feet of paving, linear feet of header board and drip line, cubic yards of soil amendment, plant counts, labor hours. Most of the traps are unit conversions. A three-inch mulch layer is 0.25 feet deep and a cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, and dividing by 9 instead of 27 is the single most common way candidates blow an estimating question. This section also covers reading irrigation and drainage design: static versus dynamic pressure, friction loss, and matching valve and pipe size to the flow the zone actually needs.
About 12%. Site planning, erosion control, trenching and grading. Before any trench for a mainline or a drain, California law makes you delineate the dig area and notify the regional notification center by calling 811 at least two working days and not more than 14 calendar days ahead, and the day you call does not count. Erosion-control questions run on the same logic as a stormwater plan: keep soil on the site, keep runoff out of the street, and stabilize slopes before the first rain.
About 21%, tied for the largest section. Flatwork, masonry, posts and fences, retaining walls, and water features. Expect base preparation and compaction, joint layout, mortar and block coursing, post depth and setting, and drainage behind a wall. A classic trap: a retaining wall's permit height is measured from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall, not from finished grade, so a wall that looks three feet tall can already be over the four-foot statewide exemption, and plenty of cities set the bar lower still.
The other 21%. Drain lines and bioswales, valves and controllers, low-voltage lighting transformers, and planting. California's Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance drives much of it: no overhead spray within 24 inches of a sidewalk, driveway, or other non-pervious surface; strips narrower than ten feet get subsurface or low-volume irrigation; three inches of mulch over exposed soil in planting areas. On the lighting side, know how to size a transformer from total lamp wattage and the voltage drop over the run.
About 11%. Pruning and tree removal, troubleshooting irrigation, and repairing hardscape. Pruning questions reward knowing exactly where the cut goes: just outside the branch bark ridge and branch collar, never flush to the trunk and never leaving a stub. Irrigation troubleshooting is diagnostic reasoning - a zone that will not shut off points at the valve diaphragm or debris on the seat, while a zone that never comes on points at the wiring, the solenoid, or the controller.
About 17%, a bigger share than most candidates expect, so do not leave it for the last night. Cal/OSHA rules dominate: cave-in protection is required at five feet unless the excavation is entirely in stable rock, a ladder or ramp is required in any trench four feet or deeper within 25 feet of lateral travel, and spoil stays at least two feet back from the edge. Tree work near power lines has its own rule - nobody but a qualified line clearance tree trimmer works within ten feet of an energized high-voltage conductor.
You take the C-27 exam on a computer at a PSI testing center, closed book, with 3.5 hours per exam. It is multiple choice with four choices per question and one BEST answer; some questions need arithmetic, and a calculator is provided. CSLB's official Landscaping (C-27) study guide lists the six sections and their weights, but it does not publish a question count or a passing score, so treat any site quoting one as guessing. The result is pass/fail on the spot, a failing report breaks your score out by section, and you may retake after 21 days within your application's 18-month window. C-27 is one of the trades with an official Spanish version of the exam, which you select when you schedule with PSI. Most first-time applicants also sit the CSLB Law and Business exam.
The full LICENA C-27 course is 500 questions across five blocks covering the six official sections. At 30 questions a day that is about three weeks: one pass to find out what you do not know, a second pass on the sections you missed, then the timed final. Work the math questions with a calculator and paper the way you will on test day, and read the explanation on every question you get wrong, because the exam rewords facts and memorizing answer letters buys you nothing. Candidates who also carry an electrical scope often drill the C-10 Electrical practice test alongside this one. Pair all of it with CSLB's free official study guide, and treat any resource promising a guaranteed pass as a red flag.
The full 500-question C-27 Landscaping bank across 5 blocks, with a written explanation on every answer, weak-area practice and a timed final exam, in EN·ES·RU. California exam-prep schools list programs from about $250 to $1,200 — this is $20/month, on your phone, cancel anytime.
Create free account The free sample above stays free. Creating an account is free — no card needed.LICENA gives you practice questions to study with. We are not an accredited school and we do not guarantee that you will pass any exam.
LICENA provides online practice only. Registration, exam scheduling and licensing are handled by the CSLB and its exam vendor PSI — not by LICENA. LICENA is not affiliated with the CSLB or PSI.