About Free MA Hoist

What is this site?

Free MA Hoist is a self-study trainer for the Massachusetts hoisting engineer license exam administered by the Office of Public Safety and Inspections (OPSI). For each of the Massachusetts restriction classes — 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 2A, 2B, 2C, 2A/1C, 3A, and 4G — the site provides a structured curriculum of study sessions covering the regulations, equipment, safety practices, and exam topics specific to that class.

It is an unofficial study aid. It is not affiliated with OPSI, the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Licensure, the legislature, or any training school. It does not certify you, score the official exam, or substitute for hands-on operator training.

How does it work?

Pick the restriction class you are testing on (for example, 2A for excavators) and the number of hours per week you can dedicate to study. The site uses the published session lengths to build a week-by-week plan: each week’s sessions add up to roughly your available hours, ordered from the legal and regulatory foundation through equipment systems, safe operation, and finally exam-style review.

Each session has:

• Learning objectives — what you should be able to do or state after the session.
• Topics covered — the specific subject matter for that block of study.
• Resources — direct links to the relevant Mass.gov statutes and regulations and to OSHA standards, plus in-app reference pages where available.
• Self-check questions — multiple-choice questions with full explanations so you can confirm understanding before moving on.

Your selected class, hours, and progress are saved to your browser’s local storage so you can come back and pick up where you left off without an account.

Is it really free?

Yes. Every page of the curriculum, every quiz, every reference page, and every guide is free to read and use. The site is supported by display advertising — that is the entire business model. There is no paywall, no premium tier, no upsell to a paid course, and no required signup. We do not sell training materials or operate a school.

Do I need to sign in?

No. Sign-in is optional. By default, your study plan and progress are stored locally in your browser — clear your browser data and they disappear. The optional sign-in is provided as a convenience for people who want to track their progress across multiple devices (for example, studying on a phone at lunch and on a laptop in the evening). If you only ever study on one device, you can ignore the sign-in and use the site fully as a guest.

Where does the content come from?

The regulatory portions of the curriculum are derived from the public Massachusetts statutes and regulations governing hoisting licensure — primarily MGL Chapter 146 and 230 CMR 6.00. Equipment-specific content draws on the published OSHA standards in 29 CFR 1926 (Construction) and 29 CFR 1910 (General Industry), the relevant ASME B30 series and ANSI MEWP standards, and the SAE hand-signal standards referenced by 230 CMR 6.00.

The trainer’s structure (sessions, learning objectives, quiz format) is original work. The underlying regulatory facts are public-domain statute and regulation. When in doubt, the official sources on Mass.gov are authoritative.

How accurate is the content?

We aim to be accurate to the current published regulation, but you should treat this site as a study aid, not as the final word on what is required by law. Fees, exam content, and procedures are set by the Commonwealth and can change without notice. If a quiz question or reference page conflicts with what you see on Mass.gov today, trust Mass.gov.

If you spot something that looks wrong, please flag it — accuracy matters for a real exam.

Will this prepare me for the exam by itself?

For most people, no — and we would not recommend treating any single resource that way. The Massachusetts hoisting exam tests both classroom knowledge and machinery understanding that is best built through hands-on time with the equipment. Use this trainer to systematically cover the regulatory and theoretical material on a schedule, and pair it with operator experience under a licensed engineer.

Privacy, cookies, and local storage

Your selected restriction class, hours per week, and which sessions you have marked complete are stored in your browser’s local storage. Local storage is technically distinct from a cookie, but functionally similar — it is data stored on your own device, scoped to this site, and not transmitted back to a server. Local storage is required for the progress-tracking feature to work without an account; if you block site storage, your selections will not persist between visits.

If you choose to sign in, that progress is also stored against your account so it can sync across devices. We do not sell your data. The site shows display ads served by Google AdSense; AdSense may set its own cookies in accordance with Google’s published policies.

When you first visit, a brief notice at the bottom of the screen explains this use of cookies and local storage. Clicking Accept dismisses the notice and records your acknowledgment locally so it does not reappear on every page load.

Who built this? (And the “beta” label)

Free MA Hoist started as a personal project. I built it for myself while studying for my own Massachusetts hoisting exam — the regulatory material is dense and scattered across multiple state and federal sources, and I wanted a clean, structured walk-through. After I had it working, I figured other people studying for the same exam might find it useful too, so I made it free and open to anyone.

It is labeled beta on the homepage because it is genuinely still a work in progress: content gets refined as I spot errors, some restriction classes are more thoroughly built out than others, and the user experience is going to keep improving. The site is not affiliated with OPSI, the Division of Occupational Licensure, or any commercial training school. It is, at best, perhaps a useful study tool — there are no guarantees of accuracy, and you should always verify regulatory specifics against the current text on Mass.gov before relying on anything here.

Ready to start?

Head to the study plan generator to pick your class. If you are still figuring out which class you need, the licensing guide walks through the system in plain language. And the hand signals reference covers the SAE J1307 signals required by 230 CMR 6.00 for crane and excavator work.