This standard is the first part of the series "Plastics — Determination of resistance to environmental stress cracking (ESC)", which specifies general guidelines for specimen preparation, conditioning, and testing conditions when conducting such tests. As the overarching document of this series of methods, it provides unified general requirements and a technical foundation for subsequent specific test methods (such as constant tensile load method, bending method, etc.), ensuring comparability and consistency across different methods. The standard is primarily applicable to thermoplastic plastics, used to evaluate their resistance to stress cracking in environments such as chemical media. When testing in accordance with this series of standards, instruments such as universal material testing machines, environmental test chambers, and bending fixtures may be required.