Exam rules

Attempts

One grant of access gives two attempts, with at least a week between them.

If you have used both and not passed, access is renewed after three months, and you again get two attempts. Your account stays in place: your name, history and issued certificates are kept. There is no need to create a second account, and it doesn’t help — you will get the same questions.

The one-week break is not there for strictness. It is there so you have time to reread what you failed on: right after an unsuccessful attempt, people remember the wording, not the material.

What happens if something breaks

If the exam was interrupted through no fault of yours — the connection dropped on our side, the service failed, the page did not open — the attempt is not used up, and the retake is free. You don’t need to prove anything: the log shows what happened.

A connection drop on your side does not break the session. Answers are written to the server the moment you click the button, not at the end. Close the tab, reload the page, move to another computer — you will return to the same question, and all your answers will be there.

The clock runs on the server and keeps running while you are away. This is the one unpleasant part of the design, and it is better to warn you honestly than to keep quiet about it.

If time runs out, what you managed to answer is counted. The exam is not voided: losing an attempt because your internet went down would be unfair.

Special arrangements

English is not your native language — ask for an extra 30 minutes. This is a standard request; you don’t need to justify it. You must write before the exam, not after.

If you need other arrangements, also write in advance, and we’ll work it out.

What you may use

An ordinary dictionary and the built-in glossary — the exam is in English, and we are testing knowledge of the platform, not of the language.

Not allowed: help from others, documentation, search, any notes on the substance of the questions.

Separately: taking exam content out is not allowed. Not because we fear for our secrets, but because leaked questions devalue the certificate for everyone who already holds it — including you. This is written into the agreement you will accept before the first question, and it is grounds for revoking the certificate.

Certificate revocation

A certificate may be revoked for breach of the agreement, for forging the lab results file, and if we ourselves issued it in error.

The procedure is as follows: we write to you saying what and why, you have 14 days to object, then comes a decision and the number is added to the public list of revoked certificates. Disputes are heard by the program lead; the second instance is the certification working group.

Appeals

If you disagree with your result, write within 30 days. We will review the log of your attempt: which questions you got, what you answered, how it was scored.

What we will not do: show you the correct answers or discuss specific questions. If an error is found in a question itself, it is removed from scoring for everyone who got it, not just for you.

Platform version

The exam is tied to a minor release of Cozystack, and the version is stated on the exam page.

The version is fixed at the moment access is granted. If a new release comes out during your attempts, you still sit the exam for the one you prepared for.

Passing score

It is not published — that is how the program is designed, and it is not an evasion.

A published number becomes a promise: it cannot be moved once data from real attempts comes in. And it will have to be moved — that is what the beta is for. The threshold will be set by a panel of engineers based on statistics, not by a round number picked in advance.

Prepare to know the material, not to hit a number.