Exam prep

How to know you're ready for your certification exam

Updated October 31, 2026 · 5 min read

Booking the exam too early wastes the fee, and waiting too long wastes weeks. The honest question is not “have I finished the material?” but “would I pass a fresh exam today?” Here is how to answer it with evidence instead of a feeling.

Five signs you are ready

1. You pass timed practice exams, more than once. One good score can be luck or a lucky topic mix. Several scores comfortably above the passing mark, on different days, are a pattern. Microsoft exams, for example, are scored out of 1000 with 700 to pass, so aim to sit clearly above that rather than just touching it.
2. You finish on time. If you only pass by rushing or leaving questions blank, the real exam will feel harder. Practise at the real pace with the clock running.
3. You can explain your wrong answers. After each miss, you should be able to say in a sentence why the right option is right and why yours was not. If you can't, you have found a gap, not a bad question.
4. Your weak topics have stopped changing. Early on, different topics show up in your misses every time. When the same one or two keep appearing, you know exactly what to fix; when none do, you are close.
5. You score well on questions you have not seen. Take questions you haven't practised before. If your score drops a lot compared with the ones you have repeated, you were remembering, not reasoning.

How to measure it

1. Finish studying the official skills outline first. Practice questions are for finding gaps, not for learning from scratch.
2. Go through the questions once with Check answer, and read every explanation, including the ones you got right.
3. Take a timed practice exam. Our study guide covers how to fit these into a plan.
4. Note the topics you missed, study them, and take another timed exam a few days later.
5. When two or three timed exams in a row are comfortably above the passing mark, book the exam.

Signs you should wait

• Your timed scores swing a lot from one attempt to the next.
• You pass only the questions you have seen before.
• The same topic keeps costing you points and you haven't revisited its documentation or a lab.
• You have not done any hands-on practice for a practical, role-based exam.

Moving a date by a week is almost always cheaper than a retake. Check the vendor's rescheduling and retake rules before you decide.

Our pass guarantee builds this habit in

If you buy full access, answering at least 70% of the exam's questions with Check answer and completing a timed practice exam are the conditions of our pass guarantee, because they are exactly what makes a pass more likely. Read the refund policy for the full rules.

Frequently asked questions