About our Exams

Read to learn more about Saylor Academy's final exams.

What does the Final Exam Measure?

Saylor Academy final exams are designed to be cumulative in nature, meaning that they will assess your understanding of all of the material presented in the course. Specifically, exam questions are designed to measure a learner's mastery of the individual learning outcomes that are listed at the beginning of the course and the beginning of each unit.


How are Exams Scored?

Each question presented in a final exam can be automatically graded by the system. This differs from some of the unit-level or other assessments that you may encounter in a course, which sometimes contain essay-type questions that do not get scored. In general, all questions will have an equal weight. Exceptions to this may be individual questions that require multiple answers and are associated with multiple learning outcomes.


What is a Passing Score?

To "pass" a Saylor exam you must receive a percentage score of 70% or higher.


Exam Length and Time

Students are given 2 hours to complete a Saylor Academy exam. The clock will begin as soon as you confirm that you are ready to begin and enter the exam. The clock does not stop if you leave the exam screen after it has been opened. After 2 hours your answers will be automatically submitted and your exam will be graded. Most Saylor exams will contain 50 questions, though in certain instances there will be more or less questions. The amount of questions is determined by the consulting professor who designed the exam, and is based on the number of questions needed to properly assess all learning outcomes as well as the amount of questions that could be answered within the 2 hour timeframe.


Review and Re-Attempts

Immediately upon finishing an exam and having it scored, you will be able to review your questions and answers. If you did not receive a score of 70%, or would simply like to achieve a higher score, you may re-take the exam after 7 days. You will be able to re-take the exam as many times as you'd like, with a 7 day waiting period between each attempt. Because you are able to re-take exams, your exam review will not display the correct answer for questions that you got wrong.


Password Protected Exams

The only time you should encounter a password protected exam is if you are taking a version that requires identity verification, are part of cohort that is associated with a partner organization,  and/or are taking the alternative version of the course exam used for earning college credit recommendations. If you are looking to earn the standard course completion certificate then the exam associated with that will not require a password.

Last modified: Friday, September 16, 2016, 3:02 PM