The exam has 60 questions, and you will have a total of 90 minutes. If you have set any certifications like Salesforce ones before, the Slack ones are quite a different format. Yes you will have 60 questions, but you probably won’t end up answering them all.
The way the Slack certifications work is it calculates your score after each question, and it will end the exam when you have passed or failed (the remaining questions won’t affect the verdict of your outcome). This means once you have confirmed your answer – you cannot go back. I quite liked this format because it meant I didn’t have to answer every single question, but it did leave me wondering whether I passed or failed when it finished. I got to question 52 when it stopped, meaning I had 8 questions left.
The Pre-Exam Process
To buy the exam, you will need to go to https://www.slackcertified.com. You can purchase either the course and the exam together, or separately. When you launch the exam, there will be 2 steps, the first informing you of basic process, the second to launch the exam website. When you launch the exam website, you will need to set up your account, will ask for basic details, security questions, and proof of identity (which you will need to have to hand when you do the exam and show them). After that its just a case of scheduling the exam.
When it’s time for your exam, you go to the course on slack certified that you paid for, launch Examity and start the exam you booked. You start it off from a website called Examity, it’s an okay website, fairly simple which is good, and thankfully less technical difficulties than Webassessor with Salesforce if you have used it. When you launch the exam – you will get in a waiting room, when the waiting room is over you will be prompted to open Zoom and it will sign you into a Zoom meeting. When you join there will be somebody from Examity waiting, who will have their webcam and microphone on. You will need to do the same. Some basic rules they will run you through:
- No cheating (its a closed book exam, no resources)
- No smart watches or glasses, hoods, hats etc.
- No leaving the seat you are in
- No other people in the webcam – you should be alone in the room
- No speaking during the exam
Fairly standard rules, these are not all of the rules – just some to give you an idea.
The person from Examity will walk you through the process, showing you what you need to do, but it will go something like this-
- Screen Share
- Show your proof of identity
- Answer a proof of identity question
- say ‘yes’ to all of the rules they read, acknowledging that you agree and understand
- Enter your first name and last name
- Tick all of the rules to show you agree and understand
- Show your activity monitor/task manager to show there aren’t any screen recording software, or any other softwares open other than your internet browser.
Once they have taken you through the process, you can begin the exam, and they will mute themselves and turn off their camera. You will need to keep both of yours on.
Prerequisites
- Install Zoom
- Test your webcam and microphone
- Use their ‘check system requirements’ to make sure everything is ready from a system perspective
- They advice using Google Chrome or FireFox to avoid technical difficulties
- Allow popup blockers
The Exam/Questions
Once you start, the timer will start. You have 90 minutes for 60 questions, so 1.5 minutes a question average. When I go to question 52 I had around 25 minutes left. The questions of the exam are multiple choice, showing 4 choices, and will ask you to select either 1 or 2 correct answers. Again – once you confirm the answer, you CANNOT go back.
Most of the questions were scenario questions, giving you the scenario and you need to suggest what should be done. I didn’t like this, and made me massively doubt myself because it wasn’t asking for the correct answer, it was asking for the correct answer. Theoretically in some of the questions you could do any answer, but it wanted the best answer based on the scenario, so its important to read the questions very very carefully, as it will try to trip you up based on 1 word of the question (e.g. the plan the slack org is on, or the type of permissions the user has with their role). Id say there was quite a lot of questions involving Slack Plans, Security, Permissions, APIs/Integration and Workflow/Org Administration. A lot of question scenarios were using Enterprise Grid so its important you have a strong grasp on this plan, as well as the differences from the other plans (obviously the first being that you get multiple workspaces).
The pass score for the exam is 64%, and the exam will stop when you have either pass or failed based on this score. When it stops, it will ask you to complete a survey. The survey will ask basic questions like:
- What did you use to revise?
- How prepared did you think you were?
- How long did it take you to prepare
- Where did you find the exam
Etc.
After this, it will show ask you if you are ready for your results, and you can go to see your results. Quite a basic page, just gives you a break down of what % you did on each section of the exam. Weirdly though, this will be the only page you see for the next few days, so it’s recommended that you use the email or print button so you can save it. The reason for this is it takes a few days for Slack to verify your result. Im not exactly sure what they are doing in this time, but its going to take a few days to receive the official certification, therefor if you get the pass, I would also hold back on sharing your achievement until this! 😄
If you have any questions about the exam feel free to reach out to use on our contact page or any of our socials and we will try to point you in the right direction.
That being said if you are also preparing for the exam, why not check out our resources dedicated to the Slack Administrator exam.
Links
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