Claude Certified Associate – Foundations

About the Claude Certified Associate – Foundations (CCAO-F) exam

The exam at a glance

Questions

60 questions, multiple choice and multiple response

Time

120 minutes

Pass mark

720 on a scale of 100 to 1,000

Exam fee

About US$99

Valid for

12 months; renew before it lapses with Anthropic's free renewal assessment

Where you sit it

Pearson VUE, online proctored or at a test centre

Prerequisites

None, but you must work for a Claude Partner Network organisation to register

As published in the vendor’s exam guide at the time of writing. Fees vary by country and change; the vendor’s page is the source of truth.

What is on the exam, domain by domain

1. Prompting and Task Execution

   Writing clear instructions, giving context and examples, structuring a request, and breaking a large task into steps Claude can do well.

   14% of the paper

2. Output Evaluation and Validation

   The largest domain. Checking accuracy and sources, spotting unsupported claims, validating structure and completeness, and deciding when a human must review before use.

   21% of the paper

3. Product and Model Selection

   Matching the task to the right Claude product and model tier, and understanding trade-offs between capability, speed and cost.

   12% of the paper

4. Workflow Integration and Solution Design

   Fitting Claude into a team's process: where it helps, where it hands off, and how to design a repeatable way of working.

   16% of the paper

5. Configuration and Knowledge Management

   Projects, instructions, knowledge files, connectors and memory, and keeping shared context accurate and current.

   12% of the paper

6. Governance, Risk, and Responsible Use

   Data handling, Anthropic's usage policy, privacy, human oversight for consequential decisions, and organisational controls.

   15% of the paper

7. Troubleshooting and Optimization

   Diagnosing poor results, recovering from misunderstandings, and improving quality and efficiency over time.

   10% of the paper

How to prepare

1. 1.Read the exam guide end to end and note the weights. Output evaluation is 21% of the paper: give it the most time.
2. 2.Use Claude daily on real work for a few weeks, and each time ask how you would check the answer before you used it. That habit is what the exam measures.
3. 3.Learn what each product and plan feature is for (Projects, knowledge, connectors, memory, research) at the level of when you would use it, not how every setting works.
4. 4.Read Anthropic's usage policy and privacy pages once. Governance questions are about judgement, but the judgement rests on those rules.
5. 5.Take Anthropic's free prep course for the exam, then practise papers here until you clear your target twice running.

Sample questions

Three questions in the exam’s style, written by Square 1 against the published domains. They are ours, not the vendor's. The answer and the reasoning are under each one; the practice papers on this page draw from a bank written the same way, with an explanation on every question.

1. Question 1 · Output Evaluation and Validation

   Claude drafts a market summary for a client that includes three growth figures with no sources. The summary goes out tomorrow. What should you do before it is used?

   1. AVerify each figure against a primary source and correct or remove any you cannot confirm
   2. BAsk Claude in the same chat whether the figures are accurate and accept its answer
   3. CKeep the figures and add a note saying the summary was produced with AI assistance
   4. DRound the figures to whole numbers so small inaccuracies no longer matter

   Answer: A. Unsourced figures must be checked against a primary source before anyone relies on them. Asking the same conversation to confirm its own numbers is not independent verification, and a disclosure note does not make a wrong figure right.

2. Question 2 · Prompting and Task Execution

   A manager asks Claude to 'make this report better' and gets back a rewrite that changes the conclusions. Which change to the request would most likely have prevented this?

   1. AState the goal and the limits, for example tighten the wording but keep every conclusion
   2. BRepeat the same request with more urgency so Claude takes more care over it
   3. CAsk for the rewrite in a shorter length so there is less room for changes
   4. DPaste the report twice so Claude pays closer attention to the original text

   Answer: A. A vague instruction leaves Claude to guess what 'better' means. Stating the goal and the constraints, such as keeping the conclusions, tells it exactly what may and may not change; urgency and repetition add nothing it can act on.

3. Question 3 · Governance, Risk, and Responsible Use

   A team wants Claude to recommend which job applicants move to interview. Which approach is most responsible?

   1. AUse Claude to summarise applications while a person makes and owns each decision
   2. BLet Claude make the decisions and review a random sample of them each month
   3. CLet Claude make the decisions as long as applicant names are removed first
   4. DUse Claude only for applicants whose documents are longer than one page

   Answer: A. Hiring is a consequential decision about people, so a human should make and be accountable for each one, with Claude assisting. Removing names or sampling afterwards still leaves the decision itself to the model.

Questions people ask before they book

Who can take the Claude Certified Associate exam?

At the time of writing, only staff of organisations in the Claude Partner Network, who register with a partner email address on a recognised company domain. Anthropic has not announced a date for opening it to everyone.

Do I need to be technical?

No. This is the certification for people who use Claude in their work. There is no coding; it tests prompting, checking output, choosing the right tool and using Claude responsibly.

How long is the certification valid?

Twelve months. You can renew it before it lapses with a free renewal assessment; if it lapses, you sit the full exam again.

How should I prepare?

Read the exam guide, use Claude on real work with a habit of checking every answer, take Anthropic's free prep course, and practise papers in the exam's weights until you clear your target twice running.

Are these the real exam questions?

No. Every question here is ours, written against Anthropic's public exam guide. Anthropic's exam content is confidential, and practising on leaked questions would break its exam policy and tell you nothing about whether you are ready.