Prepare for your COSMIC exam

On this page we answer the most common questions you might have while preparing for a COSMIC exam. If you have a question that is not in the list, please contact Jean-Marc Desharnais. If you are interested in organizing or taking an exam, please contact him at [email protected].

Good luck with your COSMIC exam!

The CCFL certification exam contains 100 questions, all based on the contents of the latest version of the Measurement Manual.

The format of the CCFL exam questions is 84 True-False questions and 16 Multiple Choice questions.

The CCFL exam is based on the following documents of version 5.0 of the COSMIC Measurement Manual:

  • Part 1: Principles, Definitions & Rules
  • Part 2: Guidelines

The CEQS exam is based on the following documents:

The time you have to take the exam is 90 minutes, unless the exam language is not your first language. In that case you will have 120 minutes to take the exam.

The CCFL exam is available in Chinese, English, French, Italian and Spanish.

The CEQS exam is available in Chinese, English, French, Italian and Spanish.

Yes, if the language of the exam differs from your native language or from a normal business language of your country, you will get an extra half hour to take the exam (maximum total time allocated = 2 hours). This extension must be agreed with the Proctor before starting the exam.

Yes, it is an ‘open-book’ examination, so you will be allowed to refer to the Measurement Manual. However, you will need to have
understood and learned the method thoroughly before taking the exam, as there will not be enough time to look up all the answers in the
Measurement Manual during the exam.

No, none of the questions specific to a particular software domain, e.g. business applications or real-time software. You should not need detailed knowledge of any specific domain to answer the exam questions.

The pass-level for the exam is that 75 percent of the questions must be answered correctly.

There is no expiry date for the certificate. The certificate is valid for the COSMIC version for which you took the exam, and only for this
version.

We have made an exception for those who passed for COSMIC version 3.0 and 3.0.1. Their certificate will also be valid for version 4.0, since there are not many differences in the content of both versions.

If you want to take the exam but there is no exam organized that is convenient for you, it is possible, subject to strict conditions, for any organization or even an individual to organize a COSMIC exam. If you wish to discuss the possibility of organizing an exam, please contact the COSMIC Certification Chair

A typical exam question could be:
For which software domain(s) is the standard COSMIC measurement method designed to be applicable?

The answer could then show a choice of possible domains, e.g. business application software, mathematically-intensive scientific software, etc. The candidate must tick the correct answer(s).
Alternatively the question could be phrased so that the answer could be ‘true’ or ‘false’, and the candidate must choose the correct answer.