SRE Foundation exam-day guide
SRE Foundation · Prepare for the day ahead.
Your checklist
Government-issued photo ID
Use the same name that appears on your exam registration. For online-proctored sittings the proctor will compare the ID to your live webcam image, so have it out and ready before you launch the exam. Accepted ID types vary by provider and country - confirm the exact list with the provider before test day.
Appointment confirmation and booking reference
Screenshot or print the confirmation email showing your exam name, date, start time, and time zone. Double-check the time zone: a 9:00 a.m. slot listed in a different zone than yours is the single most common way candidates miss a sitting.
Stable internet connection with a backup
Wired Ethernet is strongly preferred over Wi-Fi. Have a phone hotspot or a second network available as a fallback, and make sure nobody else in the household is streaming or downloading during your slot.
Working webcam, microphone, and speakers/headset
Required for online-proctored delivery: the proctor needs to see your face and your room, and hear you. Test all three in advance; built-in laptop hardware is usually fine, but confirm headset rules with the provider first.
Run the provider's system compatibility check
Do this at least 24 hours before the exam, on the exact machine and browser you will use. It typically checks browser version, bandwidth, camera, and mic, and flags issues you cannot fix at the last minute.
Quiet, private, well-lit room with a cleared desk
Remove papers, books, second monitors, phones, smart watches, and anything with writing on it from the desk and immediate area. Sit with a plain wall behind you and a light source in front of you, not behind.
Charged laptop plus power adapter plugged in
Do not rely on battery for a timed exam. Close every other application, disable notifications and auto-updates, and quit chat and email clients before you launch the test.
Scratch paper and pen only if explicitly permitted
Many remotely proctored exams prohibit physical notes entirely or substitute an on-screen notepad. Confirm the provider's rule before the exam; using paper when it is not allowed can void your result.
Water in a clear, label-free container
Permitted on many remote sittings but not all. Confirm with the provider; if unsure, skip it rather than risk a proctor flag.
Provider support contact open in a separate device
Save the exam support phone number or chat link on your phone before you start, so a disconnection does not leave you hunting for help while the clock runs.
Closed-book environment confirmed
Assume no notes, no textbook, no search engine, and no AI assistant. Certification exams of this type are closed book, and a proctor-observed violation typically means the attempt is invalidated without refund.
Plan for bathroom and stretch before launch
A short exam leaves little slack. Go before you start, and confirm with the provider whether any unscheduled break stops the timer or simply eats your remaining minutes.
Plan the day
Re-confirm the appointment date, start time, and time zone, then run the system test on your final machine. Switch from learning new material to consolidating: review your own notes on SLOs and SLIs, error budgets, toil, blameless postmortems, monitoring vs. observability, and the incident response lifecycle. Do a timed set of practice questions to calibrate your pace - roughly one and a half minutes per question on a 60-minute, 40-question paper.
Check that your ID is valid, unexpired, and shows the same name as your registration. Re-read the provider's candidate handbook for rules on permitted items, breaks, rescheduling, and what happens on a technical failure. Fix any gaps now, not on exam morning.
Do one light pass over the concepts you keep missing - nothing new. Prepare the room, lay out your ID and charger, and write down the launch time in local terms. Sleep a full night; a tired candidate loses more marks to misread questions than to missing knowledge.
Eat something normal, hydrate moderately, and avoid heavy caffeine if you are already anxious. Log in 15 to 30 minutes before your slot to clear identity checks and room scan. Silence your phone and put it out of reach unless the proctor asks you to keep it visible for a room scan.
Read the instructions screen carefully - it tells you how to flag, navigate, and submit. Note the total question count and the clock, and compute your per-question budget before you answer anything.
Answer in two passes. First pass: take the straightforward questions, flag anything needing longer than about 90 seconds, and move on. Second pass: return to flagged items with the time you have banked. Eliminate two options first on definitional questions, and watch for qualifiers like 'primary', 'first', or 'most' that flip the correct answer.
Stop opening new questions. Confirm you have no unanswered items - on most delivery platforms an unanswered question scores zero, which is worse than an educated guess unless the exam applies a penalty you should confirm with the provider. Review flagged items, then submit deliberately rather than letting the timer expire.
Note the provisional result shown on screen and any score report emailed to you. If the result is not displayed, do not close the browser until the confirmation screen appears - and contact provider support immediately if it never does.
Rules to check
Bring a valid government-issued photo ID whose name matches your registration exactly. If your registered name differs even slightly from your ID, contact the provider before test day rather than arguing it at check-in.
The exam is closed book. No notes, textbooks, second monitors, phones within reach, smart watches, or browser tabs other than the exam itself. Proctors can flag or terminate a session, and the attempt may be voided without refund.
Confirm with the provider in advance whether breaks are allowed, whether the timer pauses during a break, and what happens if you leave the camera view without permission. Do not assume you can step away mid-session.
Scoring is by number of correct answers, with no partial credit and typically no penalty for guessing - confirm the provider's stated pass mark and whether negative marking applies before you decide to guess on unanswered items.
Treat exam content as confidential. Do not record, screenshot, photograph, reproduce, or discuss specific questions afterward; doing so usually breaches the candidate agreement and can invalidate your certification.
If your connection drops or the platform freezes, contact provider support immediately and follow their instructions before retrying. Do not attempt to restart the exam on your own, and note the time of the failure.
Log in early. Arriving after your scheduled start may result in forfeiture of the fee or a refused sitting; confirm the provider's late-arrival and rescheduling policy in writing beforehand.
Only use equipment and materials the provider explicitly permits. If you are unsure whether an item such as paper, a headset, or a clear water bottle is allowed, leave it out and ask the proctor before starting.