Passing Laravel Certification exam

Register for exam

To pass an exam, you can buy a voucher or ask your employer to buy it for you. This voucher should be nameless, by default, so you need to assign this voucher to yourself.

Laravel certification exam is available on the internet and provided via third-party software, that names ProctorExam (as far as I remember). You don't need to go to the certification centers, like Person VUE and appoint some appointment. All you need is to have a good and stable internet connection and be well-prepared to pass the exam.

Preparation process

You should prepare very seriously, as the test covers very different topics listed on the official website. For me, it was enough to read the documentation, have experience on several projects, and finally, implement the best solutions and approaches when writing this site. In my opinion, practice and experience are one of the most important prerequisites for the fact that you are ready for the exam.

You should also consider the best-practices, because the exam also contains questions on logic and knowledge of architecture.

As a person who works in phpStorm, I am used to hints and auto-completion from it. But this played a negative role in the exam since I did not pay enough attention to repeating various attributes and the order of their call. Pay attention to this and do not forget to repeat it as well.

If you have little experience with Laravel, I would not advise you to take this exam, since many questions are designed just on your experience. It will be quite difficult to remember the names of all functions, the order of arguments and other trifles, if you do not work with this every day.

Exam process

It was a little surprising that the exam can be taken only in Google Chrome, while you need to install an additional extension that will capture the actions on the screen and request access to the webcam and microphone, to ensure that exam is taken by you, not anyone else. So, don't try to cheat, because they will eventually find out.

Before you start an exam, you'll be notified that you have to go to the toilet (as during exam this will not be possible), you have to be alone in the room and have good lighting. So better turn on all light in the room and make sure nobody will disturb you during passing an exam.

You'll get a link to start an exam. When you confirm you are ready to take it, a new tab will be opened where exam questions will be asked. Both these tabs must remain open during the entire exam, but all others have to be closed.

There are 45 questions in the test for which you are given 50 minutes. In most questions, you should choose the correct answer from four given options. If you not sure you can mark the question and leave it for later. Mostly it is enough time, but for me, it was literally end-to-end. Last 5-7 minutes I spent on rechecking my answers.

You will not get the results right away, which is a little upsetting and gives you an extra reason to worry, especially when you start to find mistakes in your answers.

Result

My biggest disappointment was that the certificate would be available to you only in PDF and on the exam website. For 200 euros that you have to pay for the exam, you will not receive an official printed document per post.

Benefits you'll have after passing an exam:

• it is official proof of your knowledge: become globally recognized for your expertise in creating applications with Laravel
• it is a plus for your resume: way to stand out in a stack of resumes and differentiate yourself from your peers by proving your in-depth Laravel knowledge
• it flatters your ego and it makes you feel so good

TL;DR: Conclusion

I described what I was paying attention to, depending on my knowledge and experience. Reading the documentation was enough for me. Your priorities may be different, so I advise you to prepare well and thoroughly.