Help & test rules
Everything you need before you start — no surprises once the test begins.
The rules
- The test is 34 questions — 7 about the Linux command line, 7 about PowerShell, and 20 quick security-concept questions (4 each on Cybersecurity Fundamentals, Networking, Red Team, Blue Team, and Grey Team/ethics topics). It takes most students 25–35 minutes.
- The Linux and PowerShell questions each use a small simulated terminal — run whatever commands you like, then type your answer in the box beside it. The security-concept questions are just a short answer, no terminal.
- You'll see an instant ✓ or ✗ right after each answer, just so you know how that one landed — it doesn't change anything about what happens next.
- Once you submit an answer, you can't go back and change it.
- Stuck? Each question has up to 3 hints on the right, unlocked one at a time. Hint 1 nudges you in the right direction, hint 2 names the command or concept, hint 3 gives you almost the whole thing. Each hint you use reduces that question's credit by about a third — using all 3 leaves it worth close to nothing, so they're a real trade-off, not free help.
- There's a running timer so you know how long you've spent — there's no time limit, it's just there for your own awareness.
- Your placement (Basic/Advanced track) isn't shown to you at the end — it goes straight to your instructor, who'll use it to help set your pace for Module 1.
- Once the test finishes, your result is final. There are no retries and no manual override.
- Every command you type is logged, but nothing about how you got the answer affects your result beyond the hints you chose to use.
A note on looking things up
You won't find the exact command for every test question spelled out on this page — that's on purpose. In the real job, you won't have every command memorized either; knowing how to find the right syntax quickly (docs, man pages, Get-Help, a search engine) is itself part of the skill being placed. The reference below covers what each command/cmdlet does in general — most questions still take some figuring out.
The simulated terminal
It's not a real shell — no real OS, container, or network underneath it, just a small filesystem and command interpreter for that one question. Nothing you do there can break anything or affect other students. Treat it as scratch space: explore, try commands, and once you've found the answer, type it into the answer box — not into the terminal.
Command reference — Linux
Everything the Linux terminal understands. Standard bash syntax — pipes (|) chain any of these together, feeding one command's output into the next.
| Command | Syntax | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| pwd | pwd | Print the current working directory. |
| ls | ls [-l] [-la] | List files in the current directory. Bare ls just prints names; -l adds a long listing — permissions, owner, size, date; -la also includes the hidden . and .. entries. |
| cat | cat <file> | Print a file's raw contents to the terminal. |
| stat / wc / du | stat <file> wc <file> du <file> | Three different real-world tools that all end up reporting a file's size in bytes here — stat shows file metadata, wc counts (bytes/lines/words depending on flags), du reports disk usage. |
| file | file <file> | Identify what kind of content a file actually holds, regardless of its name or extension — useful when a filename might be misleading. |
| echo | echo "text" | Print text back out. On its own it's not very useful; piped into another command it becomes that command's input. |
| base64 | base64 -d base64 -e | -d decodes Base64 input back to plain text; -e encodes plain text to Base64. Always used with a pipe feeding it input, e.g. reading a file then decoding what's inside it. |
Type help in the terminal itself for a quick reminder of this same list.
Command reference — PowerShell
Everything the PowerShell terminal understands. Common short aliases work too (ls/dir for Get-ChildItem, cat/type for Get-Content, gci, gi, gc) — pipes (|) chain any of these together.
| Cmdlet | Syntax | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Get-Location | Get-Location | Print the current working directory. |
| Get-ChildItem | Get-ChildItem [-Name] | List what's in the current directory. Bare, it shows a table (mode, date, size, name); -Name lists just the names. |
| Get-Item | Get-Item <file> | Show one specific file's metadata as a single row — including its Length (size in bytes). |
| Get-Content | Get-Content <file> | Print a file's raw contents. |
| Measure-Object | ... | Measure-Object -Character | Measures piped-in text. With -Character, reports how many characters it received — the PowerShell equivalent of a byte/character count. |
| Get-FileHash | Get-FileHash <file> [-Algorithm SHA256|MD5] | Computes a cryptographic hash of a file's contents. Defaults to SHA256 if you don't specify -Algorithm. |
| ConvertFrom-Base64String | ... | ConvertFrom-Base64String | Decodes piped-in Base64 text back to plain text. |
| ConvertTo-Base64String | ... | ConvertTo-Base64String | Encodes piped-in plain text to Base64. |
| Write-Output | Write-Output "text" | Prints text back out — the PowerShell equivalent of echo, most useful piped into another cmdlet. |
Type help in the terminal for a quick reminder. Two of these — ConvertFrom-Base64String and ConvertTo-Base64String — are simplified for this sandbox; real-world PowerShell does Base64 conversion via [Convert] .NET methods rather than a dedicated cmdlet, and (Get-Content file).Length works here too if you'd rather use that form.
Trouble signing in?
Use the temporary password from your invite email on your first sign-in — you'll be asked to set a new one right away. If your account isn't working, contact your instructor rather than trying to sign up for a new one; accounts are set up in advance and there's no open self-registration.