L10.4 — Scoring, certificate issuance, and retake policy¶

Type: Reference · Status: Mandatory reading

How to score¶

Each correct answer = 1 point. No partial credit. No penalty for wrong answers.
Total possible = 50 points.
Pass mark: 38 / 50 (76%). Slightly above 75% so there is no rounding ambiguity.
Score yourself against the answer key in L10.3.

Pass¶

Congratulations. You have earned the Asfela AI Security Engineering — Professional certificate.

Certificate issuance¶

If you took the course on Thinkific (or another LMS that supports certificates), the platform will issue a PDF certificate automatically and unlock a verifiable certificate URL. The certificate includes:

Your name (as set in your LMS profile — verify before completing).
Course name: Asfela AI Security Engineering — Professional.
Issuer: Asfela.
Date of completion.
A unique certificate ID.
A verification URL (e.g., https://verify.asfela.com/<cert-id>) where anyone can confirm authenticity.

If you scored "Excellent" on the capstone (Module 9), the certificate is annotated "Capstone with distinction."

What to do with the certificate¶

Add to LinkedIn under Licenses & Certifications (paste the verification URL).
Add to your résumé under Certifications.
Pin the capstone deliverables to your GitHub profile — sanitize anything resembling real customer data first, but a public capstone-helios-health repo is a fantastic portfolio piece.
Reference the certificate ID when applying for AI security engineering roles.

Fail¶

If you scored below 38, you have two paths forward.

Path 1 — Retake (default)¶

Cool-down: 7 days. No retake within 7 days of the failing attempt. The time is for revisiting weak modules.
Review L10.3 carefully. For every question you missed, read the explanation and the referenced lesson. Do this first.
Revisit weak modules. Use the per-module score worksheet (end of L10.3) — any module where you missed >50% gets a re-read of every theory file in that module.
Re-do the labs you skipped. If you skipped or rushed any mandatory lab, return and complete it. Most exam questions track to labs.
Retake attempt 2. Same item bank, but the LMS shuffles question and option order. The exam is conceptual, not lookup, so this is fine — your understanding is what's tested.
If you fail attempt 2 → see "If you fail twice" below.

Path 2 — Capstone-only review (alternative)¶

If you scored well on the capstone but missed the written exam, you have a one-time option to submit your four capstone artifacts to a senior reviewer (paid add-on, priced per LMS pricing page). If the reviewer scores your work as Acceptable across all four deliverables (per L9.2's rubric), you earn the certificate without passing the written exam.

This path exists because: - Capstone-quality work is a more direct demonstration of competence than a 50-question MCQ. - Some excellent practitioners under-perform on timed multiple choice. We don't want to gate them out. - The reviewer fee compensates for senior reviewer time.

You can use Path 2 after at least one failed written attempt — it's not a shortcut, it's an alternative if the written exam isn't the right modality for you.

If you fail twice (and don't elect the capstone review path)¶

You have one additional option:

Re-enroll at 50% off. Refresh access to the full course materials and a third exam attempt. One time only per learner. This exists for the "I crammed; I should have done it slowly" path.

After three failed attempts (or two failures + a failed capstone-review path), the certificate is not issued. The course materials and labs are yours to keep regardless.

Exam integrity¶

If the LMS or the course author has reason to believe an exam attempt was compromised (e.g., the answer key was published externally and a learner's answers match it suspiciously), the certificate may be withheld pending review.

Specifically discouraged: - Posting the questions or answer key to public forums, Discords, or GitHub. - Soliciting answers from another person or LLM during the exam. - Sharing your account.

The certificate has value because the people who hold it earned it. Please don't undermine that.

After certification: what comes next¶

Open 99-course-completion.md for the closing module — alumni paths, recommended next steps, ongoing community resources.