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CLA – C Certified Associate Programmer — Information & Free Practice

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CLA – C Certified Associate Programmer

Provider
Pearson VUE
Format
Single-select & multiple-select questions
Exam questions
Total questions: 40; Scored questions: 40.
Time limit
65 minutes (exam) + approx. 10 minutes (NDA/Tutorial)
Passing score
70% of total points earned; not an average across blocks
Exam fee
From USD 325 (Exam); from USD 375 (Exam + Retake)
Examination outline
  • Language and Structures: Declarations, Definitions, Lexicon, Structures (29%)
    • Identify valid variable declarations and distinguish between definition and declaration.
    • Understand data structures: arrays, structs, and their initialization.
    • Apply proper use of storage classes (auto, static, extern).
    • Differentiate between identifiers, keywords, and constants in C.
    • Understand lexical elements, such as tokens and separators.
    • Recognize and define valid identifiers and apply naming rules.
  • Data Operations: Expressions, Pointers, Storage (38%)
    • Evaluate expressions using arithmetic, relational, logical, and bitwise operators.
    • Understand type conversions, precedence, and associativity in expressions.
    • Declare, initialize, and manipulate pointers.
    • Apply pointer arithmetic and pointer dereferencing.
    • Use arrays and pointers interchangeably in appropriate contexts.
    • Understand memory layout and storage duration.
    • Describe scope, linkage, and lifetime of variables.
  • Control Flow: Control Statements, Loops, Instructions, Functions (25%)
    • Use control statements: if, else, switch.
    • Implement loops with while, do-while, and for.
    • Apply break, continue, and goto in loop control.
    • Declare, define, and invoke functions.
    • Use function parameters and return values correctly.
    • Differentiate between call by value and call by reference using pointers.
  • Environment: Preprocessor, Stream I/O Operations (8%)
    • Apply preprocessor directives such as #define, #include, #ifdef, and #undef.
    • Understand macro definitions and conditional compilation.
    • Perform basic file I/O using fopen, fclose, fscanf, and fprintf.
    • Use formatted output with printf and format specifiers (%d, %x, %o, %s).
Examination sources

Related license preparation

This examination may be required or accepted as an alternative, depending on the license and application pathway.