CSS certificate: how the final exam and certificate work

The free CSS course ends with a final exam and a certificate. If you are thinking about taking it, you probably want to know three things: what you have to do first, what the exam is like, and what to revise. This post covers all three. For the general rules shared by every course, see also the HTML certificate post; here the focus is on what is specific to CSS.

Before you can sit the exam

You need a free account and every lesson of the course ticked as complete. The CSS course has 29 lessons in seven sections:

Section	Lessons	What it covers
Getting started	5	What CSS is, three ways to add it, selectors, the cascade and specificity, inheritance
Colour and text	3	Colours, units (px, rem, %), fonts and text
The box model	5	Box model, margin and padding, borders and radius, box-sizing, width, height and overflow
Layout	6	display, Flexbox basics and alignment, Grid basics and areas, positioning
Responsive design	3	Responsive design, media queries, responsive images with CSS
Polish	6	Backgrounds and gradients, shadows, transitions, transforms, animations, CSS variables
Project	1	Style a landing page

The course assumes you can write basic HTML, so if you have not done so, take the HTML course first. Until all 29 lessons are done, the exam is locked and the page shows how many are completed.

The exam rules

Rule	Value
Questions	15 multiple-choice questions
Question bank	20 questions for CSS; each attempt draws a random 15
Time	30 minutes, and the timer keeps running if you leave
Pass mark	70%, which is 11 correct of 15
Attempts	3 in any rolling 24 hours

Because the bank is only a little larger than one attempt, a retry after a fail will repeat many questions you have seen. That is another reason to learn from a failed attempt, not to guess again. Right answers are not displayed after the exam, but you see which of your answers were right and wrong, so you know what to study.

What the questions test

Expect questions about understanding, with short snippets of CSS where you must say what happens. These are the areas that catch people:

Selectors and specificity. Which rule wins when two apply to the same element? Remember the order of strength: inline styles beat IDs, IDs beat classes and attributes, classes beat element selectors, and for equal specificity the later rule wins. Practise by reading a selector like .nav a:hover and working out what it matches.

Inheritance. Which properties pass down from a parent (colour, font properties) and which do not (margin, border, padding). Know what inherit does.

The box model. The four layers (content, padding, border, margin), the total width of an element, and what box-sizing: border-box changes. A classic question: an element has width: 200px, padding: 20px and border: 5px. Its total width is 250px by default, but 200px with border-box.

Units. The difference between px, em, rem, %, vw and vh, and when relative units are better.

Layout. In Flexbox: the main and cross axes, justify-content versus align-items, flex-wrap, and what flex: 1 means. In Grid: grid-template-columns, fr units, gaps and named areas. For position: the difference between static, relative, absolute, fixed and sticky, and what an absolutely positioned element is positioned against.

Responsive design. The viewport meta tag, min-width and max-width in media queries, and the mobile-first approach.

Visual effects. Transitions versus animations, which properties can be transitioned, and what transform does without moving the layout around it.

Custom properties. Declaring --name, using var(--name), and the fact that they inherit.

A revision method

1. Reread the summaries at the top of each lesson. They list the key points in four short lines.
2. Redo the quizzes of the sections you felt least sure of.
3. Rebuild the landing page without looking, then compare with your first version. If you get stuck, you have found a gap.
4. Practise specificity by writing three rules that target the same element and predicting which colour wins before you check it in the browser.
5. Draw the box model from memory, with the four layers and what each property changes.
6. Make a Flexbox and Grid cheat sheet of your own, with the properties on the container and on the items. The CSS Flexbox cheat sheet and the CSS Grid cheat sheet are good checks of what you remember.
7. Take the exam in a quiet slot with 30 free minutes and no notes.

If you fail an attempt

Look at which topics the questions were about. Open those lessons, and, more importantly, experiment in the live editors. CSS is a visual subject, and seeing a change is more memorable than rereading. Then retry once you can explain the answer to a friend. You have three attempts in 24 hours, but there is no benefit to using them one after another without learning in between.

The certificate

When you pass, the certificate appears on your dashboard. It shows your name, the course title ("CSS"), your score, the issue date and a certificate ID such as MH-CSS-…. A public page at /learn/certificate/?id=<ID> displays it, and the same page has a form where anyone can type the ID to verify it. You can print it or save it as a PDF, copy the link, or add it to LinkedIn from the certificate page.

It is a record that you completed this course and passed a timed exam, not an accredited qualification. Use it alongside real work. For a CSS learner the best evidence is a live page you styled: the landing page from the project lesson, hosted somewhere public, with a link on your CV. Employers and clients can see at once whether the layout holds up on their phone.

After CSS

Common next steps are the MySQL course and the PHP course if you want to build dynamic sites, or the jQuery course if you want to add interaction. To plan your time, see the 30-day HTML and CSS study plan, and learn how to add the result to your profile in How to add your certificate to LinkedIn and your CV.

Quick answers

What do I need before the exam? A free account and all 29 lessons completed.

How hard is it? The questions are designed to be demanding. Learners who built the project and did the exercises usually do well.

How many times can I try? Three attempts in any 24 hours.

Are the answers shown afterwards? No, but you can see which questions you got wrong.

Can I show the certificate to an employer? Yes. Give them the link or the ID so they can check it.