About the Test
The test will cover concepts from Weeks 0 through 7 (and Problem Sets 0 through 7), including Week 7’s lecture on Artificial Intelligence. Among the test’s aims is to assess your newfound comfort with the course’s material and your ability to apply the course’s lessons to familiar and unfamiliar problems.
The test is closed-book: the only resources whom you may turn for help or from whom you may receive help during the test are the course’s heads, emailing the heads@cs50.harvard.edu with questions.
In other words, you may not, during the test:
- browse or search the internet,
- review any notes,
- review any of the course’s materials,
- use any software (e.g., cs50.dev or VS Code itself),
- use any artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, et al. or cs50.ai),
- provide help to anyone, or
- receive or solicit help from anyone other than the course’s heads.
Take care to review the course’s policy on academic honesty in its entirety. Note particularly, but not only, that
- looking at another individual’s work during the test is not reasonable and
- turning to humans (besides the course’s heads) for help or receiving help from humans (besides the course’s heads) during the test is not reasonable.
Test Format
The test will be administered through Canvas, using Proctorio, which is remote-proctoring software that works within your web browser, monitoring your video and screen activity during the test. To use Proctorio, you’ll need to install a browser extension, which is compatible with Brave, Edge, Google Chrome, and Opera, but not Safari. The extension can be uninstalled once the test is complete. You will have exactly six (6) hours to complete the test; you must submit within 6 hours of starting. The test itself is intended to take around three (3) hours. You may start anytime after the test’s release, and you may submit no later than its deadline:
| Release | Deadline |
|---|---|
| 2025-10-30T12:00:00-04:00 | 2025-11-02T23:59:00-05:00 |
Before the Test
So that you don’t run into last-minute technical difficulties, you must complete the Proctorio Readiness Quiz on Canvas by 2025-10-24T12:00:00-04:00.
How to Prepare
Ultimately, how best to prepare depends on how you learn best, but allow us to recommend some of the following resources to help you study.
- Review each week’s notes.
- Review each week’s source code, if any.
- Review each week’s slides.
- Review each week’s shorts, if any.
- Take past tests and, only after you’ve attempted each of their questions, review their sample solutions. Note that some topics covered in past years might not have been covered in this term. Rely on this year’s lectures and problem sets as the official sources for this year’s topics.
- Review problem sets’ specifications, sample solutions, and, if any, distribution code.
- Review each lecture’s video.
Review Session
On 2025-10-27T13:30:00-04:00, during our regular lecture time, we will hold an optional Test Review Session in Sanders Theatre to review the concepts from Weeks 0–7. The session will also be recorded and posted to the course website afterwards.
Past Tests
In previous years, the course’s test was open-book. Even though this year’s test is closed-book, you should find that past years’ tests are helpful for practice:
- Fall 2021’s Test and sample solutions
- Skip part 3–5 of Code Reviews, Duo Mobile, View Source, and XCheck
- Fall 2020’s Test and sample solutions
- Skip Don’t Be Evil, Flaskless, Happy Cats, and Nom Nom Nom
How to Take the Test, when the time comes
-
Open Canvas and open the “Quizzes” tab.
- Ensure you have the Proctorio Browser Extension installed.
- Once you begin the test, the 6-hour timer will begin. The test will automatically submit after 6 hours. Note that, while the window is 6 hours, the test is expected to take around 3 hours to complete.
If you run into any trouble with the steps above, email heads@cs50.harvard.edu!