Editorial policy

Facts are taken from documents the exam owner publishes, in this order of trust:

1. The current candidate or certification handbook.
2. The exam content outline or blueprint, which sets the areas and their weights.
3. The owner's fee, scheduling, retake and recertification pages.
4. Statistics the owner publishes, such as pass rates; a rate the owner does not publish is shown as not published, never estimated.

Prep companies, forums and other study sites are not used as sources for facts; their copies of prices and rules can lag behind the owner's.

Under each fact table you will find the document behind every row and the day we checked it. Some values move faster than handbooks, such as sale prices, member bundles and a few retake rules; those rows carry an "as of" note telling you to confirm before paying or booking. Prices are list prices in US dollars unless the row says otherwise.

An owner's pages do not always agree with each other. We do not pick the convenient figure; we print what the source says and tell you what to confirm. Two cases from the current exams:

• ACE CPT retake wait. ACE's scheduling page gives two different waits, so the exam facts show both and advise confirming the date when you book.
• NASM-CPT booking path. The handbook still describes an older portal menu than the one NASM uses now; our registration facts follow the current portal and note the old path.

When an owner announces a new outline, the exam pages say which edition each number belongs to and when the switch happens. Security+ is moving from SY0-701 to SY0-801; once SY0-801 is released, both can be booked until the older edition retires. CEN questions and its study guide follow BCEN's current content outline.

Each number lives in a single record and the pages pull it from there, so one fix changes them all, along with their check dates. Facts tied to an announced change date are rechecked when that date arrives. A practice question found to be wrong is fixed or swapped out, and it goes through the full review again before it returns.

First Attempt carries no advertising, affiliate links or sponsored content, and sells nothing. Exam owners do not pay for coverage, review pages before they go up, or approve what is written about their exams.

• Pages answer the question first, then give the detail and the source.
• No invented authors, reviewers or credentials; the site speaks as its brand.
• No promise of a pass, and no claim to speak for an exam owner.
• One topic lives on one page; other pages link to it instead of restating it.