The exam is a judgment test disguised as a feature-and-product test. Your job is to choose the best action under constraints—not merely an action that could work.
- Pass 1 · Learn. Read each domain and convert every decision rule into your own example.
- Pass 2 · Build. Complete the labs in Claude with non-sensitive practice material. Save prompts, outputs, audits, and corrections.
- Pass 3 · Test. Take the mastery checkpoint closed-book, then complete the separate timed mock workbook.
- Pass 4 · Repair. Use the error taxonomy. Re-study the rule that would have eliminated each wrong option.
The DETER exam-thinking system
- Define the actual objective. What business outcome, audience, decision, or work product is required? Which facts are explicit and which are tempting assumptions?
- Establish authority and evidence. What source, policy, owner, or qualified reviewer controls? Is the answer asking you to trust confidence or presentation instead?
- Tune the product, model, and workflow. What is the minimum sufficient feature/model configuration? Should the task be decomposed, persisted, researched, or formatted as an artifact/structured output?
- Evaluate exposure. What data, regulatory, ethical, accuracy, bias, or operational risk exists? What happens if the answer is wrong?
- Require review, escalation, or evidence. What validation, human approval, stop condition, or feedback loop makes the action defensible?
How to eliminate sophisticated distractors
- Reject answers that polish before validating, automate before authorizing, or scale before piloting.
- Reject answers that treat access, confidence, detail, recency, or a citation-looking string as authority.
- Reject extremes unless the scenario truly requires them: always use Opus, never use Claude, upload everything, verify nothing, or send every case to a human.
- Prefer answers that explicitly handle missing information, exceptions, source conflicts, and downstream action.
- For multiple-response items, evaluate each option independently. Select exactly the stated number; do not select a merely helpful step when a more essential control is offered.
Sources: [EG] [AIF]
How to solve sequencing questions
Sequencing items are still multiple-choice questions: five actions are labeled A-E, and the response options present competing orders. Solve the dependency chain before looking at the answer orders.
- 1. Find prerequisites. Authorization precedes access or use; requirements precede design; evidence collection precedes synthesis.
- 2. Separate analysis from release. Normalize and reconcile before scoring; validate before approval; approval before external release.
- 3. Respect control boundaries. Human or source-owner review occurs after evidence is prepared but before a consequential decision is released.
- 4. Pilot before scale. Baseline, pilot, evaluation, approval, controlled scale, and monitoring form a common sequence.
- 5. Use option elimination. Reject any order that drafts before evidence, deploys before testing, or uses data before purpose and authorization are confirmed.