OpenAI Certification Preparation

6 tracks 12 independent mock exams Free Academy-aligned

Learn OpenAI skills. Practise with real-world scenarios. Measure your readiness.

This section prepares you for the OpenAI Academy courses and pathway assessments, and for the broader OpenAI Certification initiative that is being built on top of them. It is independent study material: no official questions, no affiliation, no guarantee of eligibility for any credential.

What this is, and is not

This is OpenAI certification preparation built from publicly available OpenAI learning objectives. It is not an official OpenAI course, not an official practice exam, and not endorsed by OpenAI. Academy badges and pathway certificates of completion are not certifications and do not guarantee eligibility for a future certification – that is OpenAI’s own wording, and this site repeats it rather than blurring it.

Read these four pages first

Credential landscape

Academy badge vs pathway certificate vs OpenAI Certification vs the OpenAI Certified app. Who can access what today.

Learning sequence

Which track fits your role, in which order to take them, and how long each one takes.

Assessment model

How Academy assessments actually work (10–20 items, 50-item bank, 80% to pass) and how our mocks differ.

OpenAI glossary

Every term used across the six tracks, tagged by track.

The six preparation tracks

Three tracks mirror the Foundations pathway, two mirror the developer pathways (API and Codex), and one covers the standalone AI Leadership course.

AI Foundations

7 domains · 60-item mocks. AI and LLM fundamentals, ChatGPT surfaces, prompting, context, verification, responsible use. Start here if you are new.

Applied AI Foundations

6 domains · 50-item mocks. Turning one-off prompting into repeatable workflows: decomposition, input/output contracts, capability selection, review points.

Agents and Workflows

6 domains · 50-item mocks. Delegating structured work to agents with real oversight: objectives, context, boundaries, verification, reliability.

API Developer Path

7 domains · 60-item mocks. Scoping, the Responses API and model selection, evals, agentic systems, RAG, performance and production operations.

Codex Path

5 domains · 50-item mocks. Codex surfaces and models, day-to-day coding workflows, configuration and extension, adoption, governance and scale.

AI Leadership

6 domains · 50-item mocks. Opportunity selection, strategy and roadmaps, governance, adoption, workforce enablement and measurement.

The learning model this section follows

The Academy model is Learning → Knowledge check → Practice → Readiness. Every track here implements it the same way:

Stage	Where it happens
Learning	Domain pages: what you need to know, a mental model, real examples, decision frameworks, common mistakes
Knowledge check	10–24 practice questions inside every domain page, each with a full explanation of the right answer and every distractor
Practice	Mock exam 1 – a full-length, domain-weighted independent mock you sit as a diagnostic
Readiness	Mock exam 2 – harder items, timed, used as your go/no-go gate before enrolling or sitting the real assessment

The Academy facts that shape this material

Fact	Value
Cost	Free; a ChatGPT account is required to enrol and save progress
Hosting	Courses run on Gradual; badges are issued by Accredible
Availability	Global, to anyone with a ChatGPT account; no workspace membership needed
Assessment length	10–20 questions per attempt, drawn from a 50-question bank per assessment
Pass mark	80% or higher to earn the course badge
Retakes	Allowed, with a newly randomised selection of questions
Pathway certificates	Foundations (3 courses), Codex (3 courses), API (5 courses) – every course and assessment passed at ≥ 80%
Standalone courses	AI Leadership, AI for Educators, AI for College Students – no pathway
Certification initiative	AI Foundations delivered inside ChatGPT through employer, public-sector and university pilots; builds toward full OpenAI Certification with further courses and a hands-on project
OpenAI Certified app	Coursera-powered, credentials via Credly, Enterprise and Edu workspaces only, invite-only

Readiness bands used everywhere in this section

Our mock exams report an independent readiness indicator, never an OpenAI score:

Score	Band	What to do
under 70%	Keep learning	Re-read the two weakest domains before another mock
70–79%	Building confidence	Drill the weak domains with the in-page questions
80–89%	Assessment ready	You are at or above the Academy badge threshold
90%+	Strong readiness	Move to the next track

The 80% line is deliberate: it is exactly the Academy badge threshold, so “assessment ready” means what it says.

Official sources

Always prefer the source over this site: OpenAI Academy, the Academy courses help article, the certifications announcement, the OpenAI Certified app article, the API docs and the Codex docs.