What to expect when you take the General Coding Assessment (GCA)
The General Coding Assessment consists of 4 questions of varying difficulty that assess different coding skills, primarily focusing on implementation and problem solving ability. You will have 70 minutes to complete the assessment, and you may split your time as you wish during the assessment.
All questions will be accessible from when the timer begins until the end of the 70 minute period. Each question asks you to solve a problem by coding in the assessment itself (outside IDEs are not permitted). Your responses will be scored based on correctness, speed, implementation, and your problem solving ability. Once you complete the assessment, your score will be reviewed and certified if no unusual activity took place during your session. This score is part of a larger result, your Coding Report, which displays your other assessment scores and assesses your overall coding speed, problem solving ability, and implementation skills.
Structure of the GCA
When you begin the assessment, you will see a page with instructions for setting up your computer and workspace to take the assessment. You'll see the screen shown below when you first click the link:
Once you've completed these set-up steps, you will see the screen shown below. Here you will see the name of the assessment and variations on the duration and questions in an actual live assessment.
To begin the assessment, choose the language (you can change it any time during the assessment from the IDE) and accept the rules.
When you click NEXT, the timer begins and you will see all of the questions. You can complete the questions in any order.
When you click on VIEW QUESTION, you will see the question description on the left side of your screen and the IDE for coding your solution on the right: