42 (IV): the first exam, rank 2

At 42 there are no written tests: there are practical exams. Three hours in front of a terminal (the window where you type commands and the code responds), no internet, no notes. The instructions appear on an internal website and an automatic grader (a program that compares your output with what it expects) decides whether you pass or not. The first exam, rank 2, closes the C fundamentals block. I remembered it with a mix of respect and wanting it to be over.

What it's like

The exam asks you to solve increasingly difficult C exercises. You start with short functions — handling strings, flipping bits, transforming notations — and each exercise you pass unlocks a harder one. You choose the level, but there are no shortcuts: the grader compares your output with the expected one and doesn't negotiate.

I prepared with a private repository (my code storage), Exam_42_rank_2, where I keep the exercises from each level: from the first (ft_strlen, ft_swap, rot_13, rev_print) to the fourth (ft_split, ft_itoa, flood_fill). There each exercise has its final version, a test.c for testing, and, for the complex functions, an annotated version I use to review before the exam.

How I tackled it

I changed the way I studied. In projects — like ft_printf, your own printf or pipex, the Unix pipes — time doesn't run: you test, you move things, you try again. In the exam, the clock rules, and the difference between passing and stopping halfway is often muscle memory: freeing where you need to without thinking much about it.

So I repeated the typical exercises until I could do them from memory. I mainly practiced the string and memory functions that come up most often. And I simulated entire exams against the grader. On exam day, the strategy was simple: exercise by exercise, without getting stuck on any, and validating each step before continuing.

What it feels like when you finish

When the grader gave the final verdict, I understood why they make the exams this way. In months of projects, your measurement is "it works"; in the exam, the measurement is you, without repositories or searches. You learn something no course teaches: what you actually know when you can't look anything up.

The nerves before, the empty feeling during the minute the grader takes, the silence of the room when the pass comes through. I hadn't experienced that since university exams. And it makes me look at the next project submission with more respect.