Open exams and the Live Series
Register for an exam everyone sits together, what happens on the day, and your rank, certificate and appeal afterwards.
The blog guide How to take a mock test also walks through an open exam and the Live Series with a demo student.
In this guide (10)
The whole flow
An open exam is a test that everyone sits at the same time. Here is the way through one, from registering to your certificate.
- 1RegisterFree, or with a code from the organiser
- 2Reminder30 minutes before it starts
- 3InstructionsOn screen from 5 minutes before
- 4ExamEveryone starts and ends together
- 5Result and rankWhen it ends, or when released
- 6CertificateIf the exam gives them
What an open exam is
Teachers, coaching centres, schools and StemPy Lab itself hold exams on a date and at a time. Anyone signed in can take part, unless the exam needs an access code. They are listed on Mock Tests and on the Exams page.
- The paper
- Hidden until the start, so nobody can see it early.
- Attempts
- One. Every answer is saved as you give it.
- Time
- Everyone starts and ends together. Joining late leaves you less time.
- Ranks
- Highest marks first. Equal marks share a place.
Each exam has an Announcements board on its page. The organiser posts the syllabus, the reporting time, any change and the results there.
Registering
Open the exam's page
From Mock Tests or the Exams page. Times are shown in your own time zone.
Press Register (or Register free)
Some exams have a limited number of places. The first time, you are asked for the name on your certificate: your real full name, as it should be printed (your profile can keep a shorter name). It is fixed on a certificate once the certificate is issued, so you can still correct it after the exam until then. You may also give your school and city; the organiser sees them.
Choose what to share
If you are an adult, you can choose to share your email with the organiser. A phone number for problems on the day (a parent's, for under-18s) is seen only by StemPy Lab, never by the organiser.
Check your details
Your details on the exam's page changes them until the exam starts.
Exams with an access code or a fee
Some exams are only for people with an access code from the organiser: a paid exam, or one for their own students. The exam's page says so.
A code from the organiser
- Choose
- I have an access code
- Then
- Type it (like ABCD-2345). You are registered at once.
Paid the fee
- Choose
- I have paid
- Then
- Give the payment's reference (for UPI, the 12-digit transaction ID). The organiser checks it and confirms, and you are told.
A fee is paid to the organiser directly: a UPI QR code with the amount filled in (with a button that opens your UPI app on a phone), a UPI ID, a payment link or bank details.
Take care
Pay only to the details on the exam's page. StemPy Lab does not receive the money and cannot refund it; refunds are the organiser's to give.
On the day
30 minutes before
You get a reminder. Find a quiet place, charge your device and check your connection.
Keep the exam's page open
It counts down, shows the instructions from 5 minutes before, and opens the exam the moment it starts.
Begin
Everyone's time ends together. If you are late, you can still join for the minutes the exam allows (often 10), with less time.
Write
Your answers are saved as you give them. When the time is over they are submitted for you, even if you lost your connection. The screen works as described in Taking mock tests.
Leaving the exam screen and appeals
Leaving the exam screen (another app, a tab, a call) is counted and timed. If you leave more often than the exam allows (usually 5 times, or 5 minutes in all), your attempt is held: it is kept out of the ranks and certificates until the organiser reviews it.
- 1HeldOver the limit for leaving the screen
- 2AppealOnce, from your result page, within the days allowed
- 3AcceptedYour attempt counts, with its place and certificate
The organiser can clear a held attempt or disqualify it. If there was a good reason (a power cut, a network drop, an emergency), explain it in your appeal (usually within 3 days). The organiser accepts it or turns it down, and you are told either way.
In the Live Series, leaving more than the series allows takes the attempt out of the ranks at once. You can still appeal once.
Results, ranks and certificates
When the exam ends (or when the organiser releases them) you see your score, the right answers and the ranks of everyone who took it.
If you sat the same paper before, in a class or another exam, this sitting is practice for you: you see your score, but you get no place and no certificate. Your first result stands.
Object to an answer, if allowed
Some exams give a few hours to object to an answer you think is wrong. Results are provisional until then. Each question in your result has Object to this answer. The organiser keeps the answer, corrects it or drops the question (everyone then gets its marks), and tells you what they decided.
Get your certificate
If the exam gives certificates, press Get your certificate: Participation for everyone, Merit for the top tenth, with your marks and place. Print it, save it as a PDF, or download it as a picture to share.
Share your result
Download my result card makes a picture of your place to share.
Every certificate has a number and a QR code that opens it on StemPy Lab, so anyone can check it is real. Yours are all listed on Certificates. The name to print is asked the first time you register for an exam or join a Live Series; change it any time under Edit Profile, Name on your certificates. A name already printed on an exam certificate can be corrected by writing to us.
The StemPy Lab Live Series
StemPy Lab runs free exams on a timetable, for example a JEE Main Physics paper every Sunday. Find them under Live Series on Mock Tests.
- 1Join the seriesYou are registered for every sitting
- 2Add to calendarEvery sitting, with a reminder
- 3Sit each paperSame time as everyone else
- 4Earn points10 for taking part, up to 90 more by place
- 5Monthly trophyFor the month's top three
- Each series' card says how long its sittings are and how many questions each has.
- When a sitting draws its questions from a larger paper, the students beside you get different ones.
- A series can give each weekday its own subject. Each sitting's title says the subject.
- A sitting's own page (where a shared link goes) has Join the series free on its card: one tap registers you for that sitting and every one after it. To take only that one, use Register for this sitting only further down. If you registered for one sitting only, the card asks you to join the rest.
- Cancel any one sitting you will miss without leaving the series.
- Each series can give some hours after a sitting's results (24 for the JEE Main Physics series) to object to an answer from your result page. The results are provisional until then, and certificates come with the final results.
- A series of full papers of its exam can read your score against that exam's published figures. A one-subject series does not, since the real exam's figures are for all its subjects together.
- After you submit, a short survey asks how the paper went: your class, how much of the syllabus you have studied, how it felt, how it compared with the real exam, the time, and what you would like next. It takes six taps. The organiser sees totals, never names, and once 10 have answered, three totals show on the sitting's and the series' pages.
- The series' page has standings for the week, the month and all time, and lists the next few sittings.
- A paper you have already sat is unranked for you if it comes round again.
- When the series' page says so, each paper becomes a free practice paper after its sitting.
Calendars, reminders and emails
An exam's page, or a series' page
Google Calendar or Calendar file on an exam's page adds it to your calendar. On a series' page, Add the timetable to your calendar puts every coming sitting in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, with a reminder 15 minutes before. New weeks arrive by themselves.
We email what matters about your tests: announcements and messages from the organiser, results, certificates, appeals, reminders, class announcements and new class tests. Several at once arrive as one email. Turn emails off in your profile settings; the notices on the site stay.
Still stuck?
Write to us and a person reads it. Tell us the page and what you pressed.