Registered Penetration Tester

Pass rate

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Registered Penetration Tester Pass Rate

CRT

The score you need to pass the Registered Penetration Tester certification exam, what the cut score actually means, and how to read your mock results against it.

60% to pass
120 questions
2/10 difficulty

The number you need to hit

Published cut score for this certification.

Passing score
60%
Candidates must achieve at least 60% in both Infrastructure and Web Application to achieve a pass. Passing one of the sections but failing the other one will result in a failure overall.
Margin
40%
room for wrong answers, on a flat mock
Wrong answers allowed
48
out of 120 questions

Pass score vs pass rate

Two different numbers that get mixed up constantly.

Pass score (cut score)

The scaled score the vendor publishes. For the Registered Penetration Tester it is 60%. This is the number you can actually prepare against, and it is the one that decides your result on exam day.

Pass rate (percentage of candidates)

The share of candidates who pass. CREST generally does not publish this for individual exams, and the numbers you find online usually come from candidate self-reported surveys. We would rather tell you nothing than tell you a figure we cannot source.

Where you lose points

The exam is not scored flat. Each domain carries its own weight, so a domain where you lose everything can sink a score that looks fine on paper.

Reporting and Communication20%

Losing this domain entirely costs you 20% of the exam, and it has 24 practice questions here.

Exploitation and Post-Exploitation35%

Losing this domain entirely costs you 35% of the exam, and it has 42 practice questions here.

Web Application and API Security Testing20%

Losing this domain entirely costs you 20% of the exam, and it has 24 practice questions here.

Information Gathering and Vulnerability Identification25%

Losing this domain entirely costs you 25% of the exam, and it has 30 practice questions here.

The practical version: the Registered Penetration Tester is not passed by knowing most of the content. It is passed by being strong in the domains that carry weight, and by not leaving one of them empty.

More about the Registered Penetration Tester exam

Explore the rest of this page series: format, cost, difficulty, requirements and how to prepare.

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Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about the Registered Penetration Tester exam.