CDT (Construction Documents Technologist)

The CDT exam is 120 questions (20 of them unscored pretest questions mixed in without being flagged, so there's no safe way to skip studying for a question just because it feels unscored), computer-based, administered through Prometric testing centers with a remote online-proctored option available for an added fee if you'd rather test in person at a center instead. You get 120 minutes of actual exam time inside a 180-minute total appointment, the extra time covering check-in and a tutorial, the same appointment-time-versus-working-time distinction the FE exam uses for engineers.

Unlike most exams on this site, CSI doesn't offer CDT testing year-round. It runs in scheduled cycles, a fall and a spring cycle each year, each with its own registration window and a separate, later testing window, so planning around the actual cycle dates matters more than it does for an exam you can schedule whenever you're ready.

The content itself covers how a construction project's documentation actually fits together: the relationship between drawings and specifications (drawings show quantity, location, and dimension; specs describe quality, materials, and execution requirements, and neither one is a complete set of instructions alone), how CSI's MasterFormat organizes specification sections by division, and the project delivery process end to end, not just one discipline's paperwork.

No prior construction experience is required, and that's deliberate. The CDT is CSI's foundational, no-prerequisite credential, open to students and career-changers as much as working document control staff, and it's also the required first step before any of CSI's three advanced certifications (CCS, CCCA, CCPR), all of which do require real experience on top of it.

Exam fees run on a tiered schedule that climbs the longer you wait to register within a cycle, early-bird pricing is meaningfully cheaper than waiting until the final registration window, with a separate, much lower flat rate for students regardless of timing, plus an optional "Second Chance Insurance" add-on that guarantees one free retake if you don't pass the first time. Once earned, the CDT itself doesn't expire and never needs renewing, unlike most of the other credentials covered on this site.

The practice questions below are original, testing the same kind of documentation and project-delivery judgment the real CDT exam does, not a copy of any CSI question. If you're drawn to this because of how submittals and shop drawings actually move through a project, that's exactly the kind of process knowledge this credential is built around.