Exam rules

You must book a sitting before you can take the exam. The portal unlocks at 10:00 on the date you booked and not before. Sittings are at ALU Kigali.

Places on each date are capped, separately for candidates bringing a laptop and candidates using a provided machine. When a date is full it stops appearing.

The exam runs in fullscreen. While a section is open, the portal will block:

• Copying, cutting and pasting, by menu or by keyboard.
• Right-clicking.
• Ctrl/Cmd+C, V, X and P, Print Screen, and F12.

Leaving fullscreen, or switching to another tab or application, is recorded. Three of any one of these in a section submits that section automatically and you cannot return to it. You get a warning before each strike.

The essay you submit must be written by you, in the room, during the section. Work drafted elsewhere and brought in, or produced by a language model, is not your own work.

The portal records how fast your word count grows. If an essay appears in one or two jumps, staff will ask you about it. That is a question, not an accusation, and you will get the chance to answer it.

Each section is submitted once. Once a section is submitted you cannot reopen or revise it.

If the connection drops as you submit, your work is usually already saved. Submit again. If the portal tells you the section was already received, it was, and nothing has been lost.

Reading and listening are marked automatically. Writing is marked out of 50, first by a language model and then checked by Writing Centre staff, who can change any mark. A section you left empty is marked zero and flagged as no response, so that a genuine zero and a technical failure are never confused.

Results are released by the Writing Centre. They are not shown in the portal the moment you finish.

If a machine fails, if you are moved mid-sitting, or if you think a section was submitted in error, tell an invigilator in the room and write to thewritingcentre@alueducation.com the same day. Include your EPT ID and the date of the sitting.