Hello, I have a question and I think this is the right place to ask it: I am about to start Project Number 4 of the Responsive Web Design Certification, and once I will have that one done, the next one, ‘Survey Form’, is called a ‘Certification project’. What do those entail? Are they like exams where you have to retrieve the info yourself, or do they give you lots of instructions as they do for all projects since the start of the course, and you build something step by step? Do they feel exam-like, or is it OK to redo a step as often as you need until the step passes and you can move on to the next step? And also, is it possible, not just to get stuck on a step as could happen so far with the other projects, but to submit your entire certification project and fail? And if you do fail, can you retake / resit it as many times as you like, or can you get thrown out for not being ‘good enough’? I am asking, as alongside this course, I am studying at an online university where, if you fail an assessment more than three times, you get booted out of the course. I guess FreeCodeCamp is different, but I thought I’d ask, because if there is a huge risk of failing the Certification Project and being thrown out of here, I may study for it like one studies for an exam to avoid this happening. Thank you! 
Hi @Judith83 !
Each certification has 5 required projects that you must do if you want to collect a certificate.
For the responsive web design certification, these are the five required projects:
- Survey form
- Tribute page
- Product page
- Technical document page
- Portfolio project
All of the other projects in the responsive web design certification are not required . Those are considered practice projects to help you learn the concepts.
the certification projects are not step by step projects.
You will be giving some directions, and a sample project to better understand what you are going to build.
Then you will be given a list of user stories which basically means requirements that the project has to have. For example, one user story could “Add a form element with an id of form”
once you build out the project on your own, then you will run the tests and see if you passed.
If you are not passing some of the user stories, then there will be hints on how to fix it.
If you get stuck, then it is encouraged to use google for concepts, MDN, stackoverflow or ask questions on the forum.
there is no failure aspect because this is not an exam.
it is common to build out the projects and run into errors and have failing user stories that you need to fix.
Just like in the real world of development 
but you will have plenty of changes to resolve those issues and ask for help from the forum so you can pass the user stories and claim the certification.
not you cannot fail and be thrown out for not being good enough.
the purpose of the certification projects is to test your knowledge that you learning in the practice projects and learn how to build projects on your own.
the best way to become a better developer is to build projects on your own.
that is where you will learn how to debug your code, ask questions, and research for answers
hope that helps
Hello @Judith83 !
You are doing good and will continue to do so.
One of the great things about freeCodeCamp is that you can take as long as you need to complete any, or all, parts of the courses.
The courses are based on the requirements for certification. However, we are always shown what we still need to fix to complete the projects.
Suggestion: I started at the top and did a few steps, then ran the code and saved it if it had some success. In this way, I was able to keep the good code, if I had to reset the project, or leave it part way through.
I submitted it once all of the steps were met.
Here is a HTML and CSS verification app that will help know if there are errors in these code. However, it is important to remember that the code may be correct, but, if the requirements are not met, we do not pass.
Ready to check - Nu Html Checker
This community is also awesome at helping us learn along the way.
Wishing you more good progress, both in your other classes, and here on freeCodeCamp.
Thank you so much! This helps a lot! Thank you! 
Thank you so much for your answer! When you say you save your code bit by bit, yeah, that IS a good idea! Do you save it in a separate code editor, or in GitHub maybe (as I think GitHub can be used to save some code work?) and when you say you run it and save it if it has some success, you run it in verification Apps like the one you mentioned right? Please forgive the newbie questions, I am as passionate about IT as I am a beginner at it! 
These all sound like excellent ideas indeed. And thank you for the best wishes! I am slightly overwhelmed I guess as I started studying on the course last May and was making decent progress, but then I had some family issues to attend to and I sort of dropped off until I could get back to it. I am only getting back to it now, and on the plus side rereading many notes I had taken, I don’t seem to have forgotten most of what I had previously learned, but the whole ‘getting back to it’ feels slightly daunting! 
Which is why I felt I may as well ask my questions here, about Certification Projects! Thank you again so much for your reply! The HTML and CSS verification App also sounds awesome, so thank you so much for the link!
You can save it locally in project files.
If you want to have your projects on github, then you will need to learn how to use the basics of Git and Github
there are also online editors you can save your work like codepen and codesandbox
hope that helps
Fantastic, thank you so much!
Yes, it’s weird to be stopped from studying by life. I am, so far, a French as a foreign language teacher online for adults (working very much part-time so I have time to study) and I have always seen how much adults struggled to juggle studying and life. Hopefully though, I’ll get there! The thing I have always found on these forums thankfully though is that all of you seem very nice and helpful. And that is helpful, because when you are attending some sort of university, even an online one, having nice classmates and mentors is certainly very important! I’m now going to try and study for a couple of hours before I’ll possibly lose my Internet, since we are expecting a Level 3 Weather Alert this afternoon (even the weather seems to be against my studying regularly! ) but yeah, you’re right, even a millimetre of progress has got to still be progress, even if it doesn’t seem to be… Anyway, I’ll (very slowly) get there, I’m sure! Thank you so much for your reply!
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