Lessons, quizzes and the claims exam
A lesson has: a one-sentence objective; content; "Say this" blocks for verbatim words; a "Never say" box; colour chips beside claims; the source document; a three-question unscored check; the release stamp; owner role and last review; "report a problem". Question types: single best answer; may I say this? (colour automatic; fence or approved version marked by an assessor); fix the sentence; arithmetic; scenario judgement; order the steps. Each quiz draws from a bank at least three times its length. Certificate exams never reveal answers after a fail; they name the lessons to revisit. Refreshers of five questions at about 7, 30 and 90 days, plus a monthly battlecard quiz for sellers; they do not affect certificates.
RuleColours as answers. GREEN: say as written. AMBER: sayable only with the stated fence, and the learner must give the fence. RED: never say as worded, and the learner gives the approved version where one exists. An AMBER subject whose wording breaks the fence is "AMBER area, RED as worded": the correct answer is RED.
The claims exam#
A recommendation; Karl Foster signs off the bank before first use and every change to a RED item. A prohibited-claim item is any item whose correct answer is RED.
- Full exam: 30 items from a bank of 90, 40 minutes, at least 12 prohibited-claim items. Pass: every prohibited-claim item right and 90% overall.
- Partner exam: 15 items from a bank of 45, 20 minutes, at least 6 prohibited-claim items. Pass: every prohibited-claim item right and 80% overall.
- Marking guide: an answer passes if it makes the same claim with the same fence in approved wording; any added RED element fails it. Assessors mark within two working days.
Sample items (a selection; the full bank is built from the proof and guardrails chapter):
| Statement | Answer | Approved version or fence |
|---|---|---|
| "Holly will never publish anything without your approval." | RED | "You decide what Holly can do on its own. We recommend a person approves every LinkedIn post." |
| "Every like becomes a named lead in your CRM by the next morning." | RED | "See who's engaging with your posts, and reply from one place." |
| "Holly shows you which prospects are hot." | AMBER area, RED as worded | Warmth scores in a live demo only; in writing, "See who's engaging with your posts, and reply from one place. Know who to talk to first." |
| "Nobody will be able to tell it was written by AI." | RED | "Per-person voices and pre-publish checks reduce generic output." |
| "It posts to LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube and Facebook." | AMBER area, RED as worded | "LinkedIn first; ask us about other platforms." |
| "We're SOC 2 certified." | RED | No certification of any kind is claimed |
| "Your £69 rate is locked for life." | RED | "The rate you come in at is the rate you keep for as long as you stay subscribed." |
| "We only use official APIs; Maktura never scrapes." | RED | The approved spoken answer on engagement data |
| "Alex built about 30,000 followers and gets three to five inbound leads a week from posting." | AMBER | Only as Alex's own figures, re-confirmed, proving the method, never the product |
| "You can try it free for a fortnight." | RED | No free trial at launch; trials are for Alex or John Cooper only |
Other samples. Band change (pending D15): "Spark shows 6 seats left in billing and a 10-seat firm wants to sign." A team counts fully against a band, so this order would close Spark; say "John will confirm from billing how your seats price before you pay." Never compute a price across two bands yourself. LIB 102, true or false: "Only 7% of Relationship Builders were star performers." False: they were 7% of high performers; Challengers were nearly 40% (Dixon, 2011).