Five full-length timed mock exams and chapter-wise practice quizzes — all free, no login required, with a worked explanation for every answer.
Full 100-question timed exams covering all AAPC CPC domains.
Focused 25-question sets on each surgical body system.
Practice exams covering non-surgery CPC domains.
This page collects the practice material on Clear CPC in one place. If you are new here, the order you work through it matters more than how much of it you get through. Below is the sequence that works for most candidates, and what each stage is actually for.
The AAPC CPC exam is 100 multiple-choice questions in a four-hour window, taken open book with your CPT, ICD-10-CM and HCPCS Level II manuals. The pass mark is 70%. Questions are spread across the surgery sections of CPT, anaesthesia, radiology, pathology and laboratory, medicine, evaluation and management, medical terminology, anatomy, ICD-10-CM, HCPCS Level II, coding guidelines, and compliance and regulatory topics.
Two things follow from that format. First, breadth beats depth — you cannot afford a section you have ignored entirely. Second, speed with your books is a skill in its own right, separate from knowing the material.
| Stage | Use | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Orientation | Syllabus and study plan | Know what is examined and build a realistic schedule |
| 2. Learning | Guides and short quizzes | Build knowledge section by section, test immediately after each |
| 3. Application | Code lookup tool and worked scenarios | Turn knowledge into speed with the manuals |
| 4. Simulation | Full-length mock exams | Test stamina, pacing and readiness under real conditions |
Candidates commonly jump straight to stage four because full mock exams feel like serious preparation. Taking mock exams before the underlying knowledge exists produces low scores, discouragement, and no useful information.
Between full exams, use the chapter quizzes to work a single body system at a time. They are 25 questions each, untimed, and most of them are operative-note vignettes where you pick the code.
Take them in order, and review each one fully before starting the next. Three reviewed papers are worth more than eight unreviewed ones.
No free practice material replaces the three code manuals. You will sit the real exam with CPT, ICD-10-CM and HCPCS Level II in front of you, and the exam is designed on the assumption that you can navigate them quickly. Buy or borrow current editions early and practise in them from day one, not in the last fortnight.
You will also need the ICD-10-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting. They are published free by CMS and NCHS, they change annually, and a meaningful share of exam questions test them directly.
A working adult starting from a completed coding course typically needs eight to twelve weeks of consistent part-time study. Someone starting from scratch should plan for longer. Consistency matters far more than intensity: an hour most days beats a full day every other weekend, because retention depends on how often you return to material, not how long you sit with it once.
Clear CPC is an independent educational resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to AAPC. CPC® is a registered trademark of AAPC.
Every exam on this page is free, needs no sign-up, and runs in your browser. The five mock exams each carry 100 questions on a four-hour clock, matching the format AAPC uses. The chapter quizzes are shorter and built for drilling one topic at a time.
A practice exam is worth taking seriously or not at all. Sit it in one go, keep your code books beside you, and do not look anything up that you would not be able to look up on exam day. A 95 percent scored across three evenings with the answers open tells you nothing you can use.
The CPC blueprint spans 17 areas: medical terminology, anatomy, coding guidelines, compliance and regulatory, and the CPT surgery sections by body system, plus radiology, pathology and laboratory, medicine, evaluation and management, anesthesia, ICD-10-CM and HCPCS Level II. Surgery carries the most weight, which is why the chapter quizzes start there.
Most candidates lose marks in two places: the sections they assumed they knew, and the last twenty questions, where fatigue does the damage. The score report after each mock exam breaks your result down by domain so you can see which of those two is costing you.
Take one mock exam cold, before you revise anything. It will be uncomfortable and it is meant to be — it gives you a baseline and shows you where the gaps really are, rather than where you assume they are. Work through the explanations afterwards, including the ones you got right, because an answer reached by elimination will not survive different distractors.
Then drill. Use the chapter quizzes for the domains that scored worst, read the relevant guideline in your own code book rather than only the explanation here, and leave it a few days. Come back to a different mock exam rather than retaking the same one — retaking it mostly tests whether you remember those hundred items.
Four hours for 100 questions means about two and a half minutes each. That is generous for a straightforward code lookup and tight for a long operative note. Flag anything that is taking more than four minutes, move on, and come back with whatever time is left. The question palette in each exam lets you jump straight to your flagged questions.
The CPC exam has 100 multiple-choice questions and you get four hours to answer them. That works out to roughly 2 minutes and 24 seconds per question, which is why pacing matters as much as knowledge. Each of the mock exams on this page is built to the same 100-question, four-hour shape.
You need 70 percent or higher, which means answering at least 70 of the 100 questions correctly. There is no separate pass mark for individual sections — it is your overall score that decides it, so a weak domain can be carried by strong ones.
Yes. AAPC allows the AMA CPT Professional Edition for the current year, an ICD-10-CM manual for the current year from any publisher, and a HCPCS Level II manual. You may write in your own notes and tabs within the rules AAPC publishes, but you cannot bring in separate notes or photocopied pages. Practising with the same books you will carry on exam day is the single most useful habit you can build.
AAPC lists the core exams, which include the CPC, at 425 US dollars for a single attempt and 499 dollars for a two-attempt voucher. Student pricing is 400 dollars for one attempt and 475 for two. Prices change, so check AAPC before you buy. Budget separately for code books, which are a substantial extra cost.
Sit the full four hours at least once before your real exam. Most candidates discover their problem is time, not coding, and you only find that out under the clock. Shorter chapter quizzes are better for drilling one topic, but they will not tell you how you code in hour four.
Exam format, passing score, approved books and pricing above are from AAPC. ClearCPC is not affiliated with AAPC. Check AAPC for the current rules before you book.