ServSafe Manager certification is considered a gold standard in the foodservice management industry. While ensuring that your hospitality is top-notch, this certification verifies your complete knowledge of the best food safety practices as directed by the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation. With constantly evolving programs and testing materials, this exam can seem to be a hard exam but that is not the case in reality.
If you are a part of the foodservice management industry and are trying to get this certification, then you might need to grind some ServSafe practice tests while understanding the core mechanics of the paper. Well, don’t worry! We’ve got you. Here’s how you can pass the ServSafe exam with flying colors.
What does the ServSafe exam entail
If you are serious about passing the exam, the best thing you can do is read the ServSafe Essential textbook or coursebook as thoroughly as possible. That may seem like a general tip but many people decide to skip it and choose to go with studying with notes they get online or from other centers.
If we talk about the ServSafe manager exam itself, it involves a total of 90 multiple-choice questions. There are minimum criteria that you have to match in order to pass the exam. Organizers set the exam in a way that you must achieve a score of 75 percent or higher to pass.
90 minutes is the time allowed for students to finish the exam. An important thing to remember is that you have to answer all the questions even if you think you don’t know the answer. All the questions that are left blank are considered as wrong and are scored accordingly.
Different sections of the ServSafe Exam
There are 14 different sections within the manager exam, that you need to get familiar with:
- Providing safe food
- The microworld
- Contamination, food allergens, and foodborne illness
- The safe food handler
- The flow of food
- Purchasing and receiving
- Preparation
- Service
- Food safety management systems
- Sanitary facilities and equipment
- Cleaning and sanitizing
- Food safety regulations
- Integrated pest management
- Employee food safety training
Apart from the manager course, there are 4 other programs that can be a part of. These are ServSafe food handler course, ServSafe alcohol, Servsafe allergens, SersvSafe workplace.
How to study for the exams?
If you consider yourself a person with strong self-discipline and who can focus on following a course for 2 or 3 months straight, then online courses might be the way to go. However, you will need a flexible schedule if you are going for these kinds of courses. After you register for a course online in any of the 5 programs, you need to complete the course in a set number of days. If you fail to finish the course in the specified days, you will need to purchase the course again.
The other way would be to sign up for in-person classes. You can easily find a certified ServSafe instructor by using the ServSafe’s search tool. However, instructor-led courses are available for only 3 programs i.e. food handler programs, manager programs, and alcohol programs.