About the TSAC-F Exam: Format, Scoring, Eligibility & Policies

About the TSAC-F Exam: Format, Scoring, Eligibility & Policies

Quick Summary: The TSAC-F exam is 150 multiple-choice items - 130 scored and 20 non-scored - delivered in a 180-minute seat time, and every NSCA certification requires a scaled score of 70 or higher to pass. This section fixes the format, cut score, fees, eligibility, delivery options, and the retake and recertification policies that shape a study plan.

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Who the Credential Is For

The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) defines the Tactical Strength and Conditioning Facilitator (TSAC-F) as an entry-level professional qualified to train tactical athletes to improve the fitness-related attributes of job performance, promote wellness, and decrease injury risk across military, fire and rescue, law enforcement, protective services, and other emergency personnel.

Three words in that definition do real work on the exam:

• Entry-level. The exam does not assume a graduate degree or clinical training. It assumes you can apply exercise science to an occupational problem.
• Job performance. Almost every scenario item is anchored to a duty task - a casualty drag, a stair ascent in bunker gear, a bounding rush under load - rather than to a sport outcome.
• Decrease injury risk. Musculoskeletal injury is the dominant threat to tactical readiness, so risk mitigation is tested as heavily as performance improvement.

Exam Structure and Timing

The 20 non-scored items are pretest questions being evaluated for future forms. They are scattered throughout the exam, they are indistinguishable from scored items, and they do not affect pass/fail status. The practical consequence is simple: never spend disproportionate time on an item that feels strange or off-blueprint, because it may not count at all - and you cannot tell which ones those are.

The Scaled Score of 70 Is Not 70 Percent

This is the single most commonly misunderstood fact about NSCA exams, and it is worth stating plainly.

NSCA reports results on a scaled score, and the passing standard on every NSCA certification exam is a scaled score of 70 or higher. A scaled score is a transformation of the raw number-correct score onto a common reporting scale so that results are comparable across exam forms of slightly different difficulty. Because different forms contain different items, the raw number of correct answers required to reach a scaled 70 varies from form to form.

Therefore:

• A scaled 70 is not the same as answering 70% of items correctly.
• You cannot compute "I need 91 of 130" from the cut score, because the raw-to-scaled conversion is form-specific.
• The only defensible preparation target is mastery of the Detailed Content Outline, not a raw percentage.

Fees, Eligibility, and Registration

Fees. The TSAC-F exam is $300 for NSCA members and $435 for non-members. Retakes require full purchase of the exam and are not discounted.

Eligibility requirements. A TSAC-F candidate must:

1. Be at least 18 years old;
2. Have earned a high school diploma (or equivalent);
3. Hold a current CPR/AED certification; and
4. Receive a passing score on the TSAC-F exam.

Note the contrast with the CSCS, which requires a bachelor's degree. The TSAC-F has no degree requirement, which is why the credential is described as entry-level and why the exam emphasizes applied judgment over research methodology.

Authorization window. After registering with NSCA you have 120 days to sit the exam. An additional 120-day extension may be requested within the original window for a non-refundable $100 fee. Candidates who neither test nor withdraw forfeit the registration fee.

Delivery options. All NSCA exams run year-round at Pearson computer-based test centers. TSAC-F is the only NSCA exam that also offers Live Remote Proctoring through Pearson OnVUE, and that option is limited to candidates residing in the United States. Internationally, the TSAC-F may be offered in English in select countries, and it is offered in Korean.

Retake and Recertification Policy

The three-attempt-then-one-year rule exists for test security, not as a study incentive. It also has a planning consequence: a candidate who fails twice should treat the third attempt as the last realistic near-term opportunity and rebuild preparation around the domain-level score report rather than re-reading the same material.

Pass Rates and Accreditation

The NSCA publishes an annual exam report as a condition of National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) accreditation, which covers three NSCA programs: CSCS, NSCA-CPT, and TSAC-F.

In 2025, the TSAC-F exam was administered to 361 candidates with a 78% pass rate, and 1,983 professionals held the credential as of 31 December 2025. That pass rate is comfortably higher than the CSCS (50% passing both sections in 2025), which reflects the TSAC-F's entry-level positioning - but the candidate pool is also small and largely self-selected from people already working with tactical populations.