Why CoatMentor exists
A CIP or FROSIO course costs thousands of dollars and weeks of your time — and the exam at the end of it decides whether that investment pays off. The prep material available for that exam is, frankly, a mess. CoatMentor is our answer to it. This page explains what we built, how the questions are written, and the rules we hold ourselves to.
The problem with most exam prep
Search for coating-inspector exam questions and you'll find two things. The first is braindumps — recycled real exam questions of unknown vintage, sold in PDF piles. Using them breaks the exam rules you sign, undermines the certification your career depends on, and — the practical problem — teaches you to recognise stale answers instead of understanding the material. Exam bodies rotate their papers precisely because of these dumps.
The second is generic question mills: auto-generated banks with no connection to the published exam structure, no explanations worth reading, and answer keys nobody with field experience has checked. They feel like practice. They aren't.
What we do instead
- Every question is written from scratch. Nothing is copied from any real exam paper — not the questions, not the answer keys. We write to the publicly published exam structures: the AMPP CIP Exam Preparation Guides and the FROSIO syllabus. That's the same boundary an honest classroom instructor works to.
- The banks follow the published blueprint weights. The CIP exams publish how many questions come from each of the 11 scoring domains. Our mocks draw to those exact quotas, so a mock score means what an exam score means — and the per-domain breakdown tells you where you're losing marks, not just how many.
- FROSIO practice is written, because the FROSIO exam is written. No multiple-choice shortcuts for an open-answer exam: you write your answer first, then compare it against a model answer and a key-point checklist. (Here's how the FROSIO exam actually works.)
- Every item carries a worked explanation. Not "the answer is B" — why it's B, which standard says so, and where the trap in the question was. The explanation is the product; the question is just the delivery mechanism.
- Objective values are checked against the standards they cite. When an item quotes an ISO or SSPC number — a preparation grade, a dust class, a DFT rule — it's verified against the standard, and users can flag any question they believe is wrong from inside the app. Reported items get reviewed and fixed.
Who builds it
CoatMentor is built by a certified inspector working in marine coatings and shipbuilding quality control — someone who has sat one of these exams and works daily with the standards they test. It is deliberately independent: not affiliated with AMPP or FROSIO, not reselling anyone's course material, and not pretending to be a training body. It's a practice tool, built the way the builder wished one existed before his own exam.
The honesty rules
Three rules are hard-coded into how this product is run:
- No braindumps, ever. If you want leaked exam questions, we are not your site — and you should know those PDFs put your certification at risk.
- No fake social proof. You won't see invented testimonials, star widgets, or "12,000 happy inspectors" counters here. When real users say real things, we'll ask permission and quote them. Until then, the proof is the product itself.
- Try before you buy — really. Purchases are final, so instead of a refund window we open the actual product first: a 35-question free sampler (15 CIP Level 1, 10 CIP Level 2, 10 FROSIO written prompts) in the exact style, depth and format of the paid banks. Judge the quality before you spend anything.
What it costs, and why
The course you (or your employer) paid for costs $3,000–5,000. Failing the exam costs a resit fee, more study weeks, and sometimes a job offer. Against that, a full practice track is $39 (CIP Level 1 or Level 2) or $59 (FROSIO, or the CIP 1+2 bundle) — one payment, 12 months of access, no subscription. That's the founding price while the product is young; it will rise as the banks grow. We'd rather earn a reputation at a fair price than squeeze a captive audience the way course fees do.
The fastest way to judge us is to test yourself: 35 free questions, no email needed to start, worked explanations included.
Try the free sampler See pricing →Guides: CIP Level 1 vs Level 2 · What is the FROSIO exam? · How the CIP blueprint weights the exam.
CoatMentor is an independent study aid and is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by AMPP, NACE International, or FROSIO. All trademarks belong to their owners.