Terms of Use
These terms are an agreement between you and PastExam (“PastExam”, “we”) for your use of pastexam.net. By creating an account or using the site you accept these terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use PastExam.
1. The service
PastExam lets college students share their own course notes, study guides and past exams as PDF files. Files you upload are available only to registered users at the same college and in the same major. Students who have not declared a major choose “Undeclared”, which works like a major of its own.
2. Eligibility and your account
- You must be at least 13 years old. If you are under 18, you may use PastExam only with the permission of a parent or guardian.
- Choose the country, college and major you actually study in. Registering under a college or major you do not belong to, to reach its archive, is not allowed.
- Keep your password safe and do not share your account. You are responsible for activity on your account.
- We do not collect email addresses, so we cannot recover your account if you lose your password.
- You can delete your account at any time in Settings.
3. Your content
You keep ownership of the files you upload. By uploading a file you give PastExam a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy and display it to the users who can access it under these terms, only as needed to operate the service. This license ends when you delete the file or your account, except for copies we must keep to comply with the law.
By uploading a file you confirm that you have the right to share it and that sharing it does not violate anyone else’s rights, your college’s rules, or the law.
4. What you may not upload or do
- Copyright infringement: textbooks, publisher test banks and solution manuals, paid course materials, or anything else you do not have the right to share. See our Copyright Policy.
- Academic dishonesty: questions or answers from an exam or assignment that is still open, material your instructor or college has told you not to share, or anything that would violate your college’s honor code.
- Other people’s personal information: names, student ID numbers, grades, transcripts, or contact details of other people.
- Harmful content: sexual, violent, hateful, harassing, defamatory or otherwise unlawful material.
- Malware and spam: malicious files, advertising, or files that are not course material.
- Abuse of the service: accessing other accounts, bypassing the access rules, scraping, or overloading the site.
Following your college’s academic integrity rules when you use material from PastExam is your responsibility.
5. Reports and moderation
We do not review files before they are published, but anyone who can see a file can report it with the flag icon.
- A file reported by 3 different users is hidden automatically until it is reviewed.
- We review reports within 7 days and may remove the file, restore it, or act on the account.
- You can block any user; you will no longer see their files.
6. Copyright
We respond to copyright notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and close the accounts of repeat infringers. How to send a notice or a counter-notice is explained in our Copyright Policy.
7. Suspension and termination
We may remove content, suspend an account, or permanently close an account and delete its files if you break these terms or if we are required to by law. You may stop using PastExam and delete your account at any time.
8. Disclaimers
PastExam is provided “as is” and “as available”. Content is created by students; we do not guarantee that it is accurate, complete, current or suitable for any exam or course, and we do not guarantee that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free. To the extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
9. Limitation of liability
To the extent the law allows, PastExam will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, grades or academic standing, arising from your use of the service. Our total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to US $50. PastExam is free to use.
10. Indemnity
If you upload content or use the service in a way that breaks these terms or the law, you agree to cover the reasonable costs of claims brought against PastExam because of it.
11. Changes
We may update these terms. The current version is always on this page with its date. If a change is significant we will show a notice on the site; continuing to use PastExam after a change means you accept the new terms.