Terraform: How to Ace Your Terraform Associate Certification Exam
By: Promise Chukwuenyem
Tags: Exam Preparation, Certification, DevOps, Terraform, Exam

Terraform: How to Ace Your Terraform Associate Certification Exam

Helpful tips on how to ace your Terraform Associate Certification Exam within 7 days Promise Chukwuenyem Sep 7·5 min read

Hashicorp Terraform Associate Certified

Hey you, you’re reading this because you want to pass your Terraform Associate Certification Exam, right? I just want to let you know that I’ve got your back and here’s what I will share with you in this article:

Some little yarn

Some details about the exam

Tips on acing the exam

Some little Yarn

Just a few days ago I wrote and aced the Terraform Associate Certification Exam, so I felt I should share some tips that were very helpful to me in preparing for the certification exam. By the way, I achieved an overall score of 82% in the exam, and my goal is to help you navigate past irrelevant resources that will waste your time and have you just focus on actual resources that will help you ace the exam.

Here’s a breakdown of my performance by content area:

1.0 Understand infrastructure as code (IaC) concepts: 100% 2.0 Understand Terraform’s purpose (vs other IaC): 100% 3.0 Understand Terraform basics: 71% 4.0 Use the Terraform CLI (outside of core workflow): 83% 5.0 Interact with Terraform modules: 50% 6.0 Navigate Terraform workflow: 91% 7.0 Implement and maintain state: 75% 8.0 Read, generate and modify configuration: 90% 9.0 Understand Terraform Cloud and Enterprise capabilities: 100%

It took me 3 days to prepare and also write the exam (I started preparing for the exam on a Thursday and wrote it on a Saturday night). So here’s the catch I took a 5-days annual leave intending to ramp up on my preparations for my Microsoft Azure Developer Associate Certification Exam and take the exam. Well, I got to realize after 3 days into my leave while looking through some practice questions for the certification exam on Udemy that I needed some knowledge of the C# programming language and the .Net Framework to ace the exam or better still just memorize a lot of functions, codes, and libraries written in C# programming language to ace the exam. This is arguable though.

Another alternative was the Python programming language, but very few tutorials or practice questions focused on it. And for me, my primary language is the Ruby programming language, so it was clear to me that I needed to switch to earning a different certification before my leave ends, and that’s when the thought of the Terraform Associate Certification came to my mind.

Just some heads-up, I’ve been using Terraform for about 1 to 2 years before then, and I have used it for infrastructure management in some projects, so at least I had a good knowledge of Terraform but not good enough to write the Terraform Associate Certification Exam without some preparation.

Some Details about the Exam

Let me share with you some information about the certification before I share with you how I prepared for the exam, so you can brace up for it.

The Terraform Associate Certification is for Cloud Engineers specializing in operations, IT, or developers who know the basic concepts and skills associated with open source HashiCorp Terraform.

The exam is of the multiple-choice assessment type, however, you might find 1 to 3 questions that require you to type in the correct answer with no given choice/option, so brace up for that. You just need an overall score of 70% to pass the exam. Also, the exam is online proctored using PSI Online and the duration for the exam is 1 hour. The price is USD 70.50 plus locally applicable taxes and fees and the language is English. Note that the certificate is only valid for 2 years from the time you earned it.

The exam tests you in 9 core areas:

1.0 Understand infrastructure as code (IaC) concepts 2.0 Understand Terraform’s purpose (vs other IaC) 3.0 Understand Terraform basics 4.0 Use the Terraform CLI (outside of core workflow) 5.0 Interact with Terraform modules 6.0 Navigate Terraform workflow 7.0 Implement and maintain state 8.0 Read, generate, and modify the configuration 9.0 Understand Terraform Cloud and Enterprise capabilities

You can register for the exam here: Welcome to HashiCorp’s Cloud Engineer Certification Exam Portal!

Tips on Acing the Exam

So here’s how I prepared for the Terraform Associate Certification Exam:

1. Terraform Study Guide: This is the most important material you will need to ace this exam. It was very helpful for my success. Virtually 70 to 80% of the questions asked in the exam can be answered by thoroughly reading this guide. Try reading the study guide word-to-word as questions often come from the slightest detail that you may fail to pay proper attention to. Here’s a link to the study guide — Terraform Associate Certification Study Guide

2. Udemy Courses: Taking some Terraform courses on Udemy was also helpful, but I had already taken them months back when I was honing my Terraform skills, so I did not bother to looking through them again. The real benefit of these courses is to give you some hands-on experience on Terraform if you do not yet have one.

Here are a few courses I would recommend based on my experience with them:

Terraform for AWS — Beginner to Expert 2021 (0.12) by Warp 9 Training — I found this course more beginner-friendly. Take this course if you’re just getting started with Terraform.

HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate 2021 by Zeal Vora — I found this course more focused on preparing you for the certification. Take this course if you already have some experience with Terraform

The recommendations above are personal, you’re at will to browse through other Terraform courses on Udemy, Pluralsight, or some other learning platforms to see the course(s) that best suit(s) you.

3. Practice Questions: The importance of this can’t be overemphasized as it helps to test your knowledge to find out how well you’ve prepared for the exam. You need this to get a better understanding of the question structures for the exam, the context or patterns employed in asking the questions for the exam, and some pointers to concepts you are still lacking, which will be expedient for you to still read up on.

A lot of exams preparation platforms offer practice questions, some offer at a cost while others offer for free. However, I prepared using this dump on Udemy — HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate Practice Exam 2021

And that wraps it up on how I prepared for my Terraform Associate Certification Exam. I hope you found this helpful, as I look forward to hearing your success story. Yaaay.

I write/document a lot though, haha, but most times I don’t find enough time to complete them so they just lie there on my computer, with hopes high, soon I will start sharing them.

So yeah, you wanna know more about me. I’m always around the thick forests of StackOverflow asking and answering questions, here’s my profile — Promise Preston.

I tweet often as well so you can holla me @PromisePreston and you can also find me on LinkedIn if you want to connect with me or have some opportunities for me at Promise Chukwuenyem.

Catch ya some other time.