My experience with preparation and passing the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam
Tags: aws, cloud, certifications, cloudpractitioner
Published: 2024-05-26 20:31:52

## What is this certification about

AWS Cloud Practitioner Certificate is the entry-level certificate offered by Amazon for their services. While the official recommendation is to have about 6 months of experience with AWS services, many people without any experience and even outside of the technical field successfully passed this exam.

The focus of the exam is to test a participant on as broad a field as possible. I believe the test itself is not difficult from an understanding point of view but could be challenging if memorization is not your strongest trait.

## My background

As a native mobile developer, I had zero experience with AWS in particular and the cloud in general.

## Study plan and resources

I purchased the following:

- [[NEW] Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-cloud-practitioner-new/) is a full preparation course. It includes videos, slide set, practice videos, and short quizzes after each section. 

- Practice tests: [6 Practice Exams | AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02](https://www.udemy.com/course/practice-exams-aws-certified-cloud-practitioner/)

  The benefit of those is the explanation for the answers to each question. Reviewing and analyzing those was one of the most important steps of my preparations. 

Those materials are frequently available on sale (as usual for Udemy) for around ~15 euro each.

Later, I learned about [the free alternative by freeCodeCamp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhDYbskXRgc). Even though I haven't tried it, many people find this material very useful, so if for some reason Udemy doesn't work, it could have also been a good option.

There are plenty of exam materials and recommendations for this certification exam from AWS itself. I made the mistake of navigating through AWS's own free courses first, and they were not very useful for me. 

Their official [exam guide](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-cloud-practitioner/AWS-Certified-Cloud-Practitioner_Exam-Guide.pdf), while important, is also not particularly helpful, because it just lists pretty much every single service AWS provides.

## Exam highlights

Preparation process:

- As a person who used to dive deep into unknown topics, I had to change my approach to studies to focus more on breadth instead of depth for this exam.

- Spreading the preparation throughout multiple days/weeks over shorter (under 1 hour) study sessions was more useful than trying to study long hours.

- Going through test exam questions as early as possible to get used to the format and wording helped a lot.

Before the exam:

- I was not ready for the multi-step exam sign-in process and all the hiccups. AWS portal provided a testing function, I made all necessary tests the day before the exam on a separate laptop and didn't touch it until the exam time, yet right before the exam there were still errors with the software. Luckily, everything was resolved.

- Scheduling exams in the morning, not cramming the night before, going to sleep, and getting to the exam with a fresh head helped also.

During the exam:

- Use the elimination principle. Scanning all answers and excluding those that don't fit was one of the most efficient tools.

- If don't remember something, mark a question for review and come back to it later. This approach allowed me to save a lot of time.

## Conclusion

As a result of my preparations, I passed from the first attempt.
Preparing for the exam and going through the exam itself has been a valuable experience for me. Now I feel confident working on more similar tests.

## Resources

- [Exam starting page](https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-cloud-practitioner/)
- [The official exam guide](https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-cloud-practitioner/AWS-Certified-Cloud-Practitioner_Exam-Guide.pdf)
- [[NEW] Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-cloud-practitioner-new/)
- [6 Practice Exams | AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02](https://www.udemy.com/course/practice-exams-aws-certified-cloud-practitioner/)
- [Free lectures by freeCodeCamp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhDYbskXRgc)