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Introduction

I’ve passed the AWS Certified - Practitioner certification exam with just a month of preparation while in my final year pursuing BSc in Telecommunication and Information Engineering at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. In this article, I’ll be sharing everything about this exam, my preparation strategies and tips. So, if you have plans on taking this exam anytime soon, read this article till the end.

What is AWS Certified - Practitioner Certification

With the rise of Cloud Computing, companies have constantly been shifting from running their infrastructure on-premise, which is hard to scale and manage, to running them on cloud, which offers far more elasticity in terms of scaling and resiliency in case of disasters.

The AWS Certified - Practitioner certification validates your expertise in developing and maintaining applications on AWS, which is the leading cloud provider today. It focuses on AWS core services, development tools and deployment practices. It can help developers enhance their skills, increase their earning potential, and demonstrate their proficiency to potential employers.

Exam Format

In this exam, you will get 65 questions and 130 minutes to answer them which means you get 2 mins per question. Out of the total questions, 15 will be experimental (ungraded). But you will not know which ones are experimental, otherwise you will skip them. So, you need to attempt every question on the test.

You will be graded on a percentile basis on a scale of 100 to 1000 where you will nead to score more than 720 to pass the exam. Based on this information, you can approximate that you will have to answer about 72% of the questions correctly in order to pass. You can refer this link for more details on how scoring works.

This exam has a pass / fail criteria. If you pass the exam, your score doesn’t really matter. It will only be written on your score report for your reference. It will not be mentioned anywhere on the certificate.

The cost of taking this exam is 150 USD but I got 50% off, so I paid just 75 USD. The way it works is that if you passed your first AWS certification exam, then you can get 50% off on the second one if you take it within a year of taking the first certification.

My Preparation Strategy

I prepared for about 4-6 hours everyday for a months while being a grad student and working as a Cloud PreSales intern. I read The Good Parts of AWS by Daniel Vassallo and Josh Pschorr. Additionally, wactching the freeCodeCamp’s AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification Course (CLF-C01) - Pass the Exam! offered by Andrew Brown.

Once I was done with the course, I did two sets of practice tests:

  • A free practice test was offered under a voucher program.

Taking the Test

You can take the test either at a testing center or online at the comfort of your home. I would suggest you go for a testing center if it is available nearby. The experience is so smooth and you don’t have to worry about internet connectivity or proctoring issues. I took the test at home and found the proctoring quite strict.

Tips for taking the AWS CLF exam

  • Take as many practice tests as you can. They will give you an idea of the kind of topics that come up in the exam most often. Also, the questions in these practice tests match very well with the ones appearing on the actual exam.

That’s all folks

That was all about the AWS Cloud Practitioner - Certification exam. Thanks a lot for reading!