How I passed my AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam in just “21 days”
From Novice to Certified in Just 21 days (CLF-01)
Note: The Exam I passed was CLF-01 (retiring on September 18th, 2023) but I will mention the Exam-guide and breakdown of topic domains of the CLF-02 Exam (Starting from September 19th, 2023) which is almost the same as CLF-01 because the exam has changed a little bit with few more services being added.
The Beginning of the Journey
It all began with my fascination for cloud computing and the endless possibilities it offers. I knew that obtaining an AWS certification would be a game-changer for my career, so I decided to dive in headfirst and start my preparation.
My thoughts — No matter whether it is a Startup or a Large Business or Organization to scale and offer its services at the global level considering so many advantages associated with doing so, it should at some point in time migrate to cloud technology.
The Invaluable Resources
In this article, I will cover the following topics (feel free to skip ahead as you please)
About the Exam
Learning Resources and Practice Resources
What to Expect on Your Online Test Day
1. About the Exam
The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam is a foundational certificate exam that tests the candidates on Entry-level understanding of AWS Cloud and its services. It is a great starting point if you’re someone with no prior IT or cloud experience and want foundational cloud literacy.
The exam is 65 questions given in 90 minutes with either multiple choice or multiple responses (select two correct answers out of five given) questions with no penalty for an incorrect answer. To pass the exam, you must get 70% of the questions correctly, or the equivalent of a 700 / 1000. The exam fee is $100 plus $18 Tax which is approximately 9.8K in Indian Currency. You can view more information about the test and its non-exhaustive content on the Exam guide provided by AWS.
You can either take the exam on a personal computer from a remote location or in person at a test center, which is what I did and will go over the specifics later in this post.
The question types cover four domains (CLF-02):
Domain 1: Cloud Concepts (24% of scored content)
Domain 2: Security and Compliance (30% of scored content)
Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services (34% of scored content)
Domain 4: Billing, Pricing, and Support (12% of scored content)
Each domain will cover a specific percentage of the test. But don’t worry too much about this, I really couldn’t tell the difference between the types when practicing or taking the official test because everything is interrelated.
2. Learning Resources and Practice Resources
Phase-1: Firstly I started with the AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials Course from the AWS Skill Builder learning platform. This course taught by the AWS Experts in the field makes it very easy and digestible with some real-world examples. This course provided me with the fundamentals required for the Exam.
I also did this same course (7–week course) on Coursera to revise and get certification with the help of financial aid. After this, I also attended a few live online classes from the AWS Expert Instructors for free provided by AWS.
- Phase-2: Now that I had a Fundamental understanding of Various AWS services and a few important topics from the Essentials course I had to level up a little bit for more understanding. This was the time when I read a few blogs and referred to some YouTube videos to see which resources to prepare from. Many suggested learning and preparing from the paid Udemy course by Stephane Maarek, So I took the course on discount and started to learn more about the services, took notes in notion and revised them as well. For any unfamiliar service I encountered in the Exam guide list, I googled it and learned from the official AWS Services Documentation provided as well for more information.
- Phase-3: After covering almost every service mentioned in the Exam guide and a few more services in extra for better understanding it was now time to get some practice tests to test my learnings. I came across the Examtopics website and Quizlet website where I practiced more than 450+ questions for free. Then I took paid practice tests from the same instructor Stephane Maarek for free from my friend to get the confidence that I had prepared enough for the exam before the Actual Exam.
3. What to Expect on Your Online Test Day
AWS provides candidates to appear for the exam in two modes: Online mode and Offline mode. I decided to take my exam in offline mode due to some reasons and the experience of giving the exam in the Pearson Vue Exam Center was great.
The Candidates are advised and expected to visit the center 15–30 minutes Before the Exam to follow the procedures required to be done.
The Examiner checks for the Valid ID proof of the candidate and takes a photo on the spot. After that, the Examiner guides you to your respective Computer System to take the Exam.
You are expected to go through the exam rules and regulations in the first 5 minutes of the exam and at the end of the exam, you need to submit an exit survey as well (Extra 10 minutes is provided for this).
You will be provided to learn more about Scheduling the desired Date, Time and mode of the Exam, the procedures to be followed to take the Exam online at your remote location or offline center, the Cancellation Policy, Re-scheduling of the Exam Policy and much more before scheduling the exam on the AWS Training and Certification website.
Thanks to all my Guru's Blaine Sundrud, Morgan Willis, Rudy Chetty, Stephane Maarek, AWS Online Expert Instructors and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Thanks for giving it a read until so far and give it a Like if you liked it. All the best for your preparations, Ace it with confidence. Stay tuned for more blogs.
To learn more about the Exam and how to prepare for it visit the official website of AWS: