I got hit by hard questions on AWS Prescriptive Guidance, AWS Well-Architected Framework and even AWS Machine Learning services (SageMaker, Rekognition etc) plus the new AWS services (AWS Audit Manager, MemoryDB for Redis etc). RI discounts and Spot Pricing questions also surprised me.

To those who are saying that the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam is just a walk in a park, the exam definitely isn't! I'm not sure if its because there would be a new CLF-C02 exam version and AWS included those new concepts/services in the current exam, but in all honesty, I did enjoy taking this test. It's not overly difficult but you have to know a plethora of AWS services and their corresponding features.

In terms of exam prep, I used the CloudQuest game as an initial exam prep for the test. I do like gamified learning and the included AWS labs are definitely a bonus. My only pet peeve is the slow provision of those labs. Also did the Tutorials Dojo course and used all the available labs on the course. It's a good reviewer before drilling their practice exams and explanations.

My advice to those who are planning to take this test is to never take this exam lightly. Make sure that you read the official exam guide from cover to cover, and use that to guide you in your self-study.

I have tech experience but it seems that AWS has well over 50+ vendor specific services that seem similar to one another, especially with the addition of AI/ML/DL.

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to share that I’ve officially passed the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam! I’ve been studying for about 10 days and took the exam today (February 14th).

Here’s what worked for me: •Official AWS Skill Builder Course: I used the AWS official course to get a solid foundation. It covered most of the core concepts and really helped me understand the material. •YouTube Videos: For specific domains I wanted to dive deeper into, I watched a few YouTube videos that gave me a clearer understanding. •Practice Tests: I did 1 free exam practice test sampler on Tutorial Dojo and 1 free full sample practice test on example.co. Both were helpful to get a feel for the questions. •Study Time: I spent about 10 days preparing. I booked the exam on the 3rd, started studying on the 4th, and sat for it today.

Special shoutout to @madrasi2021 for their extensive post on resources and study guides. Your tips and links were incredibly helpful!

What the Exam Was Like:

The exam itself wasn’t too hard. There were definitely several questions about Support Plans (e.g., the minimum level required for Full Trusted Advisor Checks). Some of the language in the questions was a bit slick, but nothing too tricky. I flagged a few questions I was unsure of and came back to them at the end, which worked out well.

Tips: •Don’t rush: Take your time with the questions, and review your flagged answers at the end. •Focus on core AWS services: Make sure you know the basic services like EC2, S3, IAM, etc., and the concepts of billing and support.

Overall, I’m feeling really good about it and wanted to encourage anyone on the fence about taking the exam. You can totally do it! 😊

Let me know if you have any questions or need more details about my study approach.

After 1 month of preparation, I finally passed the AWS Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam with 821 points! Here’s what worked for me and might help others preparing:

✅ Resources Used: Stephane Maarek's Udemy Course + 6 Practice Exams, freeCodeCamp course by Andrew Brown (too vast, only for topics / services I didnt understand well in Stephane's course) and finally ChatGPT - must have made over 100+ prompts for what is <service>, Difference between <this> and <this> etc
✅ Practice Exams: Bombed 5 practice tests - 25%, 30%, 52%, 55%, 60%, 73%
✅ Exam Experience: Exam was easier than practice exams. I had completed it within 35 mins didnt even need extra 30 mins through ESL or whole 130 mins.
✅ Tips for Future Test-Takers: Revising by prioritizing those topics you didnt score well in practice exams would help a lot. The Exam is more like 'some company, some scenario - which service should be used here?'. Try to remember topics through some keywords.

If you're preparing for the exam and have any questions, feel free to ask! #AWS #CloudComputing #Certification

I plan to give  AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03 in future. So do share any tips if you have passed it recently

I work in an Indian IT company and my company gave me a voucher to complete this exam in 1 month. But due to lot of work load I could not study anything. I got 1 day to prepare for this exam and i took my chances. Although I don't have any prior experience in cloud i still have done my btech from cs and work in the IT field, so I am not totally new to this . But I passed with a score of 781. Fyi-I don't recommend anyone to do this as it defeats the purpose of the certification that is to learn in depth. This was my prep-

1. I did" [EXAM REVIEWER] AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02" course by Neal davis. This is 5 hour course on udemy..

2. Then I did "AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Practice Exams CLF-C02" 6 practice tests again by Neal davis.

That's it.

I am posting this because I know a lot of folks who are afraid of exams, they might be super good with The tech but might fumble on the mcqs. Just be comfortable that it can be done even in a day and don't take up too many resources take one up and complete it to the end with complete focus.

I just passed the in-person exam(don't know the exact result yet). Here's how I prepared:

• I followed this free course and took notes as I went along with it. For me writing things down works best when trying to remember information. I tried not to consume too much information per day(2 hours max) in order to improve my chances of retaining this knowledge in the long term. The course is quite thorough and it covers everything that is needed to pass the exam. It took me 2 weeks to go through the whole thing.

• I spent 2 weeks taking Tutorials Dojo practice exams. These were very helpful as they exposed my weaknesses and showed me which areas of knowledge needed improvement. These exams provide tremendous value for money given how cheap they are and how close to the real thing they get. For the most part I found these to be actually harder than the exam itself.

And to provide some context about myself: I'm a Full Stack Developer with almost 3 years of experience, so most of the concepts that were being taught were pretty easy to grasp, but I've never had to touch AWS so I went into this with 0 hands-on experience.

I'm not planning to stop here as I'll be preparing for the SAA-C03 next but I'll probably want to get some hands-on experience with AWS before I sit the exam.

Hi everyone, this is my first Reddit post—excited to join this amazing community of cloud enthusiasts! 🚀

🎉 Just Cracked the AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam with 821/1000 in 15 Days! 🎉

I’m thrilled to share that after just 15 days of prep, I passed the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam with a score of 821/1000! Here’s a quick rundown of the resources and strategies that made it all possible:

• 💡 Stephan Mareek’s Course (Paid):

  • This hands-on course was my main resource with an average of 3 hours of study time per session.

  • It’s comprehensive, covers everything you need, and is highly effective.

  • The included practice exam is tougher than the actual exam—I scored 72% on my first go after a revision!

• 📚 Free Resources:

  • AWS Cloud Essentials Course:
    A fantastic free course provided by AWS.

  • Andrew Brown’s YouTube Video:
    A great alternative if you prefer free content.

  • Additional Practice Materials:

    • A free practice exam linked in Andrew Brown’s video.

    • Numerous free quizlets available on Reddit—explore and you’ll find some gems!

    • AWS’s own free pretest is also a solid resource.

• 🔑 Pro Tip:

  • Dive into Reddit—the community here is a treasure trove of useful resources and tips.

  • Stephan Mareek’s course truly guarantees your certification if you're willing to put in the work.

Happy studying and thanks for reading!

Is it ACTUALLY worth getting the Cloud Practitioner cert? I've got zero experience with anything Cloud or AWS related, and I've pretty much only known about CompTIA certs so I'm basically completely blind nor do I even know where the first step to even taking the first step. From what I looked up it seems like its a crapshoot if it's worth getting or not, with all the major advancements in tech lately I have no idea where I should start in terms of advancing my own knowledge. I don't know if the cert is good as a starting point or if it has value among companies in general or even required by them.

In short: it was easy.

Took me two weeks with 1-2 hours daily, or rather even less.

I have almost no practical experience with AWS, know some networking stuff and have overall technical/SW-development knowledge.

Used the test exam at https://simuladoclf.s3.amazonaws.com/english.html , big thanks to the author and ChatGPT to prepare.

Actually, ChatGPT is a very good mentor to prepare for this exam (doesn't work that good for PMP exam though) - you just ask it to prepare you for the CLF-C02 exam and here you go: you get explanations and quizzes, once you answered the questions you can ask it to focus on weak areas and go deeper. Repeat it until you are sure and go for exam.

ps. passing the exam took me 20 minutes including the feedback quiz and that initial check of the papers and surroundings.

My background: I work as a Data Scientist and have a few years of experience, but I've never worked professionally with AWS before. The only time that I used AWS for anything was in an end-to-end Machine Learning project, in which I only used EC2, S3, VPC, and RDS.

How I studied:

• Did Stephane Maarek's Udemy course for about 9 to 10 days (btw, amazing course! It's worth it!).

• Then, I spent the next two days reviewing the course's slides.

• I have also used someone's (I saw it here in the community, but I can't remember where and who shared it) notes to quickly review some key points (used while reviewing the course's slides and for an entire day after that).

• Did the free practice exam available in Stephane Maarek's Udemy course after reviewing everything (I got 67%). I dedicated one day to doing the practice exam + reviewing the wrong questions and their concepts)

• Bought Stephane Maarek's Udemy course containing six more practice exams (also amazing and worth it!) and spent approximately 8 days doing all exams and reviewing every wrong question. I got the following score for each exam*:

  • Exam 1: 70%

  • Exam 2: 81%

  • Exam 3: 78%

  • Exam 4: 80%

  • Exam 5: 80%

  • Exam 6: 73%

• Finally, one day before the test I reviewed some concepts that I was struggling with and read all questions from Exam 5 or 6 (run out of time, I was aiming to do that for all six exams, but gladly I didn't need)

I don't know how much time I spent studying each day, but I spent approximately 3 weeks studying for this exam.

My thoughts about the real exam: It was easier than I expected and much easier than Stephane Maarek's exams. The questions are shorter and straightforward, and I didn't need to know much in-depth information concerning the concepts (Stephane Maarek's exams have a bunch of questions like this). So, if you are struggling with Stephane Maarek's exams, don't panic! Oh, before I forget, I got my result in less than 12 hours!

Had a lot of fun studying for this exam. Now, onto the AI Certified Practitioner (AIF-02)!

* Some of those exams I did late at night after working all day, so I got a few questions wrong because I misread some of the questions or my brain fogged lol.

Well, today I took and failed my Cloud Practitioner exam. Scored a 660. Honestly feeling down after this, as I prepared for over a month and from what I’ve read, this is supposed to be the easy exam that people pass with 10-14 days of studying. But with that said, I definitely plan to retake it in 14 days. Attached to this post is the breakdown of my score performance. Any advice (I.e resources, specific practice exams, videos etc) you guys would recommend?

Hey guys just a general question to anyone whose passed the Cloud Practitioner exam, how many days did you study or hours per day did you study to feel comfortable to do the test? Did you find the test hard?

First Reddit post here - I recently passed the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam having no prior experience with cloud computing or AWS. I decided to create a quick guide with key resources, tips to set up for success on exam day, and exam day tips, as there were numerous people who helped me on this journey.

https://medium.com/@andreaannb/become-aws-cloud-practitioner-certified-in-2-weeks-66a2870447f4?source=friends_link&sk=207c3dbe9132579bd8acd957628f2b1b

I hope this brief guide provides some structure for how you can prepare for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam to ensure that you will pass on your first attempt with flying colors!

Currently a cybersecurity undergrad, I know that cloud solutions like AWS are used like crazy in the industry. I'm not really sure how to approach AWS from a learning perspective (I know virtually nothing about it, I've done little more than create an account and play around with some IAM stuff), so would a certification like the Cloud Practitioner be good to learn some foundational knowledge?

Passed CCP a day ago with a score of 974. I know it is one of the easiest of the certs and the pros here frown upon it but personally, I think it is actually a beneficial cert for those folks who are cloud enthusiasts but aren't sure if they would like to continue this path. Secondly, this acts as a motivation booster and as Andrew Brown said, this is a quick win. I enjoyed learning and practicing the AWS offerings and now I am interested to continue on to become a cloud-agnostic Solution Architect (eventually).

Preparation:

• Andrew Brown's (Exampro) youtube video. I actually did his follow-along exercises.

• Stephane Marek's course and practice exams.

• Jon Bonso/Tutorials Dojo's exams.

• Also shoutout to Tom's AWS CCP guide/exams at https://tsunamicyber.io/aws-cpp/

It took me ~20 days of studying for 1-2 hours a day. I found Stephane's practice exams slightly harder than TD's exams. Maybe it was because of the way they were worded.

Following Neal's advice, I kept practicing and closing the gaps in my knowledge for all the answers I got wrong. I started at getting 56% for my first practice test and I was getting >90% by the last one.

Exam:

• After reading all the VUE horror stories, I was more freaked out by the exam process than the exam itself. But, my exam started on time and there were no issues in between. Did the first pass in 26 mins, followed by a second review pass for another 15 mins.

• There were multiple questions about elasticity, high availability, and S3. There were even questions about Neptune and a couple of other services that were not covered in Stephane's course. Thankfully, TD's exams cover them and I was aware of them.

Taking a break this week but from next week, I'll dig into SAA-C02.

I got an 850. And I’m happy with it since I don’t have a computer science background. Here’s how I studied. I like to take a “multimedia” approach to studying.

Books/Reading

I read through a lot of AWS documentation, especially the introduction pages of services

Service Summary Cards by Ashish Prajapati - bought

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner All-In-One Exam Guide by Daniel Carter (McGraw-Hill) - checked out from library

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Study Guide by Ben Piper (Sybex) - checked out from library

Cheat Sheets/Study Guides

AWS Ramp-Up Guide: Cloud Essentials

Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam Guide

Intellipaat Cheat Sheet

Ashish Prajapati Cheat Sheet

The best one I found was in the Skill Builder Exam Prep Enhanced course. It had 13 pages services with a brief summary and a link to documentation, plus explained concepts. For some reason I couldn't link it, but here's a screenshot of the first page

Podcasts

I didn’t find any good ones through the iPhone Podcasts app. But since then I’ve learned about one called AWS Power Hour that AWS makes. For any future certs, I plan to add those to my multimedia approach.

Classes

Skill Builder: Cloud Essentials - Knowledge Badge Readiness Path - free

Skill Builder: Exam Prep Enhanced Course: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - not free There is also a free version (but it doesn’t have the labs or the study guide that I loved)

Skill Builder: Subnets, Gateways, and Route Tables Explained - free

Skill Builder: AWS Networking Basics - free

Udemy: Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - not free

Labs

I really liked the labs in the aforementioned Skill Builder Exam Prep Enhanced course, but note that they weren't free

I also took some other Skill Builder labs, but listing them all might be excessive, and I just realized they're not free either (I thought some were)

Practice Exams

Skill Builder: Exam Prep Official Question Set: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - free

Skill Builder: Exam Prep Official Practice Exam: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - not free

Udemy: 6 Practice Exams | AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - not free - The sheer volume of questions was nice, but they were rife with typos and sometimes other errors (like the incorrect response would be marked as correct), so the Skill Builder ones were the best IMO

The McGraw-Hill book had a practice exam in the book and online. I also downloaded some apps from the iPhone App Store, but those weren’t great, so I won’t list them.

I made over 200 handwritten flashcards, and drilled myself with those, which really helped.

I am planning on studying for the AWS cloud practitioner exam starting today. I saw that AWS has two main resources to help prepare, a 7hr self paced module and a 12hr video game. Should I do both, one or the other, or is there another resource you guys recommend? I am currently studying IT in college and have an okay understanding. Thank you for the advice in advance!

I was looking at the AWS Certification Paths from AWS to see what I should be looking for next. I am currently working as a Data Scientist in Fintech, and am planning to be a Machine Learning Engineer. As the image shows, the AWS Solution Architect Associate is recommended before the AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate, but I have noticed that I am familiar with nearly everything the AWS Solution Architect Associate. Should I still go for it? Or jump immediately to the AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate?

I've been studying & it's relatively new to me, I was thinking when to book it. I've just learnt up to Amazon S3 on Stepehen Mareek's course but I really want to get my exam booked in & have a goal to focus to, any thoughts?

I recently took the AWS Cloud practitioner exam and failed it the first time I took it. I did online practice exams as well as bought a Udemy course that highlights all of the exam materials. Are there any other resources that I can utilize to pass the certification exam?