AWS Cloud Practitioner Exams — Sub Saharan Africa Challenge
On Monday, I sat for the AWS cloud practitioner exam and passed.
In total, I spent about a month studying with an unplanned schedule and at moments I just felt peaked productivity levels.
I had prepared for an approximate total of 84 hours with every passing study session increasing my desire to know more about the cloud. I decided to write this since there was hardly any study guide i had seen during the AWS Sub Saharan Africa challenge.
For the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam, AWS recommends that candidates have at least six months of experience with AWS Cloud in any role . I was not prepared to spend, but then my brother, Dennis Machu , who had written a year before had a few practice tests in his Whiz labs practice account which helped bring me to speed. So technically, I didn’t spend but I used paid resources 😂.
TL;DR
Get a goodnight’s sleep and have a clear, positive mind before the scheduled exam.
Prepare with Practice Exams.
Make use of the flagged for review to help you easily review the answers you are not certain.
Use Cheat Notes, they help you revise quickly
Use the AWS Cloud Essentials Package. They have very good material.
Important Links:
Overview of Amazon Web Services
Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
AWS Sub Saharan Africa Challenge
Firstly, let me share a bit about myself. I am a computer engineering student who got excited about the concept of the cloud because I was amazed that a group of people decided to relieve people of upfront costs with their hardware and make it easy for everyone to spin up a server. Before that, I had worked at a startup company writing micro services , doing QA and helped develop some of their applications. I remember the company having issues with the server, mostly terminating at odd hours (During my exam preparation I realised they were probably trying to cut cost by using an EC2 spot instance which in this scenario was a wrong use case. Safe to say they are doing better and applications are running smoothly).
My goal is to specialise in cloud security because, I know cloud computing will be relevant in the future and securing data in the cloud will be very essential. I have never had any hands-on experience working with cloud technology, but I have a general idea of what it is.
Some Important Tips for preparing:
Here are some essential tips for preparing for the exam.
Read The White Papers
Don’t skip the white papers. What I did not realize until I read the white papers is that a lot of the practice exam questions were based on the white papers. I can’t stress enough how important they are.
Recommended AWS White papers for CLF-CO1 are:
Overview of Amazon Web Services
Architecting for the Cloud: AWS Best Practices
Essential Practice Quizzes
I cannot emphasize how essential this is to passing. I took the practice tests on Whizlabs based on domains and then full practice tests, scoring higher in the full practice tests. My score range was 66–92%. I documented topics I needed to review after each practice test, and went over both correct and incorrect answers, writing notes for anything that was confusing. I retook each practice test again and my score range was 77–94%. I would recommend retaking all 6 practice tests until you get at least an 85% on all.
Along with the free AWS exams voucher came the free AWS practice exam voucher. Out of 20 questions, I easily had an 85% score(Still thinking about the ones I had wrong). You can decide to take this as it gives you a familiar interface and feeling of the actual exam. It usually costs $20. I got a free practice exam voucher, I had to take advantage😉.
Practice Quizzes and Tests
1. AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Sample Questions
2. Whizlabs AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Practice Questions
Explanations for each question are included, and you will be tested in an environment similar to the actual testing environment.
3. Exam Guide : https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-cloud-practitioner/AWS-Certified-Cloud-Practitioner_Exam-Guide.pdf
I also used the AWS Cloud Essentials Package that contains a self-learning course with practice exams.
I repeated all my practice quizzes again till I was sure I covered ground.
Exam structure
The exam structure is as follows as defined by AWS in Exam Guide
Multiple choice: Has one correct response and three incorrect responses.
Multiple responses: Has two or more correct responses out of five or more options.
You require at least 70% or 700/1000 correct response to pass. I was given 65 questions.
You will not be penalized for answering a question incorrectly, so if you really do not know the answers to a question, it is better to guess than to leave it blank.
The exam covers four domains:
Cloud Concepts — 26%
Security and Compliance — 25%
Technology — 33%
Billing and Pricing — 16%
What’s next for me?
I plan to improve my AWS Cloud Knowledge and delve into Cloud Security.
I am excited and proud i decided to take this opportunity provided by AWS to get certified. I had a great score in my opinion considering it was on my first try.
Best of luck to anyone planning to take the AWS cloud practitioner exam soon! Feel free to connect if you would like more information. Happy cloud studying!
