Best Way To Prepare For The Aws Cloud Practitioner Certification

Does cloud computing excite you? Whether you’re looking forward to entering this emerging field of computer sciences or want to jump up the corporate ladder – a certification can certainly be a boost. Here, we’ll take you through our personal experience of the best way to prepare for AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification.

Why should I go for AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification?

First thing’s first – certifications aren’t meant to be medals on your LinkedIn profiles or resumes. Rather, you want to maximize your expertise in the subject area (which is cloud computing here) and get hands-on experience. Luckily, all AWS certifications fit the criteria.

AWS has several tiers of certifications. The Cloud Practitioner certification is aimed at beginners and to help them get started with cloud computing. So, you might want to go for this certification if:

You want to learn more about cloud computing and certify yourself as a learner
You want to show recruiters you’re a cloud computing ninja and up for the job
You are a battle-hardened cloud veteran but just jumping into AWS – a good way to practice your skills on AWS specifically

Like we always mention, the best way to look at preparing for certification in Data Engineering or for a job, one of our proven ways is the KCE framework.

Knowledge: Working knowledge about data engineering and tools is of paramount importance.

Certification: An independent body that validates your knowledge.

Expertise: This is the place where you demonstrate your knowledge by solving a substantial business problem that someone uses (and hopefully you get paid for it)

In this discussion, we are currently focusing on the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification.

AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification: Some Basics

If we’ve managed to convince you to give the exam, welcome to the guide! We’ve received a dozen questions on “how do I prepare for AWS certification” and whatnot. We’ll cover all of this in a bit; first, here’s some key information about the certificate’s exam:

It’s a 90-minute exam
You can take it at home or a Pearson Training Center
It will cost you USD 100 to attempt the course
A practice exam will cost you USD 20
It’s a multiple-choice, multiple-answer format exam
It’s available in English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese

Now – let’s jump straight into the best way to prepare for AWS cloud practitioner certification and answer the burning question – how do I prepare for AWS certification?

Best way to prepare for the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification?

Here’s our guide on how you can prepare for AWS certification without actually exhausting yourself trying to find unhelpful guides:

Get a Quick Hands-on with AWS Services

This foundational certificate doesn’t cover every single AWS service but does expect you to know fundamental concepts about them. So, your first step should be to cover the most important AWS services and topics which are generally categorized under the following:

General cloud concepts
Security, Compliance, and Support
Information Technology
Billing, Pricing, and Management

More specifically, they’re usually broken into these AWS services:

Instances (EC2, Security Groups)
VPCs
NATs
Route53
Elastic Load Balancers
SNS, SQS
Storage (S3, EBS vs EFS)
Databases (DynamoDB, RDS)
ACLs
CloudFront, CloudWatch, CloudTrail
Direct Connect
IAM and Trust Advisors
Cloud infrastructure (Regions, Availability Zones, Edge Locations)
AWS shared responsibility model

We suggest going for ML Academy’s Live Online Trainings or cover training provided by Amazon itself on their certifications. They can help you get theoretical as well as practical experience of the services. Then it’s time to sort them out based on your familiarity.

Practicing Weak Areas

We identified our weak spots in the last section. Once done, let’s get to improving them. Now there are two ways you can do this – either re-do the course content on the topic or the second (and my recommended method) is to read the official AWS documentation.

Not only is the documentation extremely detailed and thorough, but this is also where the exam content is actually from. We highly recommend doing this even if you feel you’re good at every single AWS service. Though this might take you some time, this is the best way to prepare for the AWS certificate alongside taking a structured course like those of ML Academy’s.

Mock Exams to Refine Skill

Alright, we’re two steps into the practice phase. However, you still have no idea what the certification exam will cover. That’s completely fine. It’s time to shift your attention to mock examinations that cover multiple-choice questions formatted the same way as the exam.

You might be wondering; where do I get these mock exams from? If you subscribed to a course from the first step, you might’ve received passes for mock exams. If you didn’t subscribe, you can take AWS’s practice exams which are priced at USD 20. If you do not wish to pay, you can simply Google for free exams on the certification (though they’re not as great, they can give you a rough idea).

Now that you’ve got access to exams, how can you make this as effective for you as possible? Simple – think of it as the actual exam. The actual certification exam is timed for 90 minutes and so you should time yourself the same way.

But again – remember the purpose of these mock exams. It’s to help you identify your weak spots and refine them even further. So, if you score less, pat yourself on the back and get started on revising your concepts and further practicing them on AWS.

How long does it take to prepare for AWS cloud practitioner certification?

As much as we want to answer this question with a fixed number of days or months – we’d be lying. It truly depends on you and the time you’ve put into practice for the certificate.

For every certification you’ll be ever going for, you need to set a realistic deadline. Our guide has a ton of reading, practicing, and hands-on rambling with AWS services. If you’re an employed fellow, you might have less time on your hand to go through this with ease. If you have ample time, you might have much more time to complete the training phase.

So, what’s the ideal time it’s going to take to prepare for the AWS cloud practitioner certification? If you can put in 3-5 hours a day for 15 days, you might be ready. If you put in anything less than 3 hours, a month’s worth of training would do. If it’s anything less, take your time and make sure to test yourself via mock exams to make sure you’re actually ready.

People have done it in days. Some have taken months and a few even close to a year. Thing is, these are their timelines. Do look into their practice plans but make sure to draft your own to perfect the exam on the first try.

This reminds me of another question I was asked before; what is the pass rate for AWS cloud certifications? Let’s cover that next.

What is the pass rate for AWS cloud certifications?

At the time of writing this article, AWS cloud certifications are set at a 70% pass rate.

Passing the exam for the certification on the first attempt is a feat. To do so, AWS recommends you either have over six months of experience in AWS services or truly understand the core concepts of the exam. Our guide is more or less dependent on the second guide.

To pass the exam on the first go – follow the guide to heart. Practice, revise, give a mock exam, and repeat. To motivate you a bit, one of our instructors was just shy of 55% in the first mock examination. That’s actually pretty bad but hey they didn’t give up and neither should you!

Conclusion: Acing the Cloud Practitioner Exam

Exams are tough and it’s natural to feel overwhelmed. Don’t give in to the pressure and make sure you’re completely relaxed. We believe our guide is likely going to be the best way to prepare for AWS cloud practitioner certification and offer the best results.

Do let us know how it worked for you! We would love to hear your success story and the roadmap you’ve drafted for yourself in becoming a cloud computing maestro.