I recently passed the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam.
I’m currently 18 and early in my career as a DevOps professional, so I had some exposure to AWS, but I’d still consider myself a beginner with a short prep window.
Learning
I started with the AWS Cloud Practitioner course on O’Reilly by Chad Smith.
It gave me a solid foundation. The videos covered the core services and concepts well, and the practice exam at the end was useful for checking initial understanding. At this stage, I felt like I “knew” AWS.
But that turned out to be misleading.
The course helps you understand what services are, but not necessarily when or why to use them. That distinction matters a lot in the exam.
On its own, it wasn’t enough to pass confidently, but was a great starting point for me.
Testing
This is where everything changed.
I bought the Tutorials Dojo practice exams, and they were significantly harder than the O’Reilly one. My first three attempts were all below the pass mark, which was honestly quite demotivating.
At that point I changed my approach.
Instead of trying to improve my score, I focused on understanding my mistakes. After each question, I read the explanation properly, looked at the AWS documentation when needed, and tried to identify what I had missed in the question.
Tutorials Dojo was especially useful here because it links directly to relevant documentation, which made it easier to fill gaps in understanding rather than just move on.
Hands on Learning
While I had experience with AWS from work, I knew I needed to supplement my learning with more hands on learning to truly understand how I’d apply the content learnt in a work setting.
For this, I had developed a gamified platform for learning. Then, I used AWS’ wide array of services to deploy the web app in several methods. I also used core billing and security functions to see how I’d tie all the core concepts together.
Key realisation
The biggest shift was realising that the exam is not about memorising answers.
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It’s about recognising patterns.
Once you start seeing how AWS frames questions, things become clearer. For example, phrases like “most cost effective and scalable” tend to point towards S3. If the question emphasises not managing infrastructure, Lambda is often the answer. If it’s a relational database requirement, RDS or Aurora is usually correct.
You’re not recalling facts, you’re trying to interpret what the customer would want in a real setting and finding the most appropriate solution for them.
On practice exams
Tutorials Dojo felt harder than the real exam.
That’s actually what made it valuable. It exposed weak areas early and forced me to properly understand concepts instead of relying on recognition or memory.
If you’re consistently failing those tests, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not ready. It often just means you’re still in the phase where you’re learning how AWS asks questions.
The real day
I took the exam online at 7am.
I was more concerned about the setup than the actual content, things like proctoring, room checks, and whether something would go wrong technically.
In reality, it was straightforward. I set up my laptop in a quiet corner, showed the room to the proctor, followed a few instructions and then started the exam. The process was smooth and much less stressful than expected.
The actual test had a much greater emphasis on the Cloud Adoption Framework than the practice exams I took, for that I would recommend reading: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pdfs/whitepapers/latest/overview-aws-cloud-adoption-framework/overview-aws-cloud-adoption-framework.pdf and placing an emphasis on learning the why’s of each section within the CAF.
After taking it, I was immediately taken to a “Pass” screen telling me I had passed the exam. Roughly 3 hours after I received my Exam Results, and 4 hours post exam I had my credly badge.
Difficulty
The real exam felt easier than the Tutorials Dojo practice tests.
This was likely because I had already been exposed to harder questions and had shifted towards understanding rather than memorisation. The actual questions felt more direct as a result.
Final advice
If you’re preparing for this exam, the main thing I would say is this:
Don’t rely solely on courses. They are useful for building a foundation, but they won’t fully prepare you for how the exam questions are structured.
Use practice exams early, and treat them as a learning tool rather than a measure of readiness. Focus on understanding why answers are correct or incorrect, not just getting through questions.
And if your scores are low at first, don’t take that as a sign to stop. It’s usually part of the process.
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