Originally published on CertLand.
The*AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02)is a 65-question, 90-minute exam with a passing score of700 out of 1000(~70%). It covers four domains: Cloud Concepts (24%), Security and Compliance (30%), Cloud Technology and Services (34%), and Billing, Pricing and Support (12%). With focused preparation, most candidates can pass in two weeks — and this 15-day plan shows you exactly how. Each day has a clear domain focus, a list of key services to study, and a daily practice question target tied to CertLand's 380-question bank. Follow the plan start to finish and you will arrive at exam day having seen every topic that matters. **In this guide:*
- How to Use This Plan
- CLF-C02 Exam at a Glance
- Week 1: Days 1–8 (Cloud Concepts, Security & Compliance)
- Week 2: Days 9–15 (Cloud Technology, Billing & Mock Exam)
- How to Use CertLand's 380-Question Bank
- Exam Day Checklist
How to Use This Plan
Each day in this plan has four elements: a*domain focus, a list ofkey services and topicsto read about, apractice question goal*, and a brief note on what to look for. Days 1–6 cover the conceptual and security domains. Days 8–13 cover the largest technical domain. Day 14 is a full 65-question timed mock exam. Day 15 is cheat sheet review and logistics prep — no new material.
A few ground rules before you start:
- Do the practice questions on the same day you study the material— not the day after. Active recall while the concepts are fresh accelerates retention far more than re-reading.
- Read explanations for every wrong answer, not just the correct one. The explanation tells you exactly why each distractor is wrong, which is the reasoning pattern the exam tests.
- Flag questions you get wrongand revisit them the next morning before starting the day's new material. This 5-minute spaced repetition review pays significant dividends.
- On Day 14, simulate exam conditions: 65 questions, 90 minutes, no breaks, no looking things up. This is the most important single session of the plan. Not 15 days? Adapt the plan:
If you have 30 days, spend two days on each topic instead of one. If you have 7 days, compress Weeks 1 and 2 into a single intensive week and skip the review days — but do not skip Days 7 and 14 (the practice and mock exam sessions). Those two days determine whether your knowledge is solid enough to pass.
CLF-C02 Exam at a Glance Detail Value Exam code*CLF-C02* Questions65 scored + up to 15 unscored (not marked) Duration90 minutes Passing score*700 / 1000* Cost$100 USD DeliveryPearson VUE (test center or online proctored) PrerequisitesNone (recommended: 6 months cloud familiarity) Domain Weight ~Scored Questions CertLand Practice Qs Domain 1: Cloud Concepts24%~1692 Domain 2: Security and Compliance30%~20112 Domain 3: Cloud Technology and Services34%~22128 Domain 4: Billing, Pricing and Support12%~848 Total100%65380
Week 1: Days 1–8
Week 1 covers Domain 1 (Cloud Concepts) and Domain 2 (Security and Compliance) in full. These two domains together account for 54% of the exam — 35 out of 65 questions. Master them in Week 1 and you are already more than halfway to passing before you touch Domain 3. Day Domain Focus Key Services / Topics Practice Goal Day 1 Setup + Domain 1 foundations 6 advantages of cloud, IaaS/PaaS/SaaS, public/private/hybrid deployment models, AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) 6 perspectives, AWS Well-Architected Framework 6 pillars 20 questions (Domain 1) Day 2 AWS Global Infrastructure AWS Regions, Availability Zones, Edge Locations, Local Zones, Wavelength Zones; how to choose a Region (compliance, proximity, service availability, price); 7 Rs of migration (Retire, Retain, Rehost, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor, Relocate) 25 questions (Domain 1) Day 3 Domain 2 intro — Shared Responsibility + IAM basics Shared Responsibility Model (AWS manages OF the cloud; customer manages IN the cloud), IAM users, groups, roles, policies; principle of least privilege; root account best practices; AWS account structure 20 questions (Domain 2) Day 4 IAM deep dive IAM identity types in detail; inline vs. managed vs. customer managed policies; MFA types (virtual MFA, hardware TOTP, FIDO2 security key, SMS — note: SMS is not recommended); IAM Access Analyzer; AWS STS and temporary credentials; cross-account roles 25 questions (Domain 2) Day 5 Network security VPC fundamentals (subnets, route tables, internet gateway); Security Groups (stateful, instance-level); NACLs (stateless, subnet-level); AWS WAF (web application firewall, L7); AWS Shield Standard vs. Advanced (DDoS protection); Amazon VPC Endpoints (private access to AWS services) 20 questions (Domain 2) Day 6 Compliance and detective services AWS Artifact (compliance reports on demand); Amazon Inspector (automated vulnerability scanning for EC2, ECR, Lambda); Amazon Macie (S3 data classification, PII detection); Amazon GuardDuty (threat detection using ML on CloudTrail/VPC/DNS logs); AWS Config (resource configuration compliance); AWS Security Hub (aggregated security findings) 25 questions (Domain 2) Day 7 Week 1 review Re-read explanations for every Domain 1 and Domain 2 question you got wrong; review the Shared Responsibility Model table; review the IAM cheat sheet; review Security Group vs. NACL comparison 50-question mixed(Domains 1 + 2) Day 8 Domain 3 intro — Core compute Amazon EC2 (instance families: General Purpose, Compute Optimized, Memory Optimized, Storage Optimized, Accelerated Computing); EC2 purchasing options overview (On-Demand, Reserved, Spot, Dedicated); AWS Lambda (serverless, event-driven, pay per invocation); Amazon ECS and EKS (containers); AWS Elastic Beanstalk (PaaS, managed deployment) 20 questions (Domain 3) Week 1 target score:
By the end of Day 7, you should be scoring above 75% on Domain 1 and above 70% on Domain 2 practice sets. If you are below these thresholds, spend the Day 7 review session working through the questions you flagged as hard rather than doing all 50. Quality over quantity on review days.
Week 2: Days 9–15
Week 2 completes Domain 3 (Cloud Technology and Services), covers Domain 4 (Billing), runs a full mock exam, and finishes with final cheat sheet review. Domain 3 is the widest domain — it spans compute, storage, databases, networking, and management tools. Work through it methodically; there is a lot of surface area but every service below appears on the exam. Day Domain Focus Key Services / Topics Practice Goal Day 9 Storage services Amazon S3 storage classes (Standard, Standard-IA, One Zone-IA, Glacier Instant Retrieval, Glacier Flexible Retrieval, Glacier Deep Archive, Intelligent-Tiering); S3 lifecycle policies; Amazon EBS (block storage, attached to one EC2); Amazon EFS (file storage, shared across multiple EC2); AWS Snowball Edge and Snowmobile (offline data transfer); AWS Storage Gateway (hybrid on-premises integration) 20 questions (Domain 3) Day 10 Database services Amazon RDS (managed relational DB; Multi-AZ for HA; Read Replicas for performance); Amazon Aurora (MySQL/PostgreSQL-compatible, 5x performance, serverless option); Amazon DynamoDB (NoSQL, serverless, single-digit ms latency); Amazon ElastiCache (Redis/Memcached, in-memory caching); Amazon Redshift (data warehousing, OLAP); Amazon Neptune (graph database) 20 questions (Domain 3) Day 11 Networking and content delivery Amazon VPC in depth (public vs. private subnets, NAT Gateway, VPC peering); Amazon Route 53 (DNS, routing policies: simple, weighted, latency, failover, geolocation); Amazon CloudFront (CDN, global edge cache, Origin Access Control); AWS Direct Connect (dedicated private line, predictable bandwidth); AWS VPN (site-to-site encrypted tunnel over internet); AWS Global Accelerator (anycast routing, TCP/UDP performance); Elastic Load Balancing (ALB, NLB, GWLB) 20 questions (Domain 3) Day 12 Management, monitoring, and governance Amazon CloudWatch (metrics, logs, alarms, dashboards); AWS CloudTrail (API call logging, compliance audit); AWS Config (resource inventory + compliance rules); AWS Systems Manager (fleet management, patch manager, Parameter Store); AWS Trusted Advisor (5 pillars: cost, security, performance, fault tolerance, service limits); AWS Organizations (multi-account management, SCPs, consolidated billing); AWS Control Tower; AWS CloudFormation (IaC, stacks, templates) 20 questions (Domain 3) Day 13 Domain 4 — Billing, pricing and support AWS pricing principles (pay as you go, reserve and save, volume discounts); Free Tier types (Always Free, 12-months free, Trials); AWS Pricing Calculator; AWS Cost Explorer (historical analysis + forecast); AWS Budgets (threshold alerts); AWS Cost and Usage Report (most granular); Savings Plans vs. Reserved Instances; EC2 purchasing options (On-Demand, Standard RI, Convertible RI, Spot, Dedicated Host); AWS Support Plans (Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, Enterprise); TAM availability; AWS Organizations consolidated billing All 48 Domain 4 questions Day 14 Full mock exam + weak-spot review _No new material._Take a complete 65-question timed mock exam (90 minutes, no notes, no interruptions). Review every question you got wrong. Identify any domain scoring below 70% and re-read the relevant post section that evening. 65-question mock exam Day 15 Cheat sheet + exam day prep Read the completeCLF-C02 cheat sheetfrom start to finish. Confirm your Pearson VUE appointment, prepare your ID, test your webcam/microphone if taking online. Do not cram new material. Light review only: Shared Responsibility Model, Support plan tiers, Security Group vs. NACL, CloudWatch vs. CloudTrail. 10–15 questions (weakest domain only) Week 2 target score:
On your Day 14 mock exam, target 75% or above. The real exam includes unscored experimental questions that won't affect your result — a 75% mock score translates comfortably to a passing 700+ on exam day. If you score between 65% and 74%, spend your Day 15 evening reviewing Domain 3 (the widest domain) rather than the cheat sheet. If you score above 80%, you are in excellent shape — the cheat sheet pass on Day 15 is all you need.
How to Use CertLand's 380-Question Bank
CertLand's CLF-C02 question bank is organized by domain, so you can practice exactly what you studied each day. Here is the recommended workflow:
Practice by domain, not in random mode
During Days 1–13, always filter to the domain you studied that day. Random mode is for later. Practicing immediately after studying a specific topic reinforces active recall while the concepts are fresh — this is the most effective study technique for exam prep.
Use explanations as a second round of teaching
After completing a daily set, read every explanation — including the ones you got right. The explanations in CertLand's bank are written in the same format as the Deep Dive posts: they explain why the correct answer is right and why each distractor is specifically wrong. This "why B is wrong" reasoning is exactly what the exam tests when it presents questions where multiple answers seem plausible.
Day 7: Mixed mode for the first time
Day 7 is your first mixed-domain session. This simulates the real exam, where questions from all domains are interleaved. Mixed mode helps you practice switching mental context rapidly — a skill the exam requires. Target 50 questions, time-boxed to 70 minutes (this leaves 20 minutes buffer for a 65-question exam).
Day 14: Simulate real exam conditions
Use the full 380-question bank in random mode, 65 questions, 90-minute timer. Close all tabs except the exam. No notes. If you need to mark a question for review, use the exam interface's flag feature — do not go back to study material mid-session. This behavioral rehearsal is as important as the content review. Start your 15-day plan today
CertLand's CLF-C02 question bank includes*380 practice questions*across all four domains — every question with a full detailed explanation. Practice by domain, run timed mock exams, and track your score progress as you work through this 15-day plan.Open the question bank →
Exam Day Checklist
The night before and morning of your exam, run through this checklist:
Night before (Day 14 evening or Day 15 evening)
- Read theCLF-C02 cheat sheetonce through — no memorization, just refresh
- Confirm your Pearson VUE appointment time and location
- For online proctored exams: test your webcam, microphone, and screen sharing. Pearson OnVUE has a system check tool — use it
- Prepare two valid forms of government-issued photo ID
- Get 7–8 hours of sleep. Sleep is not optional — it consolidates everything you studied
Exam morning
- Eat a proper meal — brain performance degrades significantly with low blood sugar during a 90-minute cognitive test
- Arrive at the test center 15 minutes early (or log in 30 minutes early for online)
- If online proctored: clear your desk of all papers, books, and second monitors. Have only water in an approved clear container
- Do not study new material the morning of the exam — it creates interference. At most, scan the top 5 exam traps from the cheat sheet
During the exam
- Read the entire question before reading the answers — the scenario often rules out two distractors before you get to the answer choices
- For questions you are unsure about, flag them and keep moving. Return at the end. With 90 minutes for 65 questions, you have ~83 seconds per question — plenty of buffer for a return pass
- When two answers seem equally correct, ask: which one is more specific to the_exact problem described_? AWS exam questions are precise — the correct answer addresses the exact scenario constraint, not just a related cloud capability
- Trust your preparation. If you completed this plan and scored 75%+ on the mock exam, you are ready Complete CLF-C02 Study Pack
This 15-day plan is part of CertLand's complete CLF-C02 prep pack — six structured posts covering every exam domain plus 380 practice questions.
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