I wrote 1,100+ CCAR practice questions, then passed the Claude Certified Architect – Professional exam

Today I passed the Claude Certified Architect – Professional (CCAR-P) exam, with a scaled score of 894 (the pass mark is 720).

Over the past few weeks I wrote original practice exams for both Claude architect exams, CCAR-F and CCAR-P, working only from Anthropic's public exam guides and docs. That's 360 CCAR-F questions and 756 CCAR-P questions. Then I sat the real thing.

The exam is under NDA, so nothing here describes its questions. Everything below comes from the public exam guide and from what my preparation taught me.

What paid off in preparation

1. Practicing judgment, not recall. The CCAR-P guide is built around architecture decisions, not facts to memorize. Writing questions where two options are both reasonable, and only one wins on the principle being tested, was the best study I did.

2. Knowing when a rule needs a control, not a prompt. If something has to happen every time, a deterministic control (a hook, a gate, a validation step) beats "add it to the system prompt." I wrote that trap into dozens of practice questions, and it stuck.

3. Timed full-length mocks. The guide's format is 63 questions in 120 minutes, about 1.9 minutes each. Untimed practice hides pacing problems.

4. Studying to the domain weights. The guide publishes them. Integration is the heaviest at 19% and Developer Productivity the lightest at 7%. Take a diagnostic mock, then drill your weakest heavy domain, not your favorite one.

5. Counting before eliminating. On multi-answer questions, read how many answers are required before you start crossing options out.

How I'd prepare in 3 steps

1. Read the official exam guide end to end and list every task statement.
2. Take one timed mock as a diagnostic and read your per-domain results.
3. For every miss, write one line on why the tempting wrong answer was wrong. That habit is the skill.

If you want the practice exams

Disclosure: I wrote these and sell them on Udemy. They're unofficial, with no affiliation with Anthropic, and they're original questions, not exam content. Each course has 6 full timed mocks with every option explained, right or wrong. They're $9.99 with code SIGMA999 through Nov 10:

• CCAR-P Vol. 1: https://www.udemy.com/course/claude-architect-professional-ccar-p-practice-exams/?couponCode=SIGMA999
• CCAR-P Vol. 2: https://www.udemy.com/course/claude-architect-professional-ccar-p-practice-exams-vol-2/?couponCode=SIGMA999
• CCAR-F: https://www.udemy.com/course/claude-architect-foundations-ccar-f-practice-exams/?couponCode=SIGMA999

Honest reviews, good or bad, help me fix what's off. If you're preparing now, ask about the format in the comments and I'll answer what the public guide covers.