# How to Pass the AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam: How I Earned My Certification How I passed the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam with zero cloud experience, going from failed practice tests to certified in under two weeks. Tags: cloud, career Published: 2022-11-27 (updated 2026-10-22) Hi! 👋🏻 In today's story, I will share [my experience](/blog/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-programmer-new-challenges-or-a-routine/) on how I've earned my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification. If you want to have some background of who I am, I invite you to see this series of stories first. Let’s get into it. **How do you pass the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam?** Take a structured course, then do practice exams until you pass them reliably. The current exam, CLF-C02, has 65 questions, runs 90 minutes and needs a score of 700 out of 1,000. I went from zero cloud experience to certified in under two weeks, and I failed my first practice exams along the way. First things first, Cloud Practitioner certification is the level 1 certificate for AWS. They recommend a experience of 6 months with AWS, the exam is 90 minutes long and you need at least 700 points to pass. And it is available for 3 years. The interesting thing is that I have [0 experience with AWS and cloud](/blog/local-first-software-developer-guide-2026/) in general. I knew some terms but some general ones. So, I thought about getting this certificate for a white. But I postponed it a lot. So on November 11th 2022, I decided to buy a course from Udemy and start learning AWS. I started learning and, after a few days, I scheduled the exam for November 19th 2022, because I’m more comfortable with working from home. It was best for me to take the exam online. At the end of the course, you have to take a practice exam and, long story short, I didn’t pass that exam. And so I did some more practice exams but I failed all of them... I was starting to panic because the day was here. In a few hours, I was starting the exam. I was repeating the pieces of information and I started the exam. Before reading the questions you have to go through some tough verifications. You get assigned a proctor which will overwatch you during the exam. But before that, you have to scan your entire room, from floor to ceiling, you need to remove any phone, smartwatch or headphones, anything near to you. And so on. You can search for all the rules on the Internet. The exam contains 65 questions. After the exam, you will receive a feedback. After the feedback, there should be a screen where you get the grade (passed/failed). Afterwards, the proctor will reach out to you in a few minutes. Now, keep in mind that if you want to pass the exam, you should NOT be making any screenshots. Not even after the end of the exam, because you are going to fail the exam. I have read a user's story where he passed the exam and the proctor didn’t reach out to him for like 5 minutes. He pulled out the phone so he can have a proof of passing, but it was cancelled. Anyway, so far so good, in one day I got my certificate and my confirmation email from AWS. ## AWS Cloud Practitioner Study Plan This is what worked for me, with a few things I would add now. 1. **Pick one course and finish it.** I used a Udemy course. Pick one and avoid mixing five sources. 2. **Take the practice exam at the end of the course.** Treat the first score as a map of what you do not know, not as a verdict. I failed mine. 3. **Retake practice exams and read every explanation.** I failed all of mine at first. Reviewing why an answer was wrong taught me more than the course videos. 4. **Know the four exam domains.** The current exam guide groups questions into cloud concepts, security and compliance, cloud technology and services, and billing, pricing and support. The technology and security domains carry the most weight. 5. **Schedule the exam early.** I booked mine about a week after starting, which forced me to keep studying. You can take it at a test center or online. 6. **Rest before exam day.** Repeat the key facts, then stop cramming. The exam costs 100 USD at the time of writing, according to the AWS certification page. The exam I took in 2022 has since been replaced by the current version, CLF-C02, so use current study material. As ending points: • Study hard because is not an easy exam. • Don’t take screenshots of any kind • Be calm, it is just an exam after all. You can always retake it as many times as you need. Also, I’ll leave my certificate link bellow with my socials. Cheers! 🍻