This plan assumes about an hour a day on weekdays and a longer session at the weekend. If you already work with AWS, you can compress it. If you are brand new to cloud, stretch it to three or four weeks. The order matters more than the speed.
Know the exam first
The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam (CLF-C02) has 65 questions and lasts 90 minutes. The passing score is 700 on a scale of 1000. It covers four domains:
- Cloud Concepts: 24% of the exam
- Security and Compliance: 30% of the exam
- Cloud Technology and Services: 34% of the exam
- Billing, Pricing and Support: 12% of the exam
Check the official certification page for the current exam guide, because the details can change.
Week 1: learn the ideas
- Day 1, Cloud concepts. Benefits of the AWS Cloud (agility, elasticity, economies of scale, pay-as-you-go), trading capital expense for variable expense, and the six pillars of the Well-Architected Framework.
- Day 2, Global infrastructure. Regions, Availability Zones and edge locations, and why you would pick one Region over another.
- Day 3, Compute and storage. EC2, Lambda and containers at a high level. S3 and its storage classes, EBS and EFS.
- Day 4, Networking and databases. VPC basics, Route 53, CloudFront, and when to use RDS, DynamoDB or Redshift.
- Day 5, Security and the shared responsibility model. What AWS secures and what you secure. IAM users, roles, policies, MFA and least privilege. This is the biggest-weighted domain after services, so spend time here.
- Day 6, Security and compliance tools. Encryption and KMS, CloudTrail, AWS Config, and where to find compliance reports.
- Day 7, Baseline test. Take Set 1 under timed conditions. Do not look anything up. Afterwards, read every explanation and note your weakest domain.
Week 2: practise and fix
- Day 8, Billing and pricing. The Free Tier, On-Demand, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans and Spot, plus Cost Explorer, Budgets and the Pricing Calculator.
- Day 9, Support and monitoring. What each AWS Support plan includes (check AWS's current list), Trusted Advisor, CloudWatch and the Health Dashboard.
- Day 10, Set 2. Take Set 2, then review.
- Day 11, Fix your weakest domain. Re-read the notes and explanations for it, then take Set 3.
- Day 12, Confusing pairs. Take Set 4, which focuses on look-alike services. Write a one-line difference for each pair you miss.
- Day 13, Scenario wording. Take Set 5 and practise reading for the key phrase in each scenario.
- Day 14, Dress rehearsal. Take Set 6, the hardest set, exactly as you would on exam day. If you score 80% or more, you are ready to book. If not, repeat your weakest domain for a few more days.
How to get the most from each set
- Treat it like the real thing. Use the timer, avoid searching, and press check only when you have answered or flagged everything.
- Read every explanation, including the ones you got right. A lucky guess teaches you nothing.
- Pace yourself. 90 minutes for 65 questions is roughly 80 seconds each. Flag a hard question and move on.
- Watch the wording. Phrases such as "most cost-effective", "least operational overhead" and "choose TWO" change the right answer.
- Do not memorise answers. Retaking a set you remember inflates your score. Move on to a fresh set instead.
Ready to start?
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