I recently cleared the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam — with just 2 days of preparation. Sounds intense? It was! But with the right resources and focus, it’s absolutely possible. In this post, I’ll walk you through:

Why I chose to attempt it quickly

I already had a basic understanding of Cloud and DevOps, and had been studying it for a while. I was familiar with tools like Docker, Kubernetes, Git, GitHub, Jenkins, Terraform, and Ansible. So instead of waiting around, I decided to challenge myself and take the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam — not just to get certified, but to test and validate my knowledge

The exact resources I used

Before jumping into random content, I started by looking at the official AWS Cloud Practitioner exam guide. It clearly outlines the four key domains and their weightage:

Cloud Concepts — 24% ,Security and Compliance — 30% , Cloud Technology and Services — 34% and Billing, Pricing, and Support — 12%

This helped me focus my time on the most important areas instead of trying to learn everything.

To speed things up and find the right material, I used AI tools (like ChatGPT) to gather summaries, explanations, and sample questions around each domain. It helped me understand complex topics more quickly and clarify doubts in real time.

My Exam Experience

I chose to take the exam at an official test center to avoid any technical issues and have a smooth experience. The check-in process was simple and quick, and the environment was quiet and focused — which really helped.

At first, I was expecting a lot of complex and confusing questions. But to my surprise, the exam focused more on key concepts rather than deep technical details.

That said, there were a few tricky questions and some I hadn’t directly studied for. However, because I understood the core concepts, I could still make educated guesses.

Exam Difficulty: My Take

Overall, I found the exam to be moderately easy, especially if you’re already familiar with cloud fundamentals and have some hands-on experience or theoretical knowledge with tools like Docker, Git, Terraform, etc. The key is to understand the “why” behind each concept, not just memorize facts.