Exam format
All AWS exams are taken electronically either at a test center or remotely via an online proctoring session.
The exam lasts 180 minutes and there will be 65 questions.
The pass mark will vary slightly between each exam, but the minimum will always be 750 out of 1000. This variation is due to some questions being rated as more or less difficult than the default, so they are weighted for fairness. As a rough guide, a pass would be obtained by answering 50 questions correctly.
You are not penalized for incorrect answers, so you should attempt to answer all questions even if you do not know the answer.
The exam starts with a short opening section where you need to confirm your details, the exam you are taking, and the copyright that you may not share the exam questions. Once this is done, you will be given a brief overview of the exam and how to navigate through the screens.
The majority of the questions are situational style, requiring you to be able to interpret the question to work out the correct answer.
The questions are all multiple choice with two different styles:
- Multiple choice: Has one correct answer and three incorrect answers.
- Multiple answer: Has two or more correct answers out of five or more options. The question will state how many answers are expected.
You can mark each question for review at the end.
At the end of the exam, there is a survey about the exam and your preparation for it. You must complete this before receiving your exam result.
You will receive your pass or fail result immediately once you complete the survey, but you will not receive your full results and the score achieved until it has been verified. This verification normally takes 3 working days. Once the verification has been completed, you will receive an email to your registered address and you will be able to obtain your full score report, showing how well you performed on each domain. This is especially useful if you do not meet the passing grade as you will be given areas to focus your studies on for the next attempt.
Now that you understand what happens after you book and take the exam, let's look at what you'll need to know to obtain a passing grade. In the next section, we are going to look at the exam domains or areas that will need to be covered.