DestrezaAI ← AWS Cloud Practitioner Study Kit
CLF-C02 · Study guide · Checked October 2026

How to pass AWS Cloud Practitioner, step by step

The exam is built on look-alikes: two AWS services or ideas that sound almost the same, like high availability and fault tolerance, or Macie and GuardDuty. Each question asks which one fits, and you have about 83 seconds to decide. This guide shows how the exam thinks, what AWS says you can skip, and how to split your days. Three interactive parts, no filler, and no one expects you to write a line of code.

9 minute read3 interactive partsFacts checked against AWS
01

The CLF-C02 exam, on one ticket

Before any strategy, the facts, exactly as AWS publishes them. The exam is foundational: AWS describes the target candidate as someone with up to six months of exposure to the AWS Cloud, who may be starting a cloud career or simply work with people in cloud roles.

Exam
CLF-C02
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, foundational level
Questions
65
50 count toward your score, 15 do not
Time
90 min
About 83 seconds per question
Exam fee
100 USD
Set by AWS, before any local taxes
Valid for
3 years
Then renew or recertify
Where
Anywhere
Pearson VUE test center or online proctored
700 / 1000
Scaled pass mark

Never leave a blank

Unanswered questions count as wrong, and there is no penalty for guessing. Answer everything, even when you are unsure.

One weak domain will not sink you

Scoring is compensatory: you need to pass the exam as a whole, not each section. Strong spots can cover weak ones.

15 questions are test runs

They do not count, and nobody tells you which ones they are. Treat every question as real. A strange one may simply be a decoy.

Two details people miss. The score runs from 100 to 1,000, so 700 is not the same as “70% correct”. And there are only two question types: multiple choice (one right answer out of four) and multiple response (two or more right answers out of five or more).

02

Where the points live, and your plan

AWS publishes the weight of each domain as a share of the scored content. With 50 scored questions, that works out to roughly this:

DOMAIN 1Cloud Concepts
24% · about 12 questions
DOMAIN 2Security and Compliance
30% · about 15 questions
DOMAIN 3Cloud Technology and Services
34% · about 17 questions
DOMAIN 4Billing, Pricing, and Support
12% · about 6 questions

Read it like this. Domains 2 and 3 are 64% of the points: security, and the services themselves. Domain 4 is only about six questions, but it is pure memory (pricing models, support plans), so one focused evening there pays for itself.

How many days do you have?

Pick a number: the days are split in proportion to the points, and each one comes with its three tools, in this order. It assumes about an hour a day.

1. Understand20 min with the Concept Map of the day’s domain: see how its terms connect and which ones look alike.
2. Remember15 min with the Flashcards of the same domain, so the terms stick.
3. Prove it25 min of practice questions, to check you can use what you learned.
    03

    Spot the impostor

    This is the real skill the exam tests: telling two look-alikes apart under time pressure. Six pairs below. Each clue describes one of the two. Pick the right one before you see the rule, because on exam day nobody hands you the rule.

    1. A short recovery after a failure is acceptable, as long as the site comes back quickly.

      Answer: High availability. A short recovery is acceptable, high availability. “Zero interruption”, fault tolerance.

    2. Capacity is added for a holiday rush and removed right after it.

      Answer: Elasticity. Capacity added for a rush and removed after, elasticity. Still serving when a zone fails, high availability.

    3. The site has never gone down, but users far away find it slow.

      Answer: Performance efficiency. Must recover from an outage, reliability. Slow but never down, performance efficiency.

    4. You want automatic checks of the resources already running in your account.

      Answer: Trusted Advisor. Answer questions, get high-risk issues, Well-Architected Tool. Automatic checks of existing resources, Trusted Advisor.

    5. A self-managed database moves to Amazon RDS. The app code does not change.

      Answer: Replatform. Virtual machines to EC2 unchanged, rehost. Self-managed database to Amazon RDS, replatform.

    6. The company already owns the software licenses and wants to keep using them on AWS.

      Answer: BYOL. Already owns licenses, BYOL. No licenses and a changing server count, license included.

    All 10 pairs on the free Concept Map (opens in a new tab) Drill them as Flashcards (opens in a new tab)
    04

    Zoom out: the six pillars

    Some look-alikes are a whole family. The free Domain 1 Concept Map lays out the six pillars of the Well-Architected Framework, and the exam loves to swap two of them. Tap a pillar to open its card, exactly as on a Concept Map.

    Operational excellence
    Running and improving workloads well: operations as code, small reversible changes, learning from every incident. Operational excellence is about how the TEAM works. Reliability is about how the WORKLOAD recovers. “Runbooks”, “small reversible changes”, “learn from incidents”, “infrastructure as code”.
    Security
    Protecting data and systems: least privilege, traceability, security at every layer, encryption, readiness for security events. Incident response for SECURITY events belongs here, not in operational excellence. “Least privilege”, “encrypt data”, “keep people away from data”.
    Reliability
    The workload does its job correctly and recovers from failures: automatic recovery, tested recovery, scaling to meet demand. Reliability = failures and recovery. Performance efficiency = speed and the right resources. A slow site that never went down is a performance issue. “Recover from an AZ outage”, “test recovery”, “withstand failures”.
    Performance efficiency
    Using computing resources efficiently to meet requirements as demand and technology change: right resource types, global reach, serverless. Slow for distant users → performance efficiency. Goes down and must recover → reliability. “Latency”, “right instance type”, “go global”, “serverless”.
    Cost optimization
    Delivering value at the lowest price: pay for what you use, remove idle resources, and attribute spending to teams. Cost optimization saves money. Sustainability saves energy and carbon. Attributing the bill to teams is only cost optimization. “Idle resources”, “who owns the bill”, “reduce spending”.
    Sustainability
    Reducing the environmental impact of workloads: set energy goals, maximize utilization, choose efficient hardware and Regions. The stated goal is environmental (energy, carbon), not the bill → sustainability. “Carbon footprint”, “energy reduction goals”, “environmental impact”.
    05

    Four answers that feel right and are not

    The best wrong answers are not random. They are the reflex answer, the one your brain reaches for first. Each card below is one of the free practice questions: the reflex, what the question actually asked, and the rule to keep.

    Domain 2 · Shared responsibility

    The missed updates

    An audit finds that a company's EC2 instances have missed months of operating system security updates. Who should have applied them?

    Your reflexBoth. “Shared” sounds like everyone patches everything.
    What it askedThe company. On EC2 it manages the guest operating system.

    Carry this: on EC2, everything from the guest operating system up is yours. AWS stops at the hypervisor.

    Domain 2 · Identity

    The keys in the config file

    An app on EC2 must read from S3. A developer plans to paste an IAM user's access keys into the config file.

    Your reflexFine, as long as the keys are encrypted.
    What it askedAn IAM role attached to the instance. Encrypted keys still exist and can still leak.

    Carry this: code on AWS needs permissions? Give it a role, never keys.

    Domain 3 · Compute

    The three-hour function

    A nightly video job takes three hours. A developer wants to run it as one Lambda invocation to avoid managing servers.

    Your reflexThe problem is cost: Lambda must bill for idle time between runs.
    What it askedOne invocation can run for at most 15 minutes. Serverless only bills while the code runs.

    Carry this: Lambda runs up to 15 minutes per invocation. Longer jobs go to Fargate, EC2 or AWS Batch.

    Domain 4 · Pricing

    The cheapest everything

    A web tier runs around the clock for three years, plus a nightly batch that restarts from checkpoints if interrupted.

    Your reflexSpot Instances for both. Spot has the deepest discount.
    What it askedA Savings Plan for the web tier, Spot for the batch. An always-on site cannot be interrupted.

    Carry this: steady and 24/7, commit with Savings Plans or Reserved Instances. Interruptible, Spot. Short or unknown, On-Demand.

    Now try one for real

    On the real exam you only learn whether you passed. Here, every option is explained, the wrong ones too, because that is where the learning is. Pick an answer.

    Domain 1 · Free practice question

    A company moves its self-managed MySQL database to Amazon RDS for MySQL. The code is unchanged, but AWS now handles backups and patching. Which migration strategy is this?

    Rule to carry forward: same code, new managed platform underneath: replatform.

    Try the 10 free questions (opens in a new tab) The full question bank
    06

    A guide is a map. You still need reps.

    Reading about look-alikes is not the same as spotting them. These three are free, with no sign-up, and they cover Domain 1 and the first ten practice questions.

    Understand
    Free Concept Map Every Domain 1 term on one page, with the 10 look-alike pairs the exam swaps and the clue words that give the answer away.
    Open the map →
    Remember
    Free Flashcards Each Domain 1 term as a card that comes back just before you would forget it.
    Flip a card →
    Prove it
    10 free questions Scenario questions with an explanation for every option, including why the tempting one is wrong.
    Start practicing →
    See the full Study Kit → Back to the overview

    Practice improves your chances. Nobody can promise a pass. Domain 1 is free; Domains 2 to 4 come with the full Study Kit.

    07

    What AWS says you do not need

    This is the most reassuring page of the official exam guide. AWS lists job tasks the target candidate is not expected to perform. If a course spends hours on these, you can skim it.

    Out of scope, per the AWS exam guide

    • Coding
    • Designing cloud architecture
    • Troubleshooting
    • Implementation
    • Load and performance testing

    AWS notes the list is not exhaustive. The exam guide also publishes a list of out-of-scope AWS services.

    What you need instead

    Explain the value of the cloud, know who is responsible for what, and name the service that fits a common use case.

    A fine line: you will not design an architecture, but you must recognize a good one. The Well-Architected pillars sit inside Domain 1, and the shared responsibility model runs through Domain 2.

    08

    Five small rules for 90 minutes

    1. Do the clock math.65 questions in 90 minutes is about 83 seconds each. Answer what you know on the first pass, flag the rest, and come back with the time you saved.
    2. Never leave a blank.An empty answer is scored as wrong and a guess costs nothing. In the last minute, fill every gap.
    3. Find the layer.Shared responsibility questions turn on one word: physical, hypervisor, guest operating system, data. Find it, and you know who owns the task.
    4. Count the answers asked.A multiple response question tells you how many to pick. Read that number before the options, so you do not stop at the first good one.
    5. Do not panic at the weird one.Fifteen questions do not count and are not marked. If one looks like it came from another exam, flag it, make your best guess and move on.
    Start with the free questions →
    Sources. Exam facts checked on October 26, 2026. AWS can change them, so confirm before you book.