Embrace the Challenge - a cloud certification story.

As usual, this story begins with some catalyst requiring my attention. This time it was an email from the Google Cloud certification team letting me know my Google Cloud Associate Engineer certification was about to expire. No worries they said, we will send you a coupon code closer to the expiration date. Three days ago that email arrived to say it is time, ...here's your coupon code, ...it's good till your certification expires in 45 days.

As usual, the motivation must exist before action moves this mind of mine. I booked the exam for 3 days hence. This weekend I successfully completed the Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer certification for the second time. The best part is the confidence boost it gave me about my own knowledge of the Google Cloud Platform. But it wasn’t all roses; there were a couple moments when I began to have my doubts. However, I overcame those random thoughts and instead focused on the strategy needed to succeed. I decided to Embrace the Challenge.

What is the Google Cloud Associate Engineer Certification:

An Associate Cloud Engineer deploys applications, monitors operations, and manages enterprise solutions. This individual is able to use Google Cloud Console and the command-line interface to perform common platform-based tasks to maintain one or more deployed solutions that leverage Google-managed or self-managed services on Google Cloud.

This exam covers a broad range of Google Cloud Services, but I felt it focused on Identity and Access Management (IAM), managing Google Kubernetes Engine resources, use of the VPC network, data processing tools, and Compute Engine services.

How I prepared for the exam.

I am a huge fan of A Cloud Guru's preparation course for the Associate Cloud Engineer. I watched it twice previously, therefore I used additional resources designed to help mentally prepare my mind for question breakdown and analysis.

Day 1 (2 Hours)

Whizlabs:

Purchased the practice exam for the Associate Cloud Engineer. In the package there are 160 paid questions available, and 25 practice exam questions. I took the first paid exam of 50 questions and failed with 33/50.  

The post exam interface of Whizlabs is excellent. Quickly find your weaknesses and focus on those areas. Most of the missed questions were the result of my misunderstanding of the question rather than not knowing the answer.  

The exam took an hour and the post review about another hour. I spent time to login to the google console and actually test the answers to many of the questions. 

Day 2 (6 Hours)

Awesome GCP:

As I mentioned earlier, question breakdown seemed to be a bigger issue than knowledge gaps. So I found an ACE training resource on YouTube that used practice exam questions as the topic, then focused on breaking down the question. Highly recommend these 20 videos if you have already completed an ACE course but need help with your test taking strategy.

Whizlabs:

Took the next 50/50 practice exam and failed with 33/50 this time. Again the majority of missed questions were due to terminology misinterpretation. Took the next 50 question practice exam and failed with 31/50 this time. No worries, more of the same.  

The morning before the exam, I took each of the Whizlabs test once more and passed each of them with increasing success. I finished the final exam only missing two questions.

I really enjoyed using Whizlabs to train my mind on what to look for in the exam questions. I found that the questions where more relevant to the original version of the ACE exam. However, still achieves the goal of mental training for the exam.

The Exam

I took the exam at a testing center choosing not to deal with at home proctoring. The testing center was empty, I had the entire room to myself. Sweet.

The exam is 50 questions and you have 2 hours. I finished the exam in 65 minutes, with 8 marked questions to review. I ended up changing only 1 answer and hit submit with 30 minutes left on the clock. After hitting that submit button at the end of exam, you are always asked are you sure you want to end the exam. I confidently clicked, YES . Then I get a survey, on which I took the time to leave the test makers a few notes. Finally, got to the results screen, searching the page, ..it takes me a minute, but I finally see PASS in small letters at the top.

The Google team did an awesome job improving the question wording over the first exam, in that questions where not convoluted with trickery. There were no syntax questions with very small differences. The exam tested knowledge without adding spelling or grammatical errors as the reason to miss a question. This test was straightforward and I appreciated that. You did need to understand when to use what GCP service to solve the question. You should also know what commands or features accomplished a given scenario using Google Cloud best practices.

The Result

Definitely reached a new level with my knowledge of the Google Cloud Platform. Excited to be certified for another two years. Google has added 8 regional locations since I was certified to the first time. Looking forward to continued progress by the Google Cloud Community.

I give a lot of credit to the A Cloud Guru for being an amazing producer of content but also the best employer one could ask for. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to build a course for the Google Professional Cloud Network Engineer certification and help others succeed in their Google journey.

My Professional Cloud Architect certification experiences in September, so I will be taking that one soon. If you have any questions or tips, send me note :).

Keep Being Awesome,

Karlos K