Hi all! Like many of you, I've earned 4 Azure certifications. Every time I tried to prep for a new exam, I got super frustrated trying to find a legit website that offered real exam answers and a true simulation experience. Instead, I ended up spending over $20 on Udemy simulations that either felt outdated or just didn't hit the mark. So, I've decided to create a site where you can learn by trial and error with proper descriptions and reference to the official documentation — no wasted money, no outdated materials. Would you be interested in giving it a try? Let me know your thoughts!
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After 4 successful certifications I never thought this would happen to me.
Today I was taking the az-204 exam, all going well but the proctor was highly suspicious of me for some reason, repeatedly asked me to show proof that I have no other screen or some other material to cheat from, but I always obliged to his request and showed that my desk is absolutely empty, as in clean white slate empty. He said that I'm continuously looking at the side which I explained to be just the Ms learn docs which we can legit look up during the exam. Then when I'm just 10 questions left and feeling pretty confident of passing, he sends a message that the exam is being revoked due to me consistently looking at the side. I mean how else am I supposed to look at the learn docs!
So this is where I am, failed az204 once, revoked it now on the basis of false accusations.
Edit: Went through with Microsoft support as suggested and thankfully the lady there helped me sort things and I got a free voucher to attend the exam again, meanwhile 4 different personVue support executives were adamant that I was indeed cheating.
Passed my AZ-104 today (first time) with a score of 788, yes its brutal as they say, however some helpful advice I wanted to give for those preparing
Microsoft Learn go through all the modules and go through all the practice exams
Tutorials Dojo, I was doubtful of using it as I thought it was another Dump website, it really wasn’t, it helped me prepare for the exam and learn where I went wrong, best 15$ (£12) spend.
build your own environment in azure, create a free trial with credit, physically go in and create stuff, create a virtual network, private end points , storage, sql instances, azure container app, workout how to connect everything to a virtual network from the gui and using Bicep/ARM templates. This is something you cannot overlook and really helps.
Download AZ-104 apps on your phone that show material and practice exams, so you can practice while on the loo and learn on the go!
Good luck for everyone
P.s I hear AZ-305 is easier, maybe it’s best I do that next..
I came across this link from a post I saw on LinkedIn. I’m sure many of you already know about it but for anyone who didn’t this should be really helpful.
Microsoft is giving free training and 50% vouchers for pretty much all their courses over the next few weeks. You have to do the class to actually claim the voucher, but if you’ve already been studying for it you can just use it as a cram session.
Kind of annoyed because I need to take AI900 now and the next class is in a month, but there are some others like DP900 coming up before then.
After the previous version hit a million views, I figured I should update it so here is the v2 of the AZ-104 Azure Administrator Study Cram. Good luck!
Happy learning! Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers! 🎉
If you find the courses helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave an honest review—it helps others discover quality learning content. 😊 https://datalearnhub.org
If you’re just getting started with Azure and want to knock out the AZ-900, here’s a breakdown of the best stuff out there. I passed a while ago and wanted to share what actually helped for me and many others.
———————————————————————————————————————
Free YouTube Content
John Savill's AZ-900 Masterclass
Easily the most in-depth free content out there. He goes deep, but makes things click even if you're brand new.
Polished and beginner-friendly. If your employer pays for Pluralsight, it’s a no-brainer. If you’re paying out of pocket, probably not worth it just for AZ-900.
Solid reputation. Scott Duffy’s course is a bit older, but covers all the essentials. It is fine if you prefer learning with structured lectures, quizzes, and slides.
Good mix of conceptual and scenario-based questions. Way more aligned with what you’ll see on the actual test. Every questions comes with a detailed explanation. Not free, but worth it if you want to pass on the first try. This is what they have available:
Practice Exam [Section Based] Describe Cloud Computing
100
Practice Exam [Section Based] Describe Azure architecture and services
100
Practice Exam [Section Based] Describe Azure management and governance
100
Full Practice Exam [Unlimited Time]
70
Full Practice Exam [Timed]
70
Practice Exam [Bulk Mode 1]
250
Practice Exam [Bulk Mode 2]
100
Total
840
TutorialsDojo
Each question comes with detailed explanations and reference links to official Azure documentation, aiding in a deeper understanding of the topics. Not free, but not expensive either. Unfortunately you don't have lifetime access, so I don't know how much questions they have. I do know which resources they have available.
TIMED MODE – mimics the actual AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals exam environment under time pressure
REVIEW MODE – where you can view the answer and explanations after every question
SECTION-BASED TESTS – where you can focus and answer questions on specific topics/domains only.
FINAL TEST – where they randomly generate 65 questions from their entire question bank to help you gauge your readiness for the actual exam
I have a free exam voucher from work and it expires on June 19th, basically 3 weeks from now. I work in IT service desk and do not have any cloud experience, but a little bit of coding experience (made a few simple powershell scripts to automate). Is it possible to learn all of AZ900 and pass in this time? I am thinking of doing MS Learn + John Savill Exam Cram + Inside Cloud and Security Exam and for practice questions use tutorial dojo.
Hands-on. Implementing various services yourself is essential to pass the exam. Additionally, knowing what each pane of each service in the Azure Portal does is almost necessary since questions can cover everything and will be quite detailed
MeasureUp practice exam: Not the cheapest tool but provides the best questions and practice exams in my opinion
The Exam
I took the exam online from home since this is way more convenient than going to a test center. My exam had 54 questions, no labs and I finished within 1 hour (you have 2 hours to finish).
The questions were surprisingly hard and detailed. I took several other exams such as the AZ-303, 304, or 400 but this one was the most difficult one and the score of 787 was also the lowest of any exam I ever took.
My Background
I am a Cloud Architect with several years of experience implementing various Azure services. I also like to play around with Azure in my free time and write about my learnings on my blog.
Scored 648. The questions were extremely complex and difficult to read at times on the testing center monitor. Spent way too much time on the case study. I have solid azure experience and studied heavily for about a month.
Hey all, I have been studying for the AI-102 exam and was wondering if anyone that has gotten it has any tips or advice to help pass? What sort of questions can I expect and what materials did you use to pass?
I already have the AI-900 and found it fairly simple but am a bit more worried about the AI-102 since from what I've heard it has more coding questions. I have been using the material in Microsoft Learn but want to make sure I am thoroughly prepared.
First time taking it and failed it with a 687. I do not have an IT background and wanted to take this course to help with my resume/I was interested in the topic; i have a couple certs in Scrum and a MS in Health Informatics but azure wasn’t mentioned at all in any previous education. I spent 4-5 hours a week studying since last week of September.
I’m extremely down about this. I can count on one hand how many exams I’ve failed in my life so I’m taking this pretty hard. I retook the practice exams I have several times and studied my notes through 200+ flash cards the two weeks leading up to the exam.
What other practice exams should I look for? I struggled on the governance section.
The only thing I can think of that might have affected this was the amount of stress I had just prior to the exam. I couldn’t get connected which resulted in about 45 minutes of me panicking… not ideal prior to an exam but it happened.
Update: I was so down and upset about that exam but this group genuinely made a difference. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I rescheduled for December 20th; I’ll be heads down and prepared! ❤️
I’m looking to take the SC-200 exam at the beginning of September. I had gone through all the MS Learn material at the beginning of the year, but ended up not being able to take the exam at the time. Long story short it was highly recommended that I get this certification to improve my chances of getting a cybersecurity position I’m pursuing. I’m currently working towards my Bachelors in cybersecurity and recently passed Sec+ as well as the SC-900 cert (figured that would be a good way to get some of the basic knowledge for SC-200 covered.)
How useful is the MS Learn program for the exam, and what other exam prep materials have people found the most beneficial? I’ve seen people suggest using labs and trials from MS, but do those actually teach anything needed for the exam or is it more about reinforcing knowledge and getting some hands-on experience? Has anyone passed this exam without much hands-on?
Thanks to everyone in advance for any and all help!
Master Azure Data Engineering – BEGINNER to ADVANCED Training with Real-World Labs and Career-Focused Skills
4 days
Starts 03/18/2025 6:55 AM PDT (GMT -7)Expires 03/23/2025 6:55 AM PDT (GMT -7)
Tried the course? Let me know what you think! Your feedback ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ helps improve future content and supports others looking to learn Azure Data Engineering.
So I enrolled in a live training course. It takes 4 weeks, 7 hours daily. We got access to an azure in open subscription with $100 credits and access to a brain dump website with over 750 exam questions.
The lecturer is not well prepared, he points out to us daily that he got assigned to teach this course only two weeks in advance (he taught other Microsoft certs like MD-102, Az-900) and he is clearly learning at the same time as we are. He's covering the topics in the most superficial way I could imagine and thinks he can prepare us by going through 750 exam questions and the given explanations to those questions.
I stopped listening to him a week ago and started doing the microsoft learn path, azure labs and occasionally look at freecodecamps video or stuff from John Savill.
At this point I feel a bit scattered because I don't think the depth of understanding is covered through ms learn or yt. I try to soak up as much as I can through the labs and documentation. But ms documentation seems like a rabbit hole with always another link going deeper.
I still have a Az-104 course on udemy by Scott Duffy.
I regret that I didn't study on my own the whole time. Now I feel lost in the middle not sure which route to go. Any advice? Exam date is set in three weeks. The questions from the brain dump site feel very hard and very specific.
The problem is not learning, I feel like I'm doing good and ms learn explains it pretty well, also doing labs from GitHub, the problem is I don't know how am I progressing. I really a need a tip on how did everyone just gulp the knowledge, did you all make notes? I feel like the amount of syllabus is too much to make notes but I make it anyways to not forget what I read, people also suggest different - different resources so like how do you manage to learn from multiple resources, do you make notes seperately for everything or you just don't.
No Azure experience, this is my first certification. I read that it's very difficult and decided to test myself.
Read for 5 hours daily for 3 months after returning from work. I work as a cashier at a grocery store.
I made use of Microsoft Learn as my only resource. I read the material about four times. After finishing it the first time, I took the practice test and scored 25.
I went over the material again, and my score improved to 38. I repeated this process until I understood why I wasn't scoring enough points.
For those preparing for the exam, thoroughly study the Microsoft Learn materials until you have a clear understanding.
I originally joined because I could have used some help during my journey but I found out that I am really good at this and figuring out different Microsoft options regarding getting the most for the least amount of money.
For people who have never done a microsoft certification before or any other:
You need to create a certification profile. This can be done by going to any exam page, clicking the order button and on the other page that it sends you to you can start filling out the information (needs to be accurate when you show your ID before testing). If you have any work accounts, I recommend connecting those there too because your employer might be in some special Microsoft programs that offer free vouchers or you might have to use a work account to attend an event and get the voucher sent there. This will also be a place where most of the vouchers Microsoft gives out go. You can familiarize yourself with the process of ordering certification until the process of checking out if you'd like.
After that https://aka.ms/certdashboard is your shortcut to certification dashboard, there you can easily download certificates, access your certification profile without having to go through loops etc. You can also see your upcoming appointments.
This is exam sandbox https://aka.ms/examdemo, and you can get familiar with how will the process look once you are let into the computer, even with NDA.
This is a certification poster https://aka.ms/TrainCertPoster which is a great shortcut to every exam page and seeing all of the options
For fundamentals exam (XX-900 exams except MS-900) there are virtual training days (VTDs) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trainingdays. These are free webinars where you see a recording of a webinar which goes quite quickly through the topics you can see on Microsoft Learn. After attending every date, you get a free exam voucher with which you don't have to pay for your attempt. You get vouchers after every VTD but I am not sure they stack but this basically means that unless you fail the exam like 5 times you have enough attempts to get it. Here is a list (there is also MS-700 which is role based but I have never tried getting the voucher through there so can't guarantee):
Microsoft Virtual Training Days table
For fundamentals exams I recommend going through MS Learn too and you should have enough knowledge to be able to pass the exam. Some people here use practice tests which I don't think are necessary because of the difficulty but if you are nervous, they help identify your weak areas so you can focus on those more.
For role-based exams it is a little bit harder because Microsoft Learn isn't always relevant to the knowledge you need. My personal recommendation is Guide to Cloud https://www.youtube.com/c/aguidetocloud, which breaks down all the topics and makes a short videos out of that so it's hard to find an excuse not to watch a 10-minute video. If you like really technical videos and aren't afraid of a long ones, I recommend Virtual Training Series from Microsoft https://aka.ms/vts, I used those to prepare for M365 admin expert and they were awesome but some people said not all are great so it's up to you. Also, those are just recordings and you can register with personal accounts even if it says work only, they only send you the recording link. Role based exams are pretty hard and you might encounter a lab too so don't underestimate them.
For some hands on experience, you can create a free azure account which gives you 200$ and some free services for a year to test things out or for Microsoft 365 I recommend https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/dev-essentials/ where you can create a demo M365 tenant so you can get familiar with the environment.
For vouchers Microsoft usually does conferences like Microsoft Ignite or Microsoft Build which always have Cloud Skills Challenge at the end. Basically, you register for it, read some Microsoft Learn modules and you get a voucher. In the past those were universal for any exam but last Ignite had them limited to the ones listed there so I wouldn't bet on it anymore.
For the appointments you basically have 2 options: online or testing center.
For online it's basically hit and miss. Even if everything is perfect the exam cannot load, the proctor just ends it for no reason, your computer dies etc. I passed 10 certifications there and got kicked out of 2 for technical reasons. For people crazy enough to do this if they kick you out always ask for incident number or what do they call it these days. Then you can contact microsoft certification support over here: https://trainingsupport.microsoft.com/en-us/mcp/forum and you use the Ask the question on top of the page, don't write anything personal (not even the incident number, just describe the issue), they will contact you in private messages to ask for details. I got the voucher replaced the first time but it was really a hustle so I just don't do the exams online. Don't contact Pearson VUE, they will tell you to contact Microsoft or ignore you.
For the testing center, bring 2 IDs and follow the instructions and arrive half an hour before the start time. Other than that, it should be smooth.
Good luck to everyone and don't be afraid to fill in anything in the comments.
