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Google Associate Cloud Engineer Certification Exam Guide: Tips, Resources and much more!

Google Associate Cloud Engineer Certification Exam Guide: Tips, Resources and much more!

Learn how I aced ACE and you can too.

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Sanket Borade
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12 min read

Table of contents

Introduction

It’s been an interesting journey. With a bit of mixed feelings.

I passed the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer Exam on July 14, 2024, and I wanted to share some insights from my experience. I'm writing this article to document my journey for anyone preparing for this exam.

The views expressed in this article are my personal take on the exam, the prerequisites for passing, recourses, and the online proctoring process. I'll go into these topics in detail, but to start, I must say that my experience was a bit challenging.

My Background

Before talking about the exam, I believe it’s essential to share my background. It’s important for everyone to understand what I mean when I use terms like “easy,” “hard,” or “challenging.” What might be challenging for me could be a piece of cake for you, as your background plays a significant role in such exams.

I’ve been learning about cloud computing for 3+ years and have worked on cloud projects managing cloud infrastructure in Azure and AWS, so I’m familiar with the concepts and offerings of cloud platforms. I have used the cloud in my internship and personal projects, but I never had the chance to work with them professionally on a full-time opportunity. I am 4 times Azure certified, which means I have a bit of experience working with cloud technologies and also with taking certification exams.

If you have other cloud experiences, such as Azure or AWS, it is easy to translate the knowledge over to Google Cloud.

It does, however, need to be supplemented with experience (lab or real life) and reading. I started preparing for this exam immediately after I graduated while waiting for my joining as SDE.

Why I Certify?

  1. This might simply be nuance, but I suggest not focusing on the certification for the sake of the certification, but on LEARNING.

  2. They provide a STRUCTURED PATH for beginners to start with.

  3. You don't need certifications, but they can help attract recruiters and hiring managers, and may be a deciding factor if two candidates are equally qualified. In increasing order of value:
    Certificates <<< Certification <<< Projects <<< Certification + Projects <<< Work Experience

Why am I aiming for Google Cloud ACE?

My cloud experience relies mostly on Azure and slightly on AWS. What motivated me was to invest time in learning GCP. And what better way is there to learn something than by following the official structured certification path? It was just pure curiosity and the will to know more. I'm not looking for a career change or a new job and I won't get a promotion for this. I just wanted to have an alternative view compared mainly to my Azure and AWS experience.

My preparation:

I began my preparation by reviewing the recommended materials. I watched video lectures, completed labs, read documentation, solved practice questions, and followed all other suggested resources. Essentially, I followed the guidelines on the official certification page for Associate Cloud Engineer.

I did this over the course of a month for 8 to 10 hours daily.

Everything was going smoothly, and I felt confident that I was on the right track for the certification. This is really good.

Two weeks before my planned test date, I started taking the practice test, and that's when reality hit. I was far from ready, scoring only about 50-60% on the questions.

I’m so screwed.

Or at least, that’s what I thought at the moment at first.

First of all, I'm not a big fan of exams. Back in school, I always felt anxious during tests. When I graduated from college, I was so relieved, thinking I'd never have to take another test again. Well, clearly, that's not how things turned out!

At this point, I decided that if I wanted to pass the test, I needed to pivot on how to approach my preparation. So I reviewed the practice tests, and fortunately, unlike the actual test, I could see the questions, answers, and explanations. That's when I realized it wasn't that I didn't know the answers. Some of the questions seemed designed to confuse and mislead the test takers.

Another thought came to mind.

I noticed I wasn't having much trouble with the concept and scenario questions. It was the command line questions that were difficult for me. These are things you usually look up in help files or documentation. The next thing I did was, basically, study for as many practice exams as possible. I've been hunting high and low for practice tests. I found some pretty good practice tests.

Once I was done with each practice test, I used too reviewed all the questions, not just the ones I got wrong but also the ones I got right. I looked at why the other answers were incorrect. After a few tries, I got used to the question style and felt more comfortable, scoring higher each time. Whenever I still didn't feel right, I used to go back to my lecture notes, flowcharts and review the material repeatedly.

The Exam Day

First question. Okay, I have no idea what the answer is. I read the question over and over, looked at the choices, and picked what I thought was right. Second question. Nope, still no clue.

But without access to my GCP console and command line, I had to guess the answers. This happened for 2–3 more questions, making me doubt my chances of passing the test.

Then somehow, things got better. I'm not sure if they put the harder questions at the start, but after that, it went more smoothly. Everything started to make sense. Some answers were unclear, but I used elimination and felt confident I got most of them right. At least, that's what I thought. I finished the test not feeling great.

The time limit was two hours. I finished all 50 questions in 45 minutes. In the end, there's an option to review the questions. I checked the number of unanswered questions. Zero. I reviewed all the questions again and done!

Result

Result: Pass. But also, ‘Your exam result must be confirmed by Google before being considered final.’ Are you serious? That’s... good, right? Should I start celebrating? Is there any chance the result will change? What’s going on here?

I checked the Google Cloud sub-Reddit to see if test results are ever overturned. People said Google only overturns results if there's cheating, like using multiple accounts or impersonating someone. No one mentioned their result being overturned.

This was my first GCP certification exam, so I waited for an email from Google before celebrating.

And finally, I got the official confirmation in 48 hours from Credly.

And another email from Google after 2 days.

I was happy... I think? I was glad, but maybe not? Honestly, it's really hard to describe how I felt at that moment.

Tips for preparation

Before starting preparation...

Before starting preparation, make sure you tick off these things:

  1. Go through ACE Exam Structure:

    • Length: 2 hours

    • Registration fee: $125 (plus tax where applicable)

    • Exam format: 50–60 multiple choice and multiple select questions

    • Learn more at ACE Exam Official Details Page

  2. Read and fully understand the Official Exam Guide:

    • This should be your go to place. Make sure the study material you are following covers all topics given in the Official Exam Guide.

  3. Get Free trial account that would give $300

    • There is no better experience than the Handson Experience. Get a free trial and start building on Google Cloud.

  4. “There are a lot of ways to do a task, but everyone prefers the best way.”

    • Each Google Cloud service and product has its own best practices and specific use cases. Make sure to understand these thoroughly. You can expect several questions about Google’s best practices in the exam.

  5. Set a target:

    • If you’re truly committed to taking the exam, book your slot as soon as possible. Doing so will help you study more efficiently and avoid procrastination.

How to prepare at the start of your learning journey:

  • Take notes to remember key points.

  • Do hands-on practice to make answering questions easier.

  • Use networking groups (Reddit, Slack, Discord) for advice from others who have passed.

  • Understand cost optimization to choose the most cost-efficient solutions.

  • Build a list of online cheat sheets and useful articles.

  • Practice commands thoroughly.

  • Use Google Cloud Platform to build something for real-world experience.

  • Experiment with the GCP Pricing Calculator.

How to study 1-2 week before the exam

  • Take the Associate Cloud Engineer practice exam one or two weeks before the certification exam to assess your knowledge.

  • Review topics you're unsure about before the exam.

  • Revise GCP services using the Google Cloud Cheat Sheet and your notes.

Resources I used [FREE]:

Like every other certification exam preparation, Google Cloud ACE Exam Preparation can also be categorized into 3 parts:

  1. Learning Phase:
    Tutorials, Official Documentations, Flow charts, Command sheets, and Short Notes

  2. Implementation (Hands-on) Phase:
    Google Cloud Boost Labs, Projects

  3. Testing (Practice Questions) Phase:
    Official Practice Tests and Online Practice Tests

1. Learning Phase:

1.1. Tutorials:

1.2. Official Documentation

1.3. Flowcharts

1.4. Commands Sheet

1.5. Short Notes

2. Implementing (Hands-on)

3. Testing (Practice Questions):

These question are NOT actual exam questions. These are just for practicing and understanding your strong and weak areas during preparation.

I used all of these free resources to prepare for the exam.

Learn from the community!

Joining a few of these communities and groups greatly helped me in my preparation. Connecting with experienced folks, learning from them, and getting my doubts resolved quickly fastened my learning journey.

Important Topics:

These are some of the topics I think are highly important, and one should definitely have a good grasp on them.

  • Learn the gcloud command for the exam, which includes using services and gcloud commands with arguments/flags like kubectl for Kubernetes, bq for BigQuery, and cbt for BigTable.

    https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/cheatsheet#understanding_commands

  • IAM (identity, roles, policy, Service Accounts, Custom Roles, Principle of Least Privilege)

  • Copying roles between projects

  • BigQuery IAM roles, AppEngine IAM roles

  • Managing billing, cost estimation, and pricing calculator

  • Cost-effective practices and Google recommendations

  • Types of load balancers (TCP, UDP, HTTP/S, SSL-Proxy, Network LB)

  • Networking and Security (VPCs, subnets, firewalls, Cloud Armor, Identity-Aware Proxy, service accounts)

  • Types of disks (persistent disk, SSD)

  • App Engine (standard, flexible, versions, traffic splitting) & Cloud Run

  • Deployment manager and marketplace

  • Logging, Monitoring, Debugging, and Tracing

  • Serverless and Cloud Functions

  • Auto-healing, health checks for VMs, and SSH keys

  • Types of databases (Cloud SQL, Spanner, BigTable, Firestore, BigQuery)

  • Google Kubernetes Engine (node pools, pods, deployments, replica sets, services)

  • Dataflow, Dataproc, Data Studio, Pub/Sub

How to start the exam

  • Your surroundings will be inspected. It should be free from clutter or any incriminating materials. It’s you, your computer, and the remote proctor who has access to your webcam and microphone. They can see and hear you for all 2 hours of the exam.

  1. Ten minutes prior to the exam time, log in into your Webassessor account

  2. Go to assessment page.

  3. Install the latest secure browser, then run and install the program.

  4. Create your Biometric Profile.

  5. Take pictures of your room by following the instructions on the screen.

  6. Wait for the proctor to manually scan your room and identity card with full name.

  7. Voila! You can start your exam.

Read this blog for detailed process: Link

Note: During the exam, you get no water breaks, no toilet breaks, you can’t stand up, and you can’t move from the camera's view.

How to attempt questions

  • Read entire question once/twice

  • Review it carefully since a single word can make the difference

  • Identify the key parts of the question and understand specific requirements

  • Eliminate answers that are wrong or in conflict with the question

  • Choose the cheapest and most secure option

  • If you are not able to solve the question, flag it for going back to again, This practice will save you from overthinking and losing valuable time.

Submitting the Exam

  • Before submitting the test, make sure you review all the selected options once again.

  • There might be a scenario where two options are really close to each other, both of which may seem correct. In that case, read the question 2-3 times to find out what differentiates the two options and select the appropriate one.

After the Exam

  • Passed or failed results will be displayed after the survey.

  • When you take the exam remotely, Google Cloud might take up to 10 days to confirm your final result. They likely review the video to ensure no cheating occurred. (I received mine within 48 hours.)

Conclusion

My knowledge has increased a lot, and I’m more comfortable with GCP projects now. This certificate is just a stepping stone, so I’m not stopping here.

I’m already preparing for the Professional Cloud Architect Certification. This will test my ability to design and plan cloud solutions, giving me a deeper understanding from a business perspective, which I’m very interested in. I’m excited to prepare for this one.

I expect my preparation to take longer, but I hope to take the exam by the end of this year.

Let’s see how it goes.

I hope you find this post useful. Feel free to share your questions, comments, and feedback. Keep growing!

P.S. Don’t hesitate to click on upvote and follow button :-)

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