I successfully completed the Google ACE test on 03/22.
My Background:
20 years in IT, 2 years in Cloud.
I finished getting the first 5 AWS certs about a year ago.
Preparation for Google ACE in order:
Coursera: 6 course specialization Architecting with Google Cloud Platform, completed 6 months ago.
ACG: Kubernetes Deep Dive
Hands On: 6 months working with GCP and Terraform for my day job.
In the last 3 weeks…
- ACG: Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer course and Exam Simulator. Thanks Mattias! I held off taking the test until all your course material was published 😉
– Udemy: 3 random courses I grabbed on sale. I found the test question:answers to be low quality in grammar, clarity, and accuracy, so I won’t mention them by name, But they do hit the topics. So I use these as a way to force myself to read all the real documentation when I see something that just doesn’t sound right or isn’t clear.
- LinuxAcademy: ACE practice test only. I threw this in the day before the test after reading another ACG post mentioning that it was useful, and it was. I got an 80% first try, but that other 20% was new.
Test Experience:
Difficulty was on par with AWS SysOps.
Lots of questions on App Engine, Kubernetes, gcloud cli, and best practices as Mattias mentioned.
Read the questions carefully for the ultimate objective and it will be easier to determine the answer.
Over 50% of the test I answered by process of elimination identifying the wrong answers.
Some of the questions appeared like none of the provided answers were the most efficient solution, but if you focus on the ultimate objective it helps to figure out the best answer provided.
Next ’19:
Google Professional Cloud Architect: I’m going to Google Next ’19 in two weeks and figured I’d take a crack at that test while I’m still in study mode. Wish me luck!
3 Answers
Well Done !
and Good Luck !
Thank you for the excellent write up. the feedback is appreciated.
Rusty
Moderator & Coach
Nice! 🙌 Super job, on both the certification (congratulations! 🎉 ) and this write-up, Majek! 👍 All of what you’ve written will be useful to other students–and I think some people will be especially helped by your tips on breaking down questions–so I’ve now added this post to my exam report mega-thread. 🙂
I will also be at Next 19, so I hope we can catch up while we’re there! And then hopefully I can congratulate you on the PCA cert you would have just gotten, too. 😁 Don’t forget to go through the PCA reports in the mega-thread, as you prepare! 🙂
Keep Being Awesome, Cloud Guru!
Mattias
I passed the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect test yesterday at the conference!
Preparation I did in the past two weeks:
Udemy: a few more random courses I grabbed on sale. And again the question:answers are low quality in grammar, clarity, and accuracy, so I won’t mention them by name, but they do hit the topics. So I use these as a way to force myself to read all the real documentation when I see something that just doesn’t sound right or isn’t clear.
LinuxAcademy: just hit the quizzes and tests.
Coursera: Preparing for the Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect Exam. Good review of the case studies on the test along with some sample questions and use case scenarios and how the test is designed for architects with experience, which I found to be useful and true.
Test Experience:
Difficulty: Not too much harder then the ACE exam, there is overlap on the topics, so it was the right decision for me to hit this test shortly after the ACE while the material was still fresh in my head. I definitely used knowledge, experience and best practices I’ve picked up over the years of designing and setting up HA/fault-tolerant IT services to answer some of these questions, so others with less years of experience may find this test a lot harder.
Lots of case-study and scenario based questions on when to use App Engine, Kubernetes, BigQuery, BigTable, etc… lots of best practices questions, and a few questions on non-google open source software which surprised me.
Read the questions carefully for the ultimate objective and it will be easier to determine the answer.
Again Over 50% of the test I answered by process of elimination identifying the wrong answers first.
Thanks again for the ACG course. I think it provides the most solid foundational information that is focused on material covered in both the Associates and Architect certs.
Maybe next year I’ll shoot for the Google security or network cert, time to take a break from studying for now.
When can we start uploading our Google certs to our ACG profiles ? 😉
Well Done. & Soon, I checked a few days ago and it is high on the Dev backlog 🙂
Congrats, Majek! 🎉 And thanks for writing up your experience for this exam, too! 👍
check this udemy link for real PCA practice set – https://cutt.ly/Ry1JZYy