A Complete Guide for anyone attempting to clearing the Terraform Exam
بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
Firstly, what on earth is Terraform?
HashiCorp Terraform is Infrastructure as a code tool that lets you define both cloud and on-premise resources in human-readable configuration files that you can version, reuse, and share. It is a very sought out for certificate in the Cloud/ DevOps space and really gives you a good understanding of the key concepts both theoretically as well as practically.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) has become very popular and makes operations easier than ever. With IaC, engineers are able to write, plan and deploy infrastructure in minutes if not seconds.
About the Exam
Are there any pre-requisites?
As far as the exam, there are no pre-requisites, however those who pass tend to have focused a number of hours using resources working directly in labs and courses that are widely accessible (I'll mention what materials I found useful). It is very useful to have at least some fundamental knowledge of a cloud provider e.g. AWS, Azure etc. Some scripting commands are also useful in navigating through the terminal. I’ll list a few common commands below (if you prefer using Linux like me).
$ cdcd (change directory): To change to your home directory, type the following: cd
$ lsls (list): ls is a command to list computer files
$ mkdirmkdir (make directory): allows users to create or make new directories
note: these 3 commands are not sufficient enough to navigate through the terminal but only list them as examples.
Structure of the exam
The exam is 57 questions and gives you 60 minutes to answer. It costs $70 (£84 inc VAT if you’re from the UK). Multiple Choice, Multiple answers, True or false questions, text-based questions like fill in the banks. You get the exam results instantly with a thorough breakdown of the areas of strength + weakness.
The exam board is PSI, which was a very interesting experience. The proctor instructs you to record the entire room (from the ceiling to the floor & a 360 around workspace) as well as the back of the ears + wrists which adds a bit of unnecessary pressure, so be ready for that. Nonetheless once the exam begins it is pretty straight forward from that point until the end although PSI give you the option to complete a survey on your experience before displaying your results which I thought was mandatory part of the exam (I must have been nervous).
My personal experience
I began my terraform exam studies a little under a week before sitting the exam but had been exposed to the tool working on miniscule projects before. In preparation for the exam I watched videos from a course that I had bought from Udemy as well as hands on labs, my selected provider of choice was AWS as is always (personal preference).
The resources I found that came in handy were
- Zeal Vora’s: HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate 2022
- Bryan Krausen’s: HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate Practice Exam 2022
- OFFICIAL Study Guide — Terraform Associate Certification
Zeal Vora’s course is 11.5 hours and gives a high level over-view of IaC with some interesting labs. I completed his course 5 days averaging 2 and a half hours a day. With his useful explanation and analogies I felt comfortable.
But what I felt solidified my knowledge for the exam was Bryan Krausen’s practice exams. 5 practice exams, timed and almost identical to the real exam. My personal strategy with any practice paper I use is to take a first time attempt at each paper just to test myself on what level I’m at starting. Once I’d complete each paper I’d go over the wrong questions and thoroughly read through where I go wrong. Bryan does a great job at supplying the link to the official terraform document (which came in VERY handy). A visual representation of my strategy below.
Bonus advice:
After a few days of sitting Bryan Krausen’s practice exams. I felt VERY confident… I booked the exam. I completed the entire paper in 28 minutes and unfortunately fell short by 2%. Where I had 32 minutes to go over any unsure points and check any flagged questions. Its safe to say I learnt my lesson: be patient and not hasty.
After the helpful breakdown HashiCorp sent via mail after the exam. I knew where and what area’s I didn’t do great in. I went back to Bryan’s exams and focused on those particular areas in his practice exams. He has a very handy option to group all of the questions from a particular area and I did that with all 5 exams.
I booked the exam the very same day I failed and scheduled it 4 days later and was able to clear the exam with a comfortable 82%.
Additional bonus: the shiny new badge
An important lesson I took home from this experience is to be patient and this is a pointer I can apply in all aspects not just in my studies/ exams. I hope you found this read beneficial and you could maybe even learn from my mistake.
Nonetheless, the ultimate achievement was the thorough understanding of the new tool that I can now say I am confident in.
What’s next for me?
I’m currently working on Terraform on AWS with SRE & IaC DevOps | Real-World 20 Demos on Udemy. solidifying my knowledge on the new tool. I continue to upskill and increase my knowledge base.
If you enjoyed this read check out my other articles.
If you are in the space/ have any questions or are just simply interested in DevOps or Cloud be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you!
