How I Passed The Microsoft Azure AZ-104 Certification Exam in 2022

Two weeks ago I passed the Microsoft Azure AZ-104 Exam.

In this post, I want to share with you the exact resources that I used so that you can also pass it on your first try.

About the Azure AZ-104 Exam

The exam is 66 questions and you have 120 minutes to complete it.

For my specific test, the first 4 items were case studies and those consisted of multiple questions for each. Heads up, these will fluster you up-front. Question 1 was the hardest case study for me and you may feel doomed from the outset. Take a deep breath and push forward. These took me a while and I ultimately ended up finishing the exam with only 5 minutes left (largely because these took me longer than expected).

At the end of the case study section of the exam, you will be able to go back and review and make changes to these, but once you continue past this section, you cannot revisit it.

The rest of the exam consisted largely of multiple choice. Again, you can flag questions and come back to them, but only in this section of the exam.

Exact Resources You Need to Pass

Work through the entirety of at least one Azure AZ-104 course.

I went through Scott Duffy’s Udemy course which was very helpful. Be sure to do all the labs while you work through the course. This gives you hands-on experience which is crucial.

I also worked through the official free course at Microsoft Learn and that was very helpful, especially the hands-on exercises they provide.

This is the key to passing any cloud certification. You may know a lot about Azure, but you need to feel confident in knowing what kinds of questions they will ask, what details they will try to trip you up on, and minute features in Azure that you may not have given much consideration to.

In my opinion, the practice exams teach you just as much as the courses themselves, especially given the solutions they provide to each question if you take the time to review them.

The Whizlabs practice exams are where you should get started. Work through three or four of these until you get at least a passing score.

Next, and here is the secret sauce to the whole process, move on to the practice exams by Edvantster Education on Udemy (Update: This was too good to be true I guess and Udemy seems to have removed this course). I CANNOT speak highly enough of these exams. They mimic almost EXACTLY the types of questions on the actual exam. I would say 95% of them. And when I mean mimic, I mean almost word for word. Of course, the answer will be tweaked on the actual exam, but I would directly attribute taking these practice exams to my high score. They are hard and to be honest, I actually did not pass ANY of them. I came close, but no cigar. It was the detailed solutions that provided the benefits.

Update: These have since been pulled from Udemy. I talked with the owner and he still has no clue why. He has moved these onto his own site called Crackcerts

The day before your exam, watch these videos on YouTube by Eydiea. These are golden! They serve as a last minute cram session. These concise videos walk you through a large percentage of the tricky questions you will see on the exam. It’s an invaluable resource to fill your mind with the day prior.

Exam Day

Take your exam as early as possible. Do no studying. Let your head be completely clear.

The practice exams burned me out prior and it took me a few days to clear my head again. You’ll need a clear head for the exam.

Don’t rush through the case studies. As you finish that section and move on to the multiple-choice, which is the bulk of the exam, keep an eye on the clock. If you have 40 questions left and 45 minutes left, try not to spend more than a minute on each question. Pace yourself accordingly.

Regarding flagging questions to be answered later, don’t leave ANY questions unanswered. If you have to flag it, take your best guess anyways before moving on. The reason I say this is because if you get to the last question and have a minute left in the exam, you won’t have time to go back and fill in those flagged questions, and because you didn’t answer them, you’ll get them wrong. Thus, be sure to put your best guess in case you don’t have time to revisit. If you do have time, then you can consider your answer again.

Conclusion

Take the Course(s) I mentioned above, the Practice Tests (especially the Edvanster tests on Udemy), and finally watch the series of YouTube Videos the day before.

This is my recipe for success. Proceed to your exam with a clear head, pace yourself, and you’ll do well.

Let me know how it goes below.