How to prepare for Microsoft Role-Based Exams

Tip

Use Navigating Microsoft Certification Study Materials to compare resource types, then open the exam study-material collections for links specific to your exam.

Caution

Role-based exams test practical skills, not just course memorization. They can be very difficult without real hands-on experience with the products.

Who are these exams aimed for?

Role-based exams cover three certification levels:

• Associate — Best for working professionals who want to validate product skills, with a focus on deeper technical knowledge and practical implementation.
• Expert — Best for experienced cloud professionals and architects, with a focus on technical and architectural depth across services, SKUs, and design decisions.
• Specialty — Best for professionals specializing in a specific Microsoft product area, with a focus on deep product-specific knowledge and how that product fits into the cloud ecosystem.

Where do I start

Study Guide

Tip

https://aka.ms/examcode-studyguide (for example: https://aka.ms/az104-studyguide)

The Study Guide is the only document that actually outlines what is on the exam. It is the source of truth for what is on the exam and it should be a core part of your preparation journey. Always reference it so you stay focused on relevant exam topics and avoid getting sidetracked.

Study Time

Average study time for role-based exams is 60-80 hours. Microsoft’s recommendation is 140-160 hours.

How to prepare

Caution

As mentioned already, Microsoft created these exams to test your proficiency with the product(s) and outside of having that experience and ability to use the products, the exams aren’t meant to be prepared for by design.

What does this mean?

It means that if you don’t have hands-on experience with the products, you will have a very hard time passing the exam. You can read all the Microsoft Learn courses and watch all the videos, take all the practice tests, but if you don’t have practical experience with the products, you might still fail.

What should you do?

In a perfect world, avoid these exams until you have gained the experience needed to pass them naturally.

Unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world and sometimes you need to take the exam before you have the experience necessary to pass it as intended by Microsoft.

Should I consider taking a fundamental exam first?

If you are new to Microsoft products or cloud technologies, it might be beneficial to start with a fundamental exam. See How to prepare for Microsoft Fundamentals Exams for the recommended preparation path.

Fundamental exams are designed to provide a broad overview and foundational knowledge, which can make the role-based exams more approachable.

You also get more familiar with the Microsoft test taking process, wording of their exam questions (which a lot of test takers find confusing) and the exam studying process. So while there is not that much overlap between the fundamental and role-based exams, taking a fundamental exam first can decrease the disadvantage of taking a role-based exam without the experience Microsoft intended you to have.

So how do I prepare?

1. Read the Study Guide to understand what is on the exam.
   • You will notice that each bullet point is a specific task you need to be able to perform in the product or piece of theoretic expertise/understanding you need to demonstrate.
2. Read the Microsoft Learn course for that exam, or use the study-material guide and collection for your exam to choose an alternative.
3. This should allow you to gain a basic understanding of the products and concepts.
4. Now the fun part begins. You need to get hands-on experience with the products:
   • If you don’t have access to the products, you can use free trials or sandbox environments.
     • We have created lab guidance for exam preparation on this page: How to lab
   • Go through the Study Guide (again) and for each bullet point, try to perform/learn the task in the product.
   • While doing so, reference the Microsoft Learn product documentation (DIFFERENT from the Microsoft Learn course) to gain deeper understanding of the product and how it works.
   • Not sure what a button does? Find it in the documentation.
   • Not sure how X affects Y? Documentation.
   • Since you get access to Microsoft Learn during your exam, being able to navigate Microsoft Learn to find the information you need is extremely beneficial. You will never know everything about the product, but if you can find the information you need in Microsoft Learn, you will be able to answer the question regardless.