What AWS CCP Actually Tests

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) is an entry-level exam. It's broad but shallow — you need to know a lot of services at a surface level, not a few services deeply.

What It Tests

Cloud Concepts

Benefits of cloud computing (agility, elasticity, cost savings)
Cloud deployment models (public, private, hybrid)
AWS Well-Architected Framework pillars

Security and Compliance (one of the largest sections)

Shared responsibility model (this WILL be on the exam)
IAM: users, groups, roles, policies
AWS security services: GuardDuty, Inspector, WAF, Shield
Compliance programs: HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC

Cloud Technology and Services (the largest section)

Compute: EC2, Lambda, ECS, Fargate
Storage: S3, EBS, EFS, Glacier
Database: RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, Redshift
Networking: VPC, CloudFront, Route 53, Direct Connect
You don't need to configure any of these — just know what each one does

Billing, Pricing, and Support (the smallest section)

Pricing models: on-demand, reserved, spot, savings plans
AWS Free Tier
Cost management: Cost Explorer, Budgets, Cost and Usage Report
Support plans: Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise

What It Does NOT Test

How to write code or scripts
How to configure services in the console
Deep networking (subnets, NACLs, route tables)
Architectural design patterns
Anything hands-on

The Passing Bar

AWS uses a scaled score. The exact passing mark and domain weightings are set by AWS and change with each exam version — confirm current details on the [AWS Cloud Practitioner exam page](https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-cloud-practitioner/). Most people who fail do so because they under-studied security and compliance or confused service names.