Free study guide · practice exams

Claude certification prep.

A study guide for Anthropic's two Foundations exams for practitioners and builders: Claude Certified Associate and Claude Certified Developer. Each exam has a 75-question practice test in the style of the real exam, which tells you right after each answer whether you got it right and why, plus curated prep materials.

Practice: Associate Practice: Developer Prep materials

Independent prep, not an Anthropic product. The practice questions are original and written for study. They are not real exam questions. The exam facts below come from the version 1.0 exam guides (July 2026), as reported by prep sites. Pearson VUE says updated exam guides arrive on 17 November 2026 and updated exam content goes live on 7 December 2026. Check Anthropic's official guide before you book.

The two exams at a glance

Both exams are delivered by Pearson VUE, online-proctored or at a test centre, in English. Questions are multiple-choice and multiple-response. Certification is offered through the Claude Partner Network, with prep courses in Anthropic's Partner Academy.

CCAO-F

Claude Certified Associate: Foundations

For business and customer-facing people who use Claude every day: consultants, operations, marketing, project managers. No coding needed.

Questions: 60
Time: 120 minutes
Pass mark: 720 / 1000
Price (listed): $99
Valid for: 12 months
Prerequisites: None

AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations
AI Capabilities and Limitations
Claude 101 and Introduction to Claude Cowork

CCDV-F

Claude Certified Developer: Foundations

For engineers building on the Claude API: apps, agents, tools and MCP servers. Python or TypeScript plus REST APIs recommended.

Questions: 53
Time: 120 minutes
Pass mark: 720 / 1000
Price (listed): $125
Valid for: 12 months
Prerequisites: None

Claude Platform 101 and Building with the Claude API
Introduction to MCP and MCP: Advanced Topics
Agent skills, subagents and Claude Code 101

A 4-week study plan

About 30–45 minutes a day. Put most of your time into the domains with the biggest weights.

Week 1: Map the examRead the official exam guide. Take the practice test below cold and note your weakest domains.
Week 2: CoursesWork through the Partner Academy courses listed above, in order. Try each idea in Claude the same day.
Week 3: Hands-onAssociate: build a Claude Project for real work. Developer: build a small tool-using app and an MCP server.
Week 4: DrillTake the full 75-question practice exam under the 120-minute timer. Aim for 85% or more, and read every explanation, including for questions you got right.

Practice exam

Each exam has 75 exam-style scenario questions, spread across the domains in line with the official weights. Choose an exam and a length, pick your answer and press Submit. You'll see straight away whether you were right, and why each option is right or wrong. The pass line shown here is 72%, matching the 720/1000 scaled score as a rough guide.

Prep materials

Hand-picked study material for both exams. Associate Developer Both show which exam each one helps with. Official Anthropic material comes first, and community resources are clearly labelled.

Official: register and exam guides

Start here

Anthropic Partner Academy: certificationsBothOfficial exam guides, the partner-only prep courses and the route to registration.
Pearson VUE: Claude Certification ProgramBothScheduling, online or test-centre delivery, retake and rescheduling rules.

Learning path: Associate (CCAO-F)

Free Anthropic Academy courses, in this order

AI Fluency: Framework & FoundationsHow to work with AI well: delegation, description, discernment and diligence.
AI Capabilities and LimitationsWhat models do well, where they fail, and why output needs checking.
Claude 101Projects, artifacts, connectors, search and everyday Claude features.
Introduction to Claude CoworkHanding Claude longer, multi-step work.
Claude Code 101Skim only: enough to know what it is and when it fits.

Learning path: Developer (CCDV-F)

Free Anthropic Academy courses, in this order

Claude Platform 101The developer platform, models and Console.
Building with the Claude APIMessages, streaming, tool use, caching and more. The biggest exam domain.
Introduction to Model Context ProtocolBuild MCP servers and clients: tools, resources, prompts.
MCP: Advanced TopicsTransports, sampling, roots and production concerns.
Introduction to agent skills · Introduction to subagentsCustomizing and splitting up agent work.
Claude Code in ActionHands-on Claude Code: CLAUDE.md, hooks, permissions.
Claude with Amazon Bedrock · Claude on Google CloudOnly if you deploy on those platforms.

Official docs and guides

The source of truth for exam facts

Prompt engineering overviewBothClarity, examples, XML tags, step-by-step reasoning, long-context tips.
Claude Developer Platform: get startedDeveloperFirst API call, SDKs and the Messages API.
Models overviewBothModel tiers, context windows and choosing a model.
How tool use worksDeveloperThe tool_use and tool_result loop, tool_choice, parallel tools.
Building effective agentsDeveloperWorkflows and agents: chaining, routing, parallelization, orchestrator-workers, evaluator-optimizer.
Effective context engineering for AI agentsDeveloperCompaction, just-in-time retrieval, keeping context high-signal.
Model Context Protocol docsDeveloperThe MCP spec: architecture, primitives, transports.
Claude Code docsDeveloperSee also CLAUDE.md, hooks, permissions, subagents and skills.
What are Projects? · What are artifacts?AssociateHelp-centre articles on two features the Associate exam leans on.

Hands-on tutorials (free)

Anthropic on GitHub

Interactive prompt engineering tutorialBothChapter-by-chapter exercises with answer keys.
Anthropic coursesDeveloperAPI fundamentals, prompt evaluations, real-world prompting and tool use, as notebooks.

Video courses and LinkedIn

Third-party · paid or subscription

LinkedIn Learning: CCDV-F cert prepDeveloperA video course that walks through the Developer exam.
O'Reilly: Associate exam two-hour crash courseAssociateA live event for a fast Associate review.
Follow my “Learn AI in 100 Days” posts on LinkedInBothDaily plain-English lessons. The matching course is on this site (below).

Community study guides and extra practice

Independent · not endorsed by Anthropic · check against the official guide

CLAUDE-CERTIFICATIONS on GitHubBothStudy notes, cheat sheets, flashcards and mock exams for all four exams (MIT licence).
Claude Certification GuideBothExam blueprints with domain weights and mock exams.
Tutorials Dojo: CCDV-F study guide · free practice samplerDeveloperA study guide plus a free set of sample questions.
Cloud Authority: complete prep guideBothAn overview of all four exams and their recommended course order.

From my free course on this site

Learn AI in 100 Days, mapped to the exam domains

Days 23–26: prompting, few-shot, system prompts, JSONBothPrompting and task execution, prompt and context engineering.
Day 22: hallucinations · Day 44: human in the loopAssociateOutput evaluation and validation.
Days 66–76: Claude for buildersDeveloperProjects, the API, tool use, Claude Code, MCP, the Agent SDK, subagents and hooks.
Days 86–96: build your own agentDeveloperSpec, agent loop, tools, RAG, evals, cost, security, deployment.
Day 93: security checklist · Day 98: responsible AIBothGovernance, risk, security and safety.

Sources

Exam names, delivery, retake rules and update dates come from Pearson VUE: Claude Certification Program. Domains, weights, question counts and prices come from Claude Certification Guide (CCAO-F), Claude Certification Guide (CCDV-F) and Cloud Authority's prep guide. Retakes: wait 14 days after a first attempt, 30 after a second and 90 after a third, with up to 4 attempts in 12 months.