I know I'm late to the party 🎉 I had some unexpected things 'pop up' as they do this past fortnight but determined to push through. I thought I'd share what the real Claude Certified Architect - Foundations exam was like 💡 A few things surprised me. Sharing in case it helps anyone still preparing. 1. It was harder than the practice exams. The free practice sites are a good start, but they're unofficial. On the real exam, every wrong answer sounded believable. You can't spot the right one by elimination; you need to understand why it's right. 2. There were no "pick two" questions. Every question had one answer. Don't stress about that format. 3. Lots of questions are about choosing the best approach. For example: which setup fits this situation, when to plan first versus just do it, and which Claude Code setting to use for which job. Knowing what things are isn't enough. You need to know when to use each one. What helped me most: - Building real things with Claude, so the ideas made sense in practice - Keeping a list of every practice question I got wrong and going back over them - Practising with questions worded in new ways, so I learnt the idea, not the answer - Taking about two minutes per question and never leaving one blank The ideas that came up again and again: - If a rule must never be broken, enforce it with code (hooks), not instructions - When Claude picks the wrong tool, fix the tool description first - Give each agent only the tools it needs - Helper agents only know what you tell them, so pass everything in - A schema checks the shape of an answer, not whether it's correct - Message Batches are cheap but slow, so only use them when nobody is waiting Good luck, everyone. You've got this! 💪

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Wow... What an adrenaline rush! My challenge was time management. Less than 20 minutes left to review my flagged questions. The questions were so verbose! The http://claudestudycards.com/ and the intensive sessions with @Anita Ortiz were priceless! Thank you Anita and @Alice Bazdikian for all the training sessions!

Took it this morning and passed! For anyone still waiting on the Euler invite, I never got mine either. What worked was logging in directly at https://anthropic-partners.skilljar.com with the shiftsmartai email, going to Certifications, and buying the exam there ($125). Pearson sent the scheduling email right after and I booked it on OnVUE. One tip if you're taking it online: run the OnVUE system test ahead of time. Mine kept failing until I force-closed Edge running in the background. What helped me most for studying was the official exam guide and the sample questions in it. A lot of the answers come down to picking the simplest fix that actually enforces the behaviour, rather than the most elaborate one. Big thanks to @Alice Bazdikian and @Anita Ortiz for all the support! 🥳 Good luck to everyone booking next week :)