One engineer's personal, exam-day account of passing the Claude Certified Architect – Foundations (CCA-F) exam — how he prepped, where he scored highest, and what to expect on test day.
I passed the Claude Certified Architect – Foundations exam (CCA-F) on June 1, 2026, with a scaled score of 908 out of 1,000 — 54 of 60 questions correct. I knew I was prepared, but I was still anxious when given the warning that a failure meant six months before I could test again. I'm sharing my experience because I would have appreciated reading about other people's before I took the exam.
Just a quick heads-up before I dive in: my colleague James Capparell already put together a fantastic study plan and anti-patterns guide. It's a great resource, and I don't want to repeat everything he said. Instead, think of this as a companion piece—one engineer's personal take on the exam day and how to get through it.
We use Claude every day at Cloud Life, for many parts of our work. Architecture reviews, documentation drafts, quick research, and more and more of the agentic and Claude Code work that goes into what we build for clients. Joining the Anthropic Partner program, and refining our skills felt like a great next step. I went first so I could tell everyone else what to expect.
The test itself is 60 scenario-based questions that you have 120 minutes to finish via the Anthropic Academy. You need a score of 720 to pass. It isn't really about memorizing trivia; it's much more about figuring out the best architectural design for a specific use case. Registration is currently gated for partners (there's a free window sometimes), but standard fees usually apply for everyone else. These access rules seem to change quite a bit, so definitely double-check the official page before you sign up.
I spent about three to four weeks studying, fitting it in whenever I had a gap in my work. I started with the free Anthropic Academy courses—they're actually really well done and worth finishing. After that, I spent most of my time on practice exams. I cycled through the official questions and a third-party set (the Udemy / Tutorials Dojo course) until I was consistently hitting 85–90%. One big tip: while the official practice questions are good for getting a feel for the exam, they aren't totally comprehensive. Having that third-party set really helped me prepare for scenarios that didn't show up in the official materials.
If you want a running start, the same free study tool our team built for this exam — 48 rapid-recall flashcards and 13 exam-style scenarios across all five domains — is available right here: open the study tool →.
My score breakdown really showed that the exam rewards actual hands-on experience over just reading docs:
It's no coincidence that the two domains where I scored the highest—Tool Design & MCP and Claude Code Workflows—are the things I'm doing every day. The exam is designed to reward people who have actually done the work. I didn't even have to revise much for those sections because they've become second nature. On the flip side, my weakest area was Prompt Engineering & Structured Output. I still passed that domain, but my lower score definitely reflects the fact that I don't spend as much time on those specific tasks.
The proctoring is pretty simple. They take a scan of your face and your screen and webcam will be recorded. It was a little uncomfortable for me, when I had to take off my glasses for the face scan, and couldn't read any further instructions. My biggest piece of advice is: don't rush it. That six-month lockout for a failure is no joke. I wouldn't recommend hitting "go" until you're comfortably clearing 90% on your practice tests. Good luck!
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