CCA-F Part 1: Exam Overview and How to Study

Part 1 of 7 of Claude Certified Architect — Foundations: a complete self-study tutorial. See all parts.

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The Claude Certified Architect — Foundations (CCA-F) is a proctored, scenario-based exam: 60 multiple-choice questions in 120 minutes, $99 USD, pass at 720 / 1000. Most candidates with hands-on Claude experience need 15–20 hours to prepare; complete newcomers should plan 30–40 hours.

This tutorial covers every domain on the published syllabus, with concrete facts, design patterns, and the kind of trade-offs the exam actually tests. At the end of each domain you will find practice questions that match the format and difficulty of the real exam.

Use the contents to jump around, but for a first read work top to bottom — each domain builds on the one before.

Exam overview

The exam is scenario-driven: four scenarios are drawn randomly from a pool of six (customer support, code generation with Claude Code, multi-agent research, developer productivity, Claude Code in CI/CD, structured data extraction). Each scenario has multiple questions about architectural choices.

Domain weightings

These weightings drive how you should distribute your study time. About half your prep should be on Domains 1 and 2 — they account for almost half the exam between them.

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All parts · Part 2 of 7: Agentic Architecture and Orchestration (27% of the exam) →