How hard is the AZ-900 exam?
AZ-900 (Microsoft Azure Fundamentals) is an easy exam by certification standards: it is entry level, needs no hands-on experience, and one to four weeks of study is typical preparation. It is not a free pass, though. The exam mixes question formats, some sections cannot be revisited, and it expects you to tell apart Azure services and options that sound alike — storage redundancy levels, management tools and identity services in particular.
Where AZ-900 learners lose marks
This is how SaveMyCert learners do on our AZ-900 practice questions, domain by domain, on the first try. Across 372 first answers to AZ-900 practice questions on SaveMyCert, learners chose the right answer 66% of the time. The lowest-scoring domain is Describe Azure management and governance, at 60%.
| Exam domain | Exam weight | Answers | Right first time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Describe cloud concepts | 28% | 176 | 72% |
| 2. Describe Azure architecture and services | 38% | 87 | 63% |
| 3. Describe Azure management and governance | 34% | 109 | 60% |
How this is measured: each question counts once per practice session, on the first answer. These are SaveMyCert learners part-way through preparing, answering our original questions, so treat the figures as a guide to which domains trip people up — not as a pass rate. The real exam does not score a raw percentage, so none of these figures is the pass mark.
What makes AZ-900 approachable
AZ-900 tests cloud concepts, the main Azure services and how Azure is managed and governed. It asks what services are for, not how to deploy them, and Microsoft publishes both the skills outline and a free Microsoft Learn path that covers it. Someone who has used any cloud platform will recognise most of the concepts.
What catches people out
The usual reasons for a disappointing AZ-900 result are:
- Question formats. Besides standard multiple choice, expect statement series answered Yes or No, drag-and-drop matching and select-from-a-list items. Once you leave a Yes/No series you cannot return to it.
- Look-alike options. Locally redundant, zone-redundant, geo-redundant and geo-zone-redundant storage differ in one detail each; so do management groups, subscriptions and resource groups, and Azure Policy versus role-based access control versus resource locks.
- Cost and governance tools. Knowing which tool estimates cost before you deploy and which tracks spending after is a classic source of wrong answers.
How long it takes to prepare
People with IT or other-cloud experience are often ready in one to two weeks. Complete beginners should allow three to four weeks, because the general cloud vocabulary (elasticity, high availability, IaaS versus PaaS versus SaaS) is new as well as the Azure service names.
The AZ-900 study plan guide linked below turns that into a weekly schedule.
Who finds it hardest
Non-technical candidates — sales, project and business staff, who are a large share of AZ-900 takers — find the networking and identity material hardest. AWS-experienced engineers find the concepts easy but need to relearn names and the Azure hierarchy of management groups, subscriptions and resource groups.
How to tell you are ready
Make sure you can explain the difference within each look-alike group without notes, then take timed practice that includes Yes/No statement series. If you pass mixed practice consistently and the wrong answers you still make are slips rather than gaps, book the exam.
Plan your prep
Questions, answered
Source
Exam facts in this guide come from the vendor's published exam guide. Vendors revise these — check the source for the current version before you book.
- Microsoft AZ-900 study guide — Microsoft Learn