Skills assessment FAQ for learners

How does the Skills Assessment work?

The Skills Assessment is an evolving assessment that helps establish a baseline for your knowledge and any skill gaps. At the beginning of the Skills Assessment, you choose your skill level along with your specialities. The Skills Assessment then begins assessing your knowledge in comparison to the baseline skill level and speciality you chose. The questions become more or less difficult, depending on whether you answered them correctly or incorrectly. Your Skills Assessment will generate once we have sufficient data.

Can I pause the Skills Assessment?

We want to simulate as much of an exam experience as possible.
We want to gather the most accurate data.

Make sure to set aside enough time to take the Skills Assessment without interruption.

What if I don’t complete the assessment in the allotted time?

If you’ve reached the time limit, a screen will appear indicating that the assessment has run out of time. But not to worry. The questions you have answered will still help us in determining your skill set.

Why isn’t there feedback for my Skills Assessment progress?

The number of questions you get varies depending on your answers. The Skills Assessment is constantly changing as you take the assessment so we aren't able to determine ahead of time how many questions you’ll end up answering.

Can I see if my questions were right or wrong?

This Skills Assessment is used to identify the courses you should start with. What you missed will be covered in the courses recommended to you. Once in a course, you can also take practice exams to identify your knowledge gaps.

Can I retake the Skills Assessment?

While the Skills Assessment can only be taken once, our practice exams can be taken as many times as you want. (Though we don’t recommend taking a practice exam more than a couple hundred times).

Can I access my results later?

If you intend to share or keep the results, we recommend printing or taking a screenshot of them, since they can't be accessed later. We are working on adding this functionality.

Are the results tied to my A Cloud Guru account?

The Skills Assessment results do not currently tie to your A Cloud Guru account.

Is the Skills Assessment just for AWS skills?

No, the Skills Assessment supports both AWS and Azure.

What does each “Level” relate to?

The following table outlines the broad characteristics of each student level. These levels are used in the design and production of our course curriculums and learning paths to ensure content is taught at an appropriate level.

Level:	Students at this level:
Novice	Understand fundamental Cloud Computing concepts and ideas.
Apprentice	Navigate the appropriate vendor GUI. Have a basic understanding of security and core Cloud services.
Practitioner	Have hands-on experience building Cloud solutions. Have a practical understanding of security. Have exposure to more advanced topics such as containers and serverless. Can often analyze and evaluate different architectural options.
Professional	Have a thorough understanding of, and experience in, building scalable infrastructure and applications. Use infrastructure as code and can effectively evaluate and reason with regard to architecture and technological options. Understand the trade-offs between various solutions.
Guru	Have an advanced understanding of Cloud Computing. Demonstrate expert knowledge of security, networking, DevOps and infrastructure. Have the ability to propose new and innovative solutions. Have a strong understanding of architecture, trade-offs, cost, and people considerations.

I’ve got my results, now what?

The following table shows suggested starting points based on your assessed skill level:

Discipline	Learning path	Assessed Level	Starting point
Architecture	AWS Architect	Novice	AWS Certification Preparation Guide
	AWS Architect	Apprentice	Rethinking Architecture in the Age of Truly Commoditized Compute \| James Simmons
	AWS Architect	Practitioner	#109 - Your Very Own API
	AWS Architect	Professional	Kubernetes Deep Dive
	AWS Architect	Guru	-
Data	AWS Data	Novice	AWS Certification Preparation Guide
	AWS Data	Apprentice	AWS Certified Developer - Associate
	AWS Data	Practitioner	Building Resilient Serverless Systems with "Non-Serverless" Components \| Jeremy Daly
	AWS Data	Professional	AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional
	AWS Data	Guru	-
Developer	AWS Developer	Novice	AWS Certification Preparation Guide
	AWS Developer	Apprentice	Introduction to Git
	AWS Developer	Practitioner	AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
	AWS Developer	Professional	S3 Masterclass
	AWS Developer	Guru	-
DevOps	AWS DevOps	Novice	AWS Certification Preparation Guide
	AWS DevOps	Apprentice	Mastering the AWS Well-Architected Framework
	AWS DevOps	Practitioner	AWS Certified Security - Specialty
	AWS DevOps	Professional	Kubernetes Deep Dive
	AWS DevOps	Guru	-
Security	AWS Security	Novice	Introduction to CLI
	AWS Security	Apprentice	Introduction to AWS CloudFormation
	AWS Security	Practitioner	#109 AWS Systems Manager Session Manager
	AWS Security	Professional	AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional
	AWS Security	Guru	-

Question left unanswered? Contact our Support team and we’ll be happy to help! If you're an admin who would like help understanding skills assessments, check out the Skills Assessments FAQ for admins.

If you need help, please contact Pluralsight Support.