Yeayyy!!! I cleared my Alteryx Design Core Certification exam today with a score of 95 %. I literally jumped from my seat the instant I saw my result. It is not an exaggeration. Well, to be honest, even though the exam is free, it is actually very challenging. There are plenty of tricky questions and you would want to be fully prepared to efficiently handle those.

I am here to share some of the things I did to crack this exam. If you are sitting for Alteryx Design Core Certification Exam, hopefully these tips and tricks might help you too.

First things first! If you want to sit for this certification, you would require an account on Alteryx community (A). If you don’t have it, create one. The certification exam is 2 hours long. There are 80 multiple choice questions out of which 7 will be practical application questions i.e. you would require to create a workflow to deduce the answer. You need to score at least 80 % to pass the certification exam.

Preparation is very crucial to clear the exam. Dah!! That’s no brainer. You need to familiarise yourself with Alteryx Designer. Learn about the tools, their functions and their configurations. Acquaint yourself with weekly challenges in the Alteryx community. Try taking those challenges (especially beginner and intermediate level). Go through the Alteryx Designer Core certification Exam prep guide. They have very well documented all the tools you need to be familiar with, what to expect in the exam and weekly challenges you can take to help you prepare for the practical application aspect of the exam. If you need more information or resources, I highly suggest checking this blog by fellow data schooler Alisha Dhillon. You can check it out here: (B)

I understand it could get really overwhelming. Good news is, it’s an open book exam meaning you can google or use Alteryx Designer app to answer.

With basics sorted, lets dive into the tips and tricks you can use during the exam.

1. Stay calm and focused: Yes, sitting for exam is really stressful. But that stress can really take away your focus. Relax, take a deep breath before starting exam. Keep a water bottle close by. And remember, it is more than an exam. It is a learning process. I know I have learned a lot from the whole process.
2. Read the questions carefully: The question have been drafted to check your grasp on the functionality of Alteryx Designer app. Pay close attention to the details in the question. Remember slight changes in tool configurations can have very different results.
3. Keep an eye on time: 120 minutes to solve 80 questions isn’t a lot. You get approx. 1 to 1.5 minutes per question for 1 mark multiple choice questions and about 5 minutes per question for 3 marks practical application based questions. So, don’t spend too long on one question as you might not be able to go through all questions on time.
4. Flag and proceed: If you stumble on a difficult question and realise you are spending a lot of time on this question, flag it and move on to next question. You can always come back on flagged and unanswered questions.
5. Google and Alteryx: It’s an open book exam so take advantage of it. You will easily get the answer to some of the questions by simply googling them. You can also use alteryx. Text input tool is your best friend. For some of the questions, you will be able to easily replicate the configurations in your workflow and get to correct answer. I would highly suggest to create a small dataset with different data types (i.e. Date, string, int, double, etc.) prior to exam. It is very easy to create and will save you alot time during exam. Lastly, don’t forget the power of “method of elimination”.
6. Breakdown practical application questions: I found that the best approach for me to handle practical questions was to break them into smaller segments and solve them segment by segment.
7. Check “see all questions” before submitting: If you have some time left, I suggest going through “see all questions” link. It will give you a list of question numbers and whether you have answered them or not. It also highlights the flagged questions. You can go back to flagged and unanswered questions and work on those questions.
8. Answer all questions: If there is a question you don’t know the answer to or are running out of time, just answer it anyways. Unanswered question will not fetch you anything but if your guessed answered is correct, you earned yourself full mark for that question.

Lastly, give the exam even if you think you are just 80% prepared. You get the sense of whole process. It is essential to understand the learning behind the process. And don’t worry if you don’t pass. You get a breakdown of your result indicating the areas you need to more focus on. You can sit for the exam again in 7 days. So, relax and learn.

All the best. You got it!!!