AZ-305 No Nonsense Study Guide

Why schedule the exam first?

First thing is to schedule the exam. This may sound simple or even stupid, however the way I approach exams and certifications is by setting the end goal, the exam, first. This way I have a hard and concrete target. I have to be ready by X date, or in this case June 21st 2026. I scheduled this 6 weeks in advance.

This may sound ambitious, however I have already taken and passed the AZ-900 and AZ-104, plus I work in the Cloud every day. Because of this I am quite confident that I can pass the exam, hence why I only planned for 6 weeks. If you need more time that's fine, just schedule the exam! Also, another thing to keep in mind is that if you plan for something to take 4-5 months, things have a tendency to take 4-5 months. I'm not someone who is gonna waste his time second guessing himself and wondering if 6 weeks is enough. It is, because I already scheduled the exam. Now let's move on to how I study for the exam.

How do I set my baseline before studying?

First I find the Microsoft Learn practice exam page for this specific exam. This is the practice exam page: AZ-305 Practice Exam (you are gonna have to log in with your personal account, and if you don't have one, set one up). Then I take the exam, simple ;) Once I am done I save the results in Obsidian (this is a note taking tool that you can install on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android). Just install this, it's fairly simple. I'm gonna assume if you are taking an Expert Level exam you can figure out a simple install...

From there, look at the report from the practice test. What went well? What did not? Honestly, the results are fairly irrelevant at this point. This practice exam was about clarity. These questions center around four pillars: Identity/Governance, Data Storage, Business Continuity, and Infrastructure. You should be designing these solutions. Now how did you do? Focus on just the overall score: did you pass or fail? Whether you did or not is not as important for you as it is for your notes, i.e. Obsidian. Enter in your scores and where you scored on the four pillars. Once you have done this, the next part is where you actually start studying.

What study resources actually work for the AZ-305?

If you have made it this far, now you begin to study. Do not under any circumstances skip the preceding steps. They are your baseline. They are so you don't waste months and months studying for an exam you don't even know if you will pass. However, if you have scheduled the exam and have taken your first practice exam, now you want to study, because now you have to get those scores up.

For me, I use John Savill Tech and his AZ-305 Study Cram. He is an excellent source and you can tell he knows what he is talking about, and that is the most important thing. You will find a ton of people online that have a lot of suggestions, but you can't tell if they have taken the exams themselves or even use Azure. Pro tip: if you can't tell whether someone uses Azure and they are talking about studying for an Azure exam, leave the site and don't go back. It's a crazy hack that will save you a lot of time.

Outside of John and his YouTube channel, I use Pluralsight. Pluralsight's AZ-305 Learning Path is a link to the AZ-305 learning path. You might be wondering why I pay for this. It's simple: it has a decent learning path, but more importantly, Hands-on Labs! While John and Pluralsight are good sources, they mean nothing without the Labs and your own Azure Tenant. Also, you are gonna want to set that up. I'm gonna just assume you know how to do that :) You could use Udemy if you want, but honestly I have been using Pluralsight for years, and while I don't doubt Udemy has some fine instructors that can help you study for this exam, I don't use Udemy. However, if Udemy is more your speed, go for it. Just pick one: Udemy, Pluralsight, or some other source. Just pick one!

How do I actually study day to day?

Remember: Hands-on Labs mean more than watching videos and reading documentation about how other people would do it. Let's be real, if you are trying to get certified as an Azure Solutions Architect Expert and you can't set up something inside the Azure Portal or via the CLI, you have really missed the point of all this. You should not be doing this exam assuming you can just watch some videos or read some docs and pass. If that is the way you are studying, I can't help you. Focus on Labs instead and take practice tests every day. Microsoft Learn has some docs you can use to get started, but use them only for that... to get started. As you read through the documentation, set it up in parallel. Create two tabs, one with Microsoft Learn up and the other with the Azure portal, and set up what it is talking about. Learn what a VM is. Learn what the difference between SQL Server and Azure SQL truly is, not just that one is hosted in Azure and the other can be hosted anywhere.

My recipe is simple: take a practice exam every day, record my results, then open up two tabs, one for Pluralsight on a topic I am struggling with (you will know what you are struggling with by taking a practice exam every day), and then try to build what it is talking about in the Module or in the Test. There are more practice tests out there than Microsoft's. Pluralsight has their own, and while it can be important to switch between them, it's more important to build what they are talking about and understand what the reasoning and trade-offs are. Anyone can talk about High Availability, but not everyone can build it, and the reality is companies that hire Azure Architects or Cloud Engineers want you to know how to build applications and databases that have high availability built into their design.

I'm gonna stop there. This is how I actually study, as someone that works in the Cloud every day and has been doing this for years. If you are just getting started, give this a try, and if you like what I said, check out some of my other posts.