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Exam guide

Claude Certified Architect — Professional

Seven domains at production depth. Integration is the heaviest at 19%, and items test design judgement under competing constraints.

63questions on the real exam
7domains
720scaled score to pass
380practice items here

What the exam covers

CCAR-P reports on a scaled range of 100–1000 with a cut at 720, and its questions are distributed across 7 domains by published weight rather than evenly. Those weights are the single most useful thing in the exam guide: they tell you where the marks are, and they rarely match where candidates spend their time.

DomainShare of examApprox. questions
Domain 1 — Solution Design and Architecture 17.0% 11
Domain 2 — Claude Models, Prompting, and Context Engineering 13.0% 8
Domain 3 — Integration 19.0% 12
Domain 4 — Evaluation, Testing, and Optimization 16.0% 10
Domain 5 — Governance, Safety, and Risk Management 14.0% 9
Domain 6 — Stakeholder Communication and Lifecycle Management 14.0% 9
Domain 7 — Developer Productivity and Operational Enablement 7.0% 4

See all 20 objectives and their individual weights →

Integration is the heaviest at 19.0% — roughly 12 of the 63 questions. Weakness there costs more than weakness anywhere else, which is exactly what a flat percentage score hides and what a blueprint-weighted estimate surfaces.

Where to start

Three objectives carry the most weight on CCAR-P. Between them they are worth roughly 12 of the 63 questions:

Which is not the same list as the objectives that feel hardest, and that gap is where study time usually goes missing. A week spent on the topic that worries you most is a week spent on 6% of the exam at best, and often on far less.

How we practice it

Our CCAR-P bank holds 380 original items across 20 objectives, each with an explanation and a note on every option — why the right answer is right, and why each distractor fails. Items are written against the published objectives. None is recalled or reproduced from a live exam.

A drill allocates questions by the published domain weights, multiplied by how far your measured mastery sits below standard. So a domain worth 19% of the exam that you are weak in dominates your next sitting, while one you have already mastered drops back to an exposure floor that keeps its estimate current.

What a question looks like

Taken from the free CCAR-P set, not written for this page — the correct answer, why it is correct, and a note on why each other option fails. Scenarios, not recall: nothing here is answerable from a definition.

CCAR-P Managing the context budget

Which context content should be evicted first when a long-running agent approaches its limit?

  • A The system prompt, which has already shaped everything that was done so far
  • The system prompt governs behavior throughout and is the worst thing to drop.

  • B The current task description, which the agent has been working from
  • The current task is what the agent is working on.

  • C The most recent exchange, since it is the least embedded in the work
  • Recent exchanges are the immediate working state.

  • D Raw tool output whose conclusions have already been drawn and recorded
  • Correct. The value has already been extracted, so the raw form is redundant.

Raw output that has already been reduced to a conclusion is the cheapest thing to lose: the value has been extracted. The system prompt, the current task and recent exchanges are all load-bearing for what happens next.

See all 20 free CCAR-P questions →

What you get for free

A 20-item diagnostic for CCAR-P, spread across objectives rather than taken off the top, so the sample reflects the shape of the exam. It produces a first readiness estimate and full explanations, whether or not you go on to buy.

See sample CCAR-P questions

The other Claude certification exams

All four report on the same 100–1000 scale with the same 720 cut, so a readiness estimate means the same thing whichever you are sitting. What differs is shape: