First to the question I would imagine is on your mind: I scored 96%, which means I missed two questions.

Next to the general advice I would give you: I would definitely suggest using the Study Guide. I would also suggest that you spend some time clicking around the interface and checking out how you configure things. I’m not sure which two questions I got wrong. I can say that some of the questions are a bit challenging; you can eliminate two of the options, but then have to read the question carefully to decide which of the two is the better answer.

I’m not going to go into specifics of the questions. Many other people have already done blog posts on this topic and the Study Guide does an excellent job of letting you know what you need to know.

Here is the email I received from Acquia:

Hello Marc,

You have completed the exam, Acquia Certified Site Builder - Drupal 8 on Fri Mar 29 09:42:17 MST 2019.
Overall Score: 96%
Result: PASS

Topic Level Scoring:
Section 1 - Understanding Drupal: 100%
Section 2 - Working with a Drupal Site : 100%
Section 3 - Content Modeling : 91%
Section 4 - Site Display: 100%
Section 5 - Site Configuration: 85%
Section 6 - Community and Contributed Projects: 100%
Section 7 - Module and Theme management: 100%
Section 8 - Security & Performance: 100%

Congratulations on achieving the credential!

(FYI: Their time stamp was incorrect. I finished it at 10:42:17 Mountain Time.)

Finally, here are my thoughts:

  • I registered for the exam on a Tuesday to take the test on the following Friday. I’m glad that I put it together that tightly because it kept me focused and gave me motivation to make sure I got it done. Perhaps you might prefer to give yourself a bit more time, but I wouldn’t suggest letting it drag on too long. I’d say to make sure you get it all done within one month.
  • I’m glad I studied for the exam. Even though I’ve been doing Drupal since 2010, and particularly since I’ve specialized as a back end developer, there were a lot of little and specific details I would not have recalled had I not taken the time to watch the recommended videos and click around the interface. I would estimate that I spent 7 hours preparing over the course of four days. I feel pretty confident that I could have passed the exam without studying. But, I am equally confident that I would have missed many more questions.
  • The exam was much harder than I thought it would be. There were at least 10 or 12 questions that I had to really consider and that I could have easily gotten wrong. If you want to pass the exam, you’ve got to get 34 questions correct. In other words, you can miss 16 questions. You better make sure that you are not missing the easy questions.
  • You will not pass the test if you don’t truly understand site building. They definitely did a good job creating this assessment.

I do plan to complete the rest of the Drupal exams and to become a Grand Master, ideally within the next few months. You can track my progress in the registry. I hope that I’ve been helpful with the information I’ve shared. I don’t want to scare you too much; I also don’t want to let you approach the test without having properly prepared yourself. If you’ve got experience building sites in Drupal 8 and you put some time in to study, you should do fine. I wish you much success and look forward to hearing about your experience.

Bhavatu sabba mangalam - May all beings be happy