Tips and helpful resources for passing the Azure AI Fundamental Certification (AI-900)

After working on the amazing Azure Platform for nearly 4 years (as DevOps and later as an SRE ), I finally decided to take my first Azure Certification exam, the Azure AI Fundamental (AI-900). In this article, I want to articulate my motivations to complete the exam, the resources I used in my preparation for the exam, a brief overview of the exam setting, mention links to the notes I jotted down while preparing for the exam, the revision strategy, and materials I used before the exam. And also elaborate on how you can also take this exam for free and gain the certification.

Table of Contents:-

1. The Motivation
2. Pre-requisites for the exam
3. Subscribing for the exam:
4. Resources for Preparation
5. Exam Setting
6. Revision Strategy

1. The Motivation:-

Following are the motivations for me to prepare and crack this exam:

1. Learn AI in the cloud as there is a high chance that all workloads are going to be moved to Cloud.
2. Get to know better the Azure Cognitive and its associated ML services better and how well they work Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
3. Expand my data skills to the cloud (pun intended)
4. Also as a data science student understand the AI services provided by Azure to build projects quicker without reinventing the wheel. For me the exploration of these ML services on Azure has caused great delight as I can now move my recurring workload to Azure.

2. Pre-Requisite:-

There is no prerequisite for the exam mentioned but I would highly recommend completing the Azure Fundamental AZ-900 course/certification so you have the fundamental understanding of Microsoft Azure, navigating the azure portal, and other important bricks that make the Cloud Provider.

3. Subscribing for the exam:-

1. You can schedule the exam by paying a fee of $99 in the USA (and it changes as per country)
   
   — — — — — — — — — — — — — OR — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
2. You can attend the Microsoft Virtual Training day event and attend all the modules to get a 100 % discount coupon for the exam.
   The Microsoft virtual event can be attended for FREE. You can search for VIRTUAL: Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Day: AI Fundamentals and register for it here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trainingdays
   Once you register and attend the event, you will receive the discount coupon in your mail, which will let you take the exam for 100 % FREE.

4. Resources for Preparation:-

The best resource is the official training documentation and the free virtual training day which was mentioned above. If you are studying with these, you won’t need any other additional resources.

But I did find this online course quite helpful to refresh the hands-on part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwZHNH8EfSU

Make sure that you go through the official documentation during your prepration for the following 2 important reasons:

1. The latest syllabus and skills required for the exam are reflected.

2. The capabilities of Azure ML Change over time
ex:- The maximum size of the image now Azure accepts is 50 MB (changed from 40MB in past)

5. Exam Setting:-

1. The exam will be proctored.
2. You will be allowed into the exam only 15 mins prior to starting your exam. (Keep your phone handy when you enter the room)
3. Once you are let in you have to take a:-
   a. photo of yourself
   b. photo of your ID
   c. photo of the 4 walls around your table
4. You can have your mobile phone in the room you take the exam it just needs to be more than arms distance from you.
5. The exam will be for 60 mins and you will have 45–50 questions to answer. You will have an ample amount of time to complete and revisit the questions, so chill !!!

6. Revision Strategy:-

The exam is a test of your knowledge about the working of various Machine Learning and Deep Learning services offered by Microsoft Azure. So remembering and being able to map the right service to the right task will be a great advantage for the exam. With that, you definitely will need to know the fundamental definitions and terminology of Machine Learning.

My notes cover most of the topics here and can be used for revision:-

Notion-AI-900-Notes

Following is a sample table for quick reference one can use during preparation.
Note:- Make sure that you create your own notes on the azure services since cloud services are updated frequently and new services can be introduced.

I also followed this medium post which has 200+ questions related to the AI-900 exams → 200-AI-900-Questions.

If you are overwhelmed by these many questions during your revision, I have a list of questions that I found to be most interesting and tricky. Here are my notion notes:- VDK-AI-900-Revision-Questions you can access them.

I feel this shortlist of questions should enable you to revise and prepare well for the exam.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — THANK YOU — — — — — — — — — — — —

I wish you all the best, trust me it will be worth learning about Azure ML services and ML Designer Studio and finally also passing this exam for your future.

I hope you had a fun time reading the article as I equally had while writing it. Please leave a like in case the content was helpful for you. You can reach me and talk with me on the following platform in case you have any questions or (mention your questions down in the comments below).

Linkedin:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/virajdatt-kohir/
Twitter:- https://twitter.com/kvirajdatt
GitHub:- https://github.com/Virajdatt
GoodReads:- https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/114768501-virajdatt-kohir