The Alteryx Core exam is a very good way to test your Alteryx skills and also learn some new information that would usually be glossed over. The exam can be registered for here and at the start of the next month you will receive an email with a link that allows you to take the exam at any point in the month, unsupervised and up to three times. It is also free! So it is a really good way to encourage yourself to learn more about the software under not too much pressure and also possibly get yourself a Alteryx certification!
I really enjoyed the process of learning for the Alteryx Core exam and it taught me a lot about tools I use everyday but didn’t realise the full extent of their power. Due to how it gives you the results of the exam it also allows you to see which areas you can still improve on. My weakest spot was the ‘Input’ section, only scoring 40%, so there are clearly a lot of hidden features of the Input tool that I am yet to full understand. Here I will give a few tips on what I found helpful in preparing for the exam and which will hopefully help you too.
Alteryx Core Exam Tips
- Read the Alteryx Core Certification prep guide. It covers all tools which could come up in the exam, gives you a way of self-assessing areas of personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as including a practice exam which gives 5 questions which are structured as they would be in the exam. The Core Prep guide can be found here.
- Don’t be worried to use your first attempt at the exam as a practice run. As you get three attempts over the month it can be very useful to use the first attempt to get a feel for how the exam is and what kind of questions you will be asked. And you never know, you might accidentally pass on your practice go.
- Know that Google and the Alteryx community will be your friend during the exam. The exam is open book, or open computer, so having Google at your fingertips is very useful and knowing the best places to find your answers is very helpful. As the Alteryx Core exam is all about the core tools within Alteryx it is useful to have the tool pages open when you start the exam so you can flick to the information about the tool when needed.
- Have Alteryx open as you do your exam. You won’t actually be required to use Alteryx for any of the questions in the exam, however having it open in the background allows you to use the software to check the use of some tools and other hands-on details.
- Get to know some of the details of the tools beforehand, use the Alteryx tool pages to jot down some notes about the main tools that will come up: Input, Joins, Transpose, Cross Tab and Browse are some of the big ones to that a few notes on before taking the exam.
- Given yourself the full 2 hours of time free to take the exam and don’t rush through. You will learn a lot and have a lot to go through in the exam so make sure you give yourself the full amount of time so you are able to go back through your answers and check any that you struggled with or couldn’t answer.
- Don’t worry if you fail. The exam is free and is designed to be a learning experience as much as it is to be an exam, so use it as a good way to learn some extra bits about the amazing data cleansing software that is Alteryx
I hope some of these tips help with your preparation for the Alteryx Core exam. Best of luck with the exam!