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Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer (Associate Cloud Engineer) practice exam and study path

A free, timed 60-question Associate Cloud Engineer practice exam in 120 minutes, scored by domain, with every option explained after you submit. Also 120 practice questions you can check one at a time, a page for every task in the exam guide, and a study path. No sign-up.

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Associate Cloud Engineer exam pack:

$6.99for 12 months

The hands-on Google Cloud exam: setting up projects, billing and networks, deploying compute, data and network resources, keeping them running and observable, and granting access with IAM and service accounts.

The exam

Exam code
Associate Cloud Engineer
Questions
Not yet published
Time
120 minutes
Passing score
Not published
Exam fee
$125 (USD)
Question types
multiple choice, multiple response

50-60 multiple-choice and multiple-select questions in 2 hours, $125 plus tax, online-proctored or at a test center, in English, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese; no prerequisites, 6+ months of hands-on Google Cloud experience recommended; valid for 3 years. A shorter renewal exam (1 hour, 20 questions, $75) is open to current holders. Google does not publish a passing score. Section weights are the guide's approximate percentages.

From Google Cloud's certification page and exam guide, checked Oct 18, 2026.

Domains and weights

  • Domain 1: Setting up a cloud solution environment

    20%

  • Domain 2: Planning and implementing a cloud solution

    30%

  • Domain 3: Ensuring the successful operation of a cloud solution

    30%

  • Domain 4: Configuring access and security

    20%

Practice

120 original practice questions, every option explained with the Google Cloud documentation page that proves it. Free, no sign-up; progress stays on this device.

Your results on this device →

More practice exams

The lessons, the sample questions on every task page and the first full practice exam are free and stay free. A pack adds the further timed Associate Cloud Engineer practice exams.

Associate Cloud Engineer exam pack

$6.99for 12 months

  • Every paid Associate Cloud Engineer practice exam, timed, with every option explained
  • The next version of this exam included when it changes within your 12 months
  • 12 months of access. One payment, nothing renews by itself.
  • 14-day refund, no conditions
  • 14-day refund, no conditions: ask within 14 days of buying and you get the whole payment back.
  • No pass guarantee. These are practice exams written by us from the exam guide and the Google Cloud documentation; a score here does not predict your result on the real exam.

Study path

One module per exam domain. Lessons that already exist on BytePatterns are linked; the rest are being written.

  1. Module 1: Setting up a cloud solution environment

    1. 1Organization (standalone or domain-based), folders and projects: the resource hierarchyTask 1.1

      Partly covered by: Organizations, SCPs & Control Tower

    2. 2Organization policies and the constraints they enforceTask 1.1

      Partly covered by: Organizations, SCPs & Control Tower

    3. 3Cloud Identity users and groups, and Workforce Identity FederationTask 1.1

      Lesson coming

    4. 4A new project: enabling APIs, first network setup, quotas, regions and zonesTask 1.1

      Lesson coming

    5. 5Cloud Asset Inventory and Gemini Cloud Assist for finding resourcesTask 1.1

      Lesson coming

    6. 6Billing accounts, project links and billing rolesTask 1.2

      Lesson coming

    7. 7Budgets, alerts and billing export to BigQueryTask 1.2

      Lesson coming

  2. Module 2: Planning and implementing a cloud solution

    1. 8Choosing compute: Compute Engine, GKE, Cloud Run, Cloud Run functions, Agent RuntimeTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: ECS vs EKS vs Fargate, Containers vs VMs

    2. 9VMs: machine types, Spot VMs, disks, availability policy, OS Login, VM ManagerTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: AWS Cost Levers

    3. 10Managed instance groups, instance templates and autoscalingTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: EC2, Auto Scaling & Load Balancers, Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling

    4. 11GKE clusters (Autopilot, Standard, regional, private nodes) and deploying a containerized appTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: Pods, ReplicaSets & Deployments, Design a Deployment on Kubernetes

    5. 12Event-driven serverless: Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage events and EventarcTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: Lambda & Event-Driven Design, SQS vs SNS vs EventBridge

    6. 13GPUs or TPUsTask 2.1

      Lesson coming

    7. 14Choosing a database: Cloud SQL, AlloyDB, Spanner, Firestore, Bigtable, BigQuery, MemorystoreTask 2.2

      Partly covered by: RDS vs DynamoDB, SQL vs NoSQL, Database Replication

    8. 15Cloud Storage classes and file storage: Filestore, NetApp Volumes, Managed LustreTask 2.2

      Partly covered by: S3: Consistency, Classes, Lifecycle

    9. 16Streaming and pipelines: Pub/Sub, Managed Service for Apache Kafka, DataflowTask 2.2

      Partly covered by: Message Queues

    10. 17Loading data and keeping it redundant across regionsTask 2.2

      Partly covered by: Moving Data Into AWS, Disaster Recovery: RPO & RTO

    11. 18VPCs, subnets, Shared VPC and VPC Network PeeringTask 2.3

      Partly covered by: VPC: Subnets, NAT & Firewalls

    12. 19VPC firewall rules and Cloud NGFW policies with tags and service accountsTask 2.3

      Partly covered by: VPC: Subnets, NAT & Firewalls

    13. 20Hybrid connectivity: Cloud VPN and Cloud InterconnectTask 2.3

      Partly covered by: Hybrid Networking & DNS

    14. 21Choosing a load balancer and a Network Service TierTask 2.3

      Partly covered by: Load Balancing, EC2, Auto Scaling & Load Balancers

    15. 22Infrastructure as code: Terraform, Infrastructure Manager, Config Connector, Helm, Fabric FASTTask 2.4

      Lesson coming

    16. 23AI-assisted planning: Gemini Cloud Assist, Gemini CLI, Google Antigravity, Application Design CenterTask 2.4

      Lesson coming

  3. Module 3: Ensuring the successful operation of a cloud solution

    1. 24Operating VMs: SSH, snapshots, snapshot schedules and imagesTask 3.1

      Lesson coming

    2. 25Operating GKE: node pools, Artifact Registry access, workloadsTask 3.1

      Partly covered by: Scheduling & Rolling Updates, Services & Ingress, Storage: PV, PVC & StatefulSet

    3. 26Pod autoscaling and Autopilot resource requestsTask 3.1

      Partly covered by: Requests, Limits & HPA

    4. 27Cloud Run revisions, traffic splitting and autoscalingTask 3.1

      Lesson coming

    5. 28Accelerators, agents on Agent Runtime, Agent Platform Workbench notebooks and Cloud WorkstationsTask 3.1

      Lesson coming

    6. 29Cloud Storage access, lifecycle rules and storage costTask 3.2

      Partly covered by: S3: Consistency, Classes, Lifecycle

    7. 30Querying, backing up and restoring databases; Database CenterTask 3.2

      Partly covered by: Disaster Recovery: RPO & RTO

    8. 31Customer-managed encryption keysTask 3.2

      Partly covered by: KMS, Envelope Encryption & Private CA

    9. 32Subnet expansion, static IP addresses and custom routesTask 3.3

      Lesson coming

    10. 33Cloud DNS and Cloud NATTask 3.3

      Partly covered by: Hybrid Networking & DNS

    11. 34Alerting policies, user-defined metrics and Ops AgentTask 3.4

      Partly covered by: CloudWatch, Alarms & X-Ray, Observability Basics

    12. 35Audit logs, flow logs, log sinks, log buckets and Observability AnalyticsTask 3.4

      Partly covered by: Observability Basics

    13. 36Diagnosing an application: Cloud Trace, Cloud Profiler, Query InsightsTask 3.4

      Partly covered by: Tracing a Request

    14. 37Personalized Service Health, Managed Service for Prometheus, Gemini Cloud Assist, Active Assist and Cloud HubTask 3.4

      Lesson coming

  4. Module 4: Configuring access and security

    1. 38Allow policies, role bindings and inheritance down the hierarchyTask 4.1

      Partly covered by: Shared Responsibility & IAM

    2. 39Basic, predefined and custom rolesTask 4.1

      Partly covered by: Shared Responsibility & IAM

    3. 40Service accounts: creating, attaching and granting least privilegeTask 4.2

      Partly covered by: Shared Responsibility & IAM

    4. 41Impersonation and short-lived service account credentialsTask 4.2

      Lesson coming

    5. 42Workload Identity Federation for GKE and for external workloadsTask 4.2

      Lesson coming

Every task in the exam guide

The exam guide splits each domain into task statements. Each one has a page with a short summary, the lessons that teach it and open sample questions.

Domain 1: Setting up a cloud solution environment

Domain 2: Planning and implementing a cloud solution

Domain 3: Ensuring the successful operation of a cloud solution

Domain 4: Configuring access and security

How these questions are made

  • Written by us from the exam guide's task statements and the Google Cloud documentation — never from real exam content.
  • Every option carries its own explanation and a link to the Google Cloud page that proves it.
  • A question enters a timed exam only after an independent check; until then it is a practice question.
  • Results are a plain percentage, per domain too — not an imitation of Google Cloud's scaled score.

Questions about the Associate Cloud Engineer practice exam

Is the Associate Cloud Engineer practice exam free?
Yes. The full practice exam (60 questions, 120 minutes) is free with no sign-up, and so are the 120 practice questions, the task pages and the study path. Your attempts are saved in this browser, on this device.
How many questions does it have, and is it timed?
60 questions in 120 minutes: the real Associate Cloud Engineer pace, scaled to this form. When the time runs out, the exam is submitted as it stands.
Are the answers explained?
After you submit, not during: like the real exam, the timed exam gives no feedback until the end. Then you get your score overall and per exam domain, and every question with each option explained and a link to the Google Cloud documentation page behind it. In practice mode an answer is explained as soon as you check it.
What does the Associate Cloud Engineer exam pack add?
3 more timed practice exams (Practice exam 1: 60 questions, 120 minutes; Practice exam 2: 60 questions, 120 minutes; Practice exam 3: 60 questions, 120 minutes), each scored and explained the same way, and the next version of this exam if it changes within your 12 months. 12 months of access. One payment, nothing renews by itself. Everything above stays free. See the pack.
Can I get a refund?
Yes, with no conditions: ask within 14 days of buying and you get the whole payment back. The details are in the terms.
Is this an official Google Cloud practice exam?
No. BytePatterns is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Google Cloud. Every question is written by us from the public exam guide and the Google Cloud documentation, never from real exam content, and a score here does not predict your result on the real exam. Google Cloud lists its own preparation resources on its certification page.