Claude Certification Blog
A two-week CCDV-F study plan, allocated by published weight
Fourteen days against the published CCDV-F blueprint: one cold diagnostic, eleven study days allocated by real weight rather than by interest, and two fresh mocks with a decision at the end.
A two-week CCDV-F study plan that follows the blueprint rather than your interests: day one is a cold timed mock, days two to twelve are eleven study days allocated in proportion to the published domain weights, and days twelve to fourteen are two fresh papers and a go or no-go decision. Three of the eleven study days go to a single domain, because that domain is a third of the exam.
The shape of the fortnight
One diagnostic, eleven study days, two mocks and a decision. The diagnostic is not optional and it goes first: a cold score by domain is the only evidence that tells you which of the days below you can shorten, and spending one of fourteen days to save two or three is a good trade.
The two mocks are deliberately at the end and deliberately fresh. A paper you have already seen measures recall of that paper. If you have only three unseen mocks, this plan uses all three and keeps none in reserve — the reserve is worth less than the measurement.
Why three days go to one domain
Applications and Integration is 33.1% of CCDV-F, roughly 17 of 53 items, and larger than the next two domains combined. Eleven study days split by published weight comes out at 3.6 for it, 1.8 for model selection, 1.6 for agents, 1.2 each for prompting and tools, 0.9 for security and 0.3 each for the two smallest — which rounds to the plan below. The full breakdown is in the post on that domain.
The contrast worth holding is the architect foundations plan, whose blueprint is flat enough that weighting produces a near-even fortnight.
The uncomfortable part is what that leaves. Claude Code is 3.1% and eval and debugging is 2.6% — three items between them, and a shared day at the end. They are the most enjoyable material on the paper to study and they are worth about a twentieth of it.
The day-by-day plan
| Day | Focus | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cold diagnostic | One timed mock before any study, scored by domain |
| 2 | Applications: design | Instruction and content boundaries, schemas, sessions |
| 3 | Applications: engineering | REST and JSON, async work, review, refactoring |
| 4 | Applications: API and config | Messages, tools, streaming, stop reasons, pinning |
| 5 | Model selection: fundamentals | Tokens, window, sampling, non-determinism, SDKs |
| 6 | Model selection: trade-offs | Capability against latency and cost; caching |
| 7 | Agents: architecture | Whether autonomy is warranted, and who supervises |
| 8 | Agents: construction | The SDK against your own loop; hooks as enforcement |
| 9 | Prompt and context | One failure, one technique; what compaction drops |
| 10 | Tools and MCPs | Descriptions, boundaries, errors, packaging a way of working |
| 11 | Security, Claude Code, eval | Trust boundaries, plus the two smallest domains |
| 12 | Mock two, then repair | Fresh paper, then rework only what it exposed |
| 13 | Mock three | Fresh paper again; compare the error patterns, not the scores |
| 14 | Final read and the gate | Decision rules only, and the go / no-go call |
If a day has to go, cut from the bottom
Day 11 covers three domains worth 13.8% together, and day 8 is the second of two on agents. Those are the two that survive being cut. The three applications days are not negotiable, and neither is the diagnostic — cutting the measurement to save time is how a plan stops being a plan.
Planning at skill level
This is the one track where a study plan can go a layer deeper than domains, because CCDV-F publishes weights for all 25 of its skills. That is what days two to four are doing: not three days of “applications”, but application design at 8.6%, then software engineering foundations at 7.4%, then API mechanics at 6.8% and configuration management at 4.1% — in descending order of what they are actually worth.
The same instrument is worth using inside the model-selection days, where it produces a surprise: the skill the domain is named after is its smallest, at 2.7%, while technical fundamentals is 6.1%. Details in the model selection post, and the full weight table for every track in the domain weights post.
What one study day looks like
Ninety minutes, in three unequal parts. Twenty on reading the objective and its skills, and writing each one down as a decision rule in your own words — a trigger and a response, not a summary. Fifty on practice items in that domain only, answering closed-book. Twenty on the misses, naming which rule would have caught each one.
A miss that maps to no rule you have written is the useful result, because it means there is a rule you have not found yet. That repair loop matters more than the reading, and the twelve recurring decision rules are a reasonable starting library to write against.
The gate on day 14
The honest version of a readiness call, and it needs stating carefully: no guide publishes a raw-to-scaled conversion for the 720 standard, so nobody can tell you what percentage guarantees a pass. What a plan can give you is a conservative convention rather than a derived threshold.
Two fresh timed papers at or above 90% overall, with no domain below 80% and no repeated miss of the same decision rule, is the bar this plan uses. Below that, the fortnight has told you something useful rather than failed — it has named the domains that need a second pass. What the scaled score does and does not mean is in the passing score post, and if the answer is not yet, the repair route is in the study guide.
Key takeaways
- Diagnostic first, on day one. A cold score by domain is what tells you which days you can shorten.
- Three of eleven days on one domain. Applications and Integration is 33.1%, so 27% of the study time still under-serves it.
- Allocate at skill level. CCDV-F is the only track publishing all 25 skill weights; use them inside the big domains.
- The interesting domains are the smallest. Claude Code and eval are three items between them and share one day.
- Both mocks fresh, both at the end. A paper you have seen measures recall of that paper, not readiness.
- The gate is a convention, not a threshold. No guide publishes how raw performance becomes a scaled 720.
The plan is only as good as the diagnostic it starts with
Every allocation here is an average across candidates, and day one exists to replace it with your own numbers. A cold timed paper before any revision usually moves at least two of these days. Full-length mocks built to the published 53-item allocation are free while the platform is in open beta.
Start with a cold diagnosticQuestions
Frequently asked
The follow-up questions people search next.
Can you prepare for CCDV-F in two weeks?
If you already build with Claude, two weeks of about ninety minutes a day is a realistic run: eleven study days, two fresh mocks and a cold diagnostic. If you are starting from no hands-on experience, the plan still works as a structure but the days will not be ninety minutes.
Why does one domain get three of the eleven days?
Because Applications and Integration is 33.1% of the paper — about 17 of 53 items, more than the next two domains combined. Three days out of eleven is 27%, which slightly under-serves it rather than over-serving it.
What should the first day be?
A full timed mock before any revision. A cold score is the only thing that tells you which of these days you can shorten, and it costs one of your fourteen to save several.
How is this different from the associate plan?
CCDV-F is the only track that publishes weights at skill level as well as domain level, so this plan allocates inside the biggest domain rather than treating it as one block — application design first, then engineering foundations, then API mechanics, in descending order of published weight.
What if I only have one week?
Keep the diagnostic, keep both mocks, and cut from the bottom: the security, Claude Code and eval day covers 13.8% between three domains, and the second agents day is the next to go. Do not cut the three applications days — that is where the paper is decided.
Keep reading
Related posts
Not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Anthropic or Pearson VUE. Details are summarised from publicly published program information and can change — always confirm against the official exam guide before booking.