These certification guides are fairly outdated. (Some of them were written more than 8 years ago). Look out for official Acquia Certification Study Guides on Acquia website for the latest and greatest.

Posted 9 years 4 months 2 weeks ago.

I had a chance to try the upcoming (Drupal) Acquia Certified Developer - Front end Specialist Certification Exam. Thanks to Acquia Certification Team for allowing me to try it out.

I have been able to clear it with around 83% score. That was way beyond what I was expecting. I expected the exam to focus heavily on advanced CSS and JS and hence was not expecting a good score. But it turned out the exam gives good weightage to Drupal theming and templating and various other concepts in Drupal that gave me a fair chance to score.

The exam evaluates you on the following areas:

  • Fundamental Web Development Concepts

  • Theming Concepts

  • Sub-Theming Concepts

  • Templates

  • Template Functions

  • Layout Configuration

  • Performance

  • Security

The official exam blue print and curriculum is not released by Acquia yet. So I do not have the links here for you. They should be out soon. The exam is scheduled to be released for public on December 1st.

UPDATE: The exam is available to public now. Below are the details:

Exam name: Acquia Certified Developer - Front End Specialist

Exam Duration: 90 minutes

Exam Price: $300

Exam length: 60 questions

Pass/Fail mark: 68%

This exam is available globally as both on-line proctored and on-site at Kryterion test centers.  

Exam Blueprint: https://www.acquia.com/customer-success/learning-services/acquia-certified-developer-front-end-specialist-exam-blueprint

Official Acquia Certification Homepage : https://www.acquia.com/customer-success/learning-services/acquia-certification-program-overview

If you are all set, you can now

But for any of you taking the exam pre-release, or if you are planning to take the exam immediately after the release, here is some information for you that could help you in your preparation before the official study guide comes out.

Fundamental Web Development Concepts

There were questions about CSS, JS, Jquery. Some of the resources that could help:

CSS Selectors:

Positioning:

Javascript and Jquery: (The below ones are too generic. But I would recommend a full refresher of jquery and javascript if you are a backend developer attempting the certification)

Drupal + Javascript:

Drupal + CSS

Responsive Web Design:

Grid Systems:

  • A fair idea of any one of those CSS grid systems would help

HTML 5:

Theming Concepts

You should make yourself thoroughly familiar with all the Theming and Advanced Theming chapters in The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7.

Sub- Theming Concepts

Layout Configuration

Templates

Template Functions:

Performance:

Security:

This notes is very specific to the Front End Specialist Certification. If you are looking for Acquia Certified Developer examination, check out my previous post on Cracking Acquia Drupal Certification.

Drop in your comments below if you have any additional resources that would help in the exam preparation that I have missed above.

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Submitted by tanay on Thu, 11/06/2014 - 19:46