During the past months, I realized that by far most visitors of my blog search for ways to pass the TOGAF exams. For this, I decided to review and republish the most popular post once again. Therefore, let’s get started:
How Does the TOGAF Exam Look Like?
There are two levels that you can take: Level 1 “foundation” and level 2 “certified”. According to TOGAF, most people do both levels and I also strongly recommend this, as I personally perceive level 2 to be much easier. The levels can be either taken separately or as a “combined” exam. If you are not yet certified in any previous TOGAF version or level, I also recommend taking the combined exam. All options are described here by TOGAF.
Level 1 consists of 40 multiple-choice questions from which one is correct and there are no negative points for wrong answers. The passing grade is 55%, which corresponds to 22 correct answers. You have 60 minutes for this part. Level 1 questions would typically require knowing specific lists, overviews, illustrations, or terms from the TOGAF Standard. If you pass, will depend on whether you learned the content by heart and whether you did a sufficient amount of realistic test questions upfront.
Level 2 consists of 8 complex multiple-choice answers, from which the best answer is worth 5 points, the second-best is worth 3 points, the third-best answer is worth 1 point, and the worst answer is worth 0 points. For this part, you need at least 60% to pass, which corresponds to 24 out of 40 points and you have 90 minutes for this part. Level 2 questions are very different from level 1 questions. A typical question is half a page long and has answers that fill another half a page or more with text. Most of the content is just there to distract you. Typically, it should be enough to just apply common sense to the questions and choose the answer that sounds most sophisticated. If you have practical experience with enterprise architecture projects, you should not have any problems in passing – even without studying explicitly for level 2! To ensure that you pass, I have provided some additional tips on level 2.
How Should I Study?
The first question that you should answer is: How many hours per day can I study? I decided to take the exam at the end of my holidays, so I planned for about 8 hours per day for 7 days, which makes a total of 56 hours of study time. If you have 2 hours from Monday to Friday and then 4 hours on Saturday and Sunday (i.e. 18 hours per week), you might therefore need about 3-4 weeks before you should attempt the exam.
I recommend three phases for your study plan:
1) Get familiar with the TOGAF study guide or other summarizing material that you think is useful. I do not recommend going through the full TOGAF Standard (600+ pages) at this point in time. The study guide is sold by TOGAF for 59.90$, but I found it quite useful as the content is well summarized on about 300 pages. In addition, it includes some first-hand test questions for both levels. If you take a TOGAF training course, these documents might also be included in the price. When you read through the content, do one or two test exams, for example on this website to get a feeling for the level of detail that is required. Afterward, read again through your study material.
2) In the second phase, you should go through all possible test questions that you can find on the Internet. However, you should also sense whether the questions are realistic or not. There are some websites that state to provide real test questions, but their questions are actually too difficult. I found this website extremely helpful when going through phase 2.
3) In phase 3, you should do all real test exams that you have available. You can get those from sources such as:
– TOGAF Study Pack
– Simply Learn
– Test Questions purchased from the TOGAF website (the packs cost 0.99$ and are quite worth the price)
The most important in this phase is the analysis of your test results. Therefore, go through every wrong answer in detail. Write down the topic and look up the chapter in the detailed TOGAF Standard. This is necessary because the Study Guide answers 80-90% of all questions, but some questions can indeed not be answered with the information provided in the study summary. I made “cheat sheets” for every topic that I still got wrong at this point. I you feel confident with 90% of the questions behind the links in this article, you are more than prepared for passing the exam.
Should I Take a TOGAF Training Course?
Whether or not to purchase study materials depends on whether you take a training course. Whether or not to take a training course should depend on your personal preference for studying (How good are you at self-studying?) and your previous experiences with TOGAF. If you are new to the world of TOGAF, you are bad at motivating yourself, or if you just feel that you need a kick-start to your studies, you should take a TOGAF training course. If you do so, check whether you can get a sponsor, as course fees roughly amount to 2,000$ +/- 300$ for a 4-days training.
I Want to Study TOGAF for Free
If you do not want to invest money into a TOGAF course or expensive books, I can warmly recommend the following:
1) You can get a free 30-days trial of Kindle Unlimited on Amazon.de (You might need to change the language setting, but you need to stay on Amazon.de. If you like the idea, please use this link so that I will get a small compensation from Amazon)
2) Search for the book series “TOGAF 9.2 Level 1 Certification Preparation Wonder Guide”. It is a book series of three guides that provides you with great introductions and explanations to both TOGAF levels and most importantly, it provides you with a wide range of test questions – which is the most important aspect of studying for TOGAF!
3) Do not forget to cancel your 30-days free trial before the end of the period. Otherwise, it will be converted into a subscription costing 9.99€ per month!
Summarizing the Most Useful Content…
Summarizing the links from above, let me provide the top-five websites and documents that will enable you to pass the exam if you go through their content:
1. A large number of good test questions
2. A set of test exams for both levels (I find them a bit harder than the single test questions)
3. Additional test exam
4. Official test question pack to be purchased from the TOGAF website (0.99$)
5. TOGAF Study Guide (59.99$)
6. And finally…revise this top 10 list for optimizing your studies as well as your test-taking!
Have you taken the exam already? How was your experience? Did the article help you? Please take a moment to provide your feedback and further improve the content of this website for other test takers!
All these study plan tips are very good and useful for try and use for the study part. Subscribed your blog.