How to Practice Hands-On for ACP-120 exam?

[Andrew Nixon]

Hi everyone,

I’m preparing for the ACP-120 Jira Administrator for Cloud exam and I want to make sure I’m practicing the right way.

For those who’ve taken it:

Did you set up a separate Jira Cloud test site to practice?

What types of projects/configurations should I focus on the most?

Any recommended hands-on scenarios that were especially useful?

Thanks!

[Billy Harris · Accepted solution]

I recently passed ACP-120, and hands-on practice helped me a lot. I highly recommend setting up your own separate Jira Cloud test site. You can create a free Jira Software + JSM Cloud site under your Atlassian account. This gives you a safe place to try things, break things, and learn how to navigate the admin settings quickly. Also, try switching between Free and Standard plan settings so you can see how permissions and roles behave differently.

What to Focus On:

• Global vs Project Permissions: Understand who can see and do what.
• Issue Security Schemes: Practice controlling visibility at the issue level.
• Notification Schemes: Know how events trigger notifications.
• Workflows: Become comfortable reading and modifying workflows, including conditions, validators, and post functions.
• Custom Fields, Screens, and Screen Schemes: These are heavily used in scenario questions.
• Project Types: Know the differences between company-managed and team-managed projects.
• Jira Service Management Basics: Things like queues, request types, and SLAs will show up.

Hands-On Practice Ideas:

• Create two company-managed projects with different permission schemes and test which users can access each.
• Build a workflow with a required condition or validator and add a post function that updates a field.
• Set up issue security levels and test how issue visibility changes based on the user.
• Create a small Jira Service Management project with a request form, SLA, and queue.
• Compare team-managed and company-managed projects to see the limitations in configuration.

The main goal is to understand how the different schemes and settings interact, not just where buttons are. Try thinking about each exercise like someone has asked you to solve a problem or change a configuration for them.

Other than that check out the following resources for practicing the questions that are based on real scenarios and cover exam topics in depth. Getting familiar with the questioning style will help understand the how things are asked in the exam:

• https://community.atlassian.com/learning#/page/670e8ce7a1887954d13a856a
• https://www.certboosters.com/exam/atlassian/acp-120
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpDANUL-DJk

This style of practice should help you feel a lot more confident going into the exam. Good luck!

[Andrew Nixon]

Thanks @Billy Harris for this helpful breakdown! setting up the test site and trying out those hands-on scenarios is really a great idea. Appreciate the resource links!

[Nikola Perisic · Accepted solution]

Hello @Andrew Nixon 

Took it couple if times, and failed. You can follow this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpDANUL-DJk&t=27501s&ab_channel=TheJiraLife

You can use ChatGPT, Gemini to simulate the questions. They won't be the same like in the exam since everything is scenario based.

Example prompt:

"I need to pass ACP-120 exam and I want you to give me sample questions. These questions need to be scenario based. You need to give me answers in letter bullet points. Do not tell me the correct answer. Let me answer the questions and tell me if they were correct or not."

Peronsally, Gemini was close to it. Make sure you go through this: https://community.atlassian.com/learning/course/jira-administration-for-cloud-certification-prep-resources

Other than that, I would say good luck.

[Andrew Nixon]

Thanks @Nikola Perisic for the tips really appreciate it. and good luck to you as well!

[Valerie Knapp · Accepted solution]

Hi @Andrew Nixon , thanks for your post.

What I used to do, when the preparation courses were structured differently, was to do all of the exam practice questions first, to see in which areas I was weak and then I would go and look for additonal training to bulk up my experience.

It is not so easy to do this now that many of the certification preparation courses have the questions integrated in the modules. However, I would always refer to this page, for the exam topics - https://community.atlassian.com/learning/certifications/jira-administration-for-cloud 

I always do the exam preparation course a few times, 2-3 times, all the way through. In the exam topics, you can also read all of the documentation links. 

It depends also on your experience. For me, when I took the certification exam in 2022, team-managed projects were still new and so I didn't have much experience with them. Now, they have been around for a little while so you might have had more experience than I had.

As you say, I would set up a free instance, follow the preparation course. If you are getting some of the questions wrong in the prep course, make sure you go into Jira and try to check out those areas, and supplement by reading the documentation. The thing about the ACP-120 is that you need to know, in less detail, more topics (if you already have the ACP-610 or 620) so I would concentrate on trying to prepare by reading the documentation and checking out the configurations for things you don't do all the time. Again, this depends on your experience. If you are a consultant and you configure workflows all day, you probably don't need to revise that area very much, but maybe you don't know as much about what you can configure in the look and feel.

I would always recommend to try to use only Atlassian preparation materials. I know there are exam dumps and stuff on other sites, but Atlassian write the exam, so you want to try to avoid to learn incorrect or at least out-of-date information.

Some of my fellow Community Champions have produced exam preparation content on Youtube, which might be helpful -

https://www.youtube.com/@thejiralife 

Good luck and let us know how you get on!

[Andrew Nixon]

Thanks @Valerie Knapp for the detailed advice! Appreciate the guidance! will check out the youtube content.

[Noah Williams]

I recently passed my ACP-120 Jira Administrator for Cloud exam on the first attempt. I used PremiumDumps practice materials, which included real-style exam questions that helped me focus on key configurations and scenarios. Highly recommend checking them out for structured prep.

[Jarry Sloan]

I recently cleared my ACP-120 exam, and honestly, Certs2Pass saved me. Their PDF questions were super close to what I saw on the real exam. I’d read a question, then try it out in my Jira sandbox to understand how it actually works (workflows, permissions, screens, etc). That hands-on practice with their questions made all the difference. If you stick to that routine, you’ll be more than ready — I cleared mine on the first try