AZ-305 Practice Test, Practice Questions and Exam Prep From Your Own Architecture Notes

The AZ-104 prerequisite is real, but it does not work the way you think

This confuses almost everyone, and the confusion runs in both directions. Some people believe they are blocked from booking AZ-305 until they pass AZ-104. Others believe the prerequisite quietly went away. Both are wrong, and Microsoft's wording is precise:

Read what that sentence gates. It gates the award of the certification, not your ability to sit the exam. The AZ-305 exam page lists no prerequisite to register and no enforcement. You can book AZ-305 tomorrow, pass it, and walk away with a passed exam and no Expert certification, because the certification is only issued once you also hold Azure Administrator Associate.

Note the other precision: Microsoft names the certification, not the exam number. Azure Administrator Associate is the prerequisite. AZ-104 is simply the exam that earns it. And on the Expert certification's own metadata, "Required exams" reads AZ-305, alone. AZ-104 enters through the prerequisite certification, not as a second required exam.

Practically, most people should still do AZ-104 first, because the design questions assume you know what the services actually do. If you are working through both, the AZ-104 practice test generator covers the administrator exam, and our AZ-104 vs AZ-305 comparison lays out which to take first and why.

The "April 2026 update" was a four-word edit

We are spelling this out because an update banner is a selling opportunity, and you are about to be told that AZ-305 has been rewritten and your material is obsolete. It has not been, and it is not. The last time the exam meaningfully changed was August 2023.

If you want to check any Microsoft exam yourself, the study guide carries a change-log table with a "Skill area prior to" column, a "Skill area as of" column, and a "Change" column that says Major, Minor or No change for each functional group. Two minutes on that table tells you whether an update is worth reacting to. Most are not.

Case studies, and the one rule that costs people the exam

Microsoft does not publish which exams use case studies, so we will not claim it does. What we can tell you is that AZ-305 is consistently reported to include them, and that Microsoft's own AZ-305T00 course description says the course "combines lecture with case studies to demonstrate basic architect design principles". Prepare for them.

The format itself is documented, and one rule matters more than the rest:

So the failure mode is obvious once you name it: you rush the case study because you are watching the clock, click through to the next section, and realize on question 40 that you misread the recovery time objective. That door is closed. Read the requirements, answer every question in the case, then leave.

The way to practice this is not with more multiple-choice trivia. It is by writing questions from your own design documents, where the requirements are messy and the tradeoffs are real. Upload an architecture decision record or a customer requirements doc and turn a requirements document into practice questions so you are rehearsing the reasoning, not the answer letter.

AZ-305 questions, answered

Do you need AZ-104 before AZ-305?

For the certification, yes. Microsoft states that to become a Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, you must earn the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate certification. But it does not gate the exam. Nothing stops you booking and passing AZ-305 first. You simply will not be awarded the Expert certification until you also hold Azure Administrator Associate, which AZ-104 earns.

What are the AZ-305 domain weights?

Design infrastructure solutions is the largest at 30 to 35 percent, followed by design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions at 25 to 30 percent, design data storage solutions at 20 to 25 percent, and design business continuity solutions at 15 to 20 percent. Microsoft publishes ranges, never single numbers, so any site quoting an exact figure like 24 percent invented it.

Did the April 2026 update change the AZ-305 exam?

No, in any meaningful sense. Microsoft's published change log for the April 17, 2026 update contains exactly one row, marked Minor, against the audience profile. The entire change is that the phrase "Microsoft Azure solutions architect" became "Azure solutions architect". Every objective and every percentage is unchanged. Do not buy new study material because of it.

How long is the AZ-305 exam and how many questions?

Microsoft does not publish either figure for AZ-305 specifically. Its official guidance is that most exams contain 40 to 60 questions, and that associate and expert role-based exams run 100 minutes without labs or 120 minutes if they may contain labs. Prep sites quoting 150 minutes and 65 questions are stating numbers that appear nowhere in Microsoft's documentation.

Does AZ-305 have case studies?

Microsoft does not publish which exams use case studies, but AZ-305 is consistently reported to include them, and Microsoft's own AZ-305T00 course description says the course combines lecture with case studies. Microsoft does document the format: you can reread the scenario as often as you like while working the questions, but once you leave a case study you cannot return to its questions.

What score do you need to pass AZ-305?

700 or greater on a scale of 1 to 1000. It is a scaled score, so Microsoft warns it may not equal 70 percent of the points available. You cannot compute how many questions you are allowed to miss.

How much does the AZ-305 exam cost?

Microsoft states that associate and expert exams typically cost US$165, priced to local currency, with taxes extra in some regions. AZ-305 is an expert exam. The exam page shows price by region rather than printing a dollar figure.

Does the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification expire?

Yes, annually. Microsoft associate, expert and specialty certifications expire after 12 months. Renewal is free, unproctored, open book and taken on Microsoft Learn, in a six-month window before your expiration date, with unlimited attempts. Passing extends the certification one year from the expiration date, not from the day you pass.

Is AZ-305 harder than AZ-104?

It is a different kind of exam rather than simply a harder one. AZ-104 asks how you configure a thing. AZ-305 asks which thing you should choose, given requirements, budget and recovery objectives, and every objective bullet literally begins with the word "Recommend". If you are strong on Azure operations but have never made a design tradeoff in writing, AZ-305 will feel harder.

PDFQuiz is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft. Microsoft and Azure are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. This generator builds practice questions from material you upload and is a study aid, not a substitute for Microsoft's official learning paths or the free practice assessment on Microsoft Learn. Always confirm exam details, pricing and prerequisites on Microsoft's own pages before you book.