Certification Requirements
The DA101 is a 2-hour exam that assesses your proficiency in data management, exploratory analysis, and statistical experimentation using SQL. Most candidates typically complete it in one hour. To successfully pass this exam, you should be able to:
- Perform data extraction, joining and aggregation tasks
- Perform cleaning tasks to prepare data for analysis
- Assess data quality and perform validation tasks
- Calculate metrics to effectively report characteristics of data and relationships between features
- Read and analyze data visualizations to represent the relationships between features
- Describe statistical concepts that underpin hypothesis testing and experimentation
The DA201 is a 60-minute exam where you'll choose either R or Python to work through the questions. This exam assesses your abilities to use R or Python for data management, exploratory analysis, and statistical experimentation. To successfully pass this exam, you should be able to:
- Perform standard data extraction, joining, and aggregation tasks
- Create data visualizations in Python or R to demonstrate the characteristics of data
- Create data visualizations in Python or R to represent the relationships between features
- Describe statistical concepts that underpin hypothesis testing and experimentation (i.e., statistical distributions, power analysis, parameter estimation, and confidence intervals)
What to expect on the practical exam
The final step in this certification is a practical exam. The practical exam assesses your skills in data visualization and communication. You'll review a business problem, select and create appropriate visualizations, and give a relevant summary of what you have found to the defined audience. You'll need to record your presentation and submit it via the certification portal. You can find more information on how we grade the Data Analyst practical exam in the full rubric.
To pass the practical exam, you'll need to be able to:
- Employ data visualization to support my findings
- Describe how data can inform business decisions
- Frame, convey, and summarize stories using data
- Employ multiple tactics (written and verbal) to communicate to business leaders
How long do I have to complete the practical exam?
You’ll have a total of 30 days from the time you register for certification to the time you must complete all requirements, including the exam(s) and practical exam. If you complete the exam(s) right away, then you’ll have the remaining time to work on the practical exam. However, if you take longer to complete the exam(s), you’ll have less time to complete the practical exam. Visit the Practical Hub in the Get Started pages for additional resources.
Re-taking your certification
Candidates who are unsuccessful in any component will have to wait 14 days before they can attempt the certification again. Upon retaking the certification, you will be required to complete all exams again, including any that you may have passed on a previous attempt.
If you have questions or feedback related to certification, please submit your inquiry here.