Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I (PD1) Practice Test

Salesforce recommends 1-2 years of experience developing on the platform. You should be comfortable writing Apex triggers, classes (including test classes with sufficient coverage), and basic Visualforce pages or Lightning Web Components. Theoretical knowledge is insufficient; you need practical experience debugging code, working with governor limits, and using the setup menu for declarative tools.

The exam is holistic and expects you to know when to use each approach. Approximately 40-50% of the exam focuses on programmatic development (Apex, Visualforce, LWC basics), while the remainder tests declarative tools (process automation, security, data modeling) and your ability to choose the right tool for a given requirement. You must understand how code integrates with and extends declarative features.

Extremely important. A significant portion of the exam consists of multiple-select questions where you must choose all correct answers, with no partial credit. This format tests thorough and precise knowledge. Practice identifying all correct solutions in a scenario, as missing one correct option or selecting one incorrect option results in zero points for the entire question.

LWC fundamentals are a required topic, but the depth is at an introductory level for the PD1 exam. You should understand the component structure, decorators like @track and @api, the basics of lifecycle hooks, and how to communicate between components. The focus remains broader on the platform, with deeper LWC specialization reserved for the Platform Developer II exam.

Apex fundamentals and testing are arguably the most critical. You must have an impeccable understanding of trigger bulkification, DML operations, SOQL/SOSL, exception handling, and, crucially, how to write robust test classes that achieve 100% coverage while actually testing logic and governor limit usage. Weakness here will make passing very difficult.