Do Microsoft AZ-104 Exam Practice Questions Trip You Up on Networking?

Most Azure administrators feel confident going into the AZ-104 exam. They manage virtual machines, handle storage accounts, and set up RBAC policies in their daily work. Then they hit the Virtual Networking domain in their practice questions and something changes. NSG rule priority logic confuses them. VNet peering constraints catch them off guard. The four load balancing options blur together. And they realize their hands-on Azure experience has a gap they never noticed.

That gap is exactly what the AZ-104 is designed to find.

The Microsoft AZ-104 is the Azure Administrator Associate exam. It is one of the most respected and widely recognized Azure certifications in the industry. The exam has 50 to 60 questions, 120 minutes, and a passing score of 700 out of 1000. Research from candidates consistently identifies Virtual Networking as the hardest domain. The exam was updated in 2025 to include new topics including Azure Container Apps, Bicep file authoring, deployment stacks, and updated Microsoft Entra ID tooling. If your study materials are older, you may be missing content that will appear on your exam.

Here is what the exam actually tests and where most candidates lose marks.

What the AZ-104 Really Expects You to Know

Most candidates study by reading documentation and watching tutorials. The AZ-104 rewards hands-on experience over documentation knowledge. Candidates who have touched Azure regularly score significantly higher than those who have only read about it. The exam presents real-world scenarios and asks you to make administrator-level decisions under specific constraints.

Microsoft AZ-104 Exam Practice Questions are organized around five domains. Manage Azure Identities and Governance covers 20 to 25 percent and includes managing Microsoft Entra ID users and groups, implementing RBAC, and applying Azure Policy for governance. Implement and Manage Storage covers 15 to 20 percent and tests storage account setup, blob storage management, Azure Files configuration, and lifecycle management policies. Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources covers 20 to 25 percent and includes virtual machines, availability sets, availability zones, ARM templates, Bicep files, Azure Container Instances, Container Apps, and App Services. Implement and Manage Virtual Networking covers 15 to 20 percent and is the hardest domain. Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources covers 10 to 15 percent and tests Azure Monitor, alerts, Log Analytics workspaces, and backup strategies.

Identities and Governance together with Compute Resources make up nearly 50 percent of the exam. But Virtual Networking, at just 15 to 20 percent, is where the most exam-day surprises occur.

The Five Areas Where AZ-104 Practice Questions Expose Real Gaps

The first area is Virtual Networking and NSG rules. This is the most consistently reported hard topic on the AZ-104. Know how NSG rules work with priority numbers, where lower numbers mean higher priority. Know how inbound and outbound rules interact with subnet-level and NIC-level NSGs. Know VNet peering constraints including the fact that peering is not transitive. Know the DNS resolution behavior in peered VNets. These are details that feel obvious after you have worked with them but confuse candidates who have only read about them.

The second area is the four load balancing options. Azure Load Balancer, Application Gateway, Traffic Manager, and Azure Front Door all distribute traffic but in completely different ways for completely different use cases. Know that Azure Load Balancer operates at Layer 4 for regional TCP and UDP load balancing. Know that Application Gateway operates at Layer 7 for regional HTTP and HTTPS traffic with WAF capabilities. Know that Traffic Manager uses DNS-based global routing. Know that Azure Front Door provides global HTTP load balancing with caching and WAF. The exam will describe a business scenario and ask which one fits. Getting this wrong is one of the most common causes of AZ-104 failure.

The third area is ARM templates and Bicep files. Know how to export an existing deployment as an ARM template. Know how to convert an ARM template to a Bicep file. Know how to author basic Bicep configurations for common Azure resources. This is a newer emphasis area that many candidates who studied from older materials have missed entirely.

The fourth area is Microsoft Entra ID and Conditional Access. Know how to manage users, groups, and service principals. Know how to implement Conditional Access policies and understand how multiple policies chain together when a user matches more than one. Know how to configure Privileged Identity Management for just-in-time role assignment. These questions appear across multiple exam scenarios and require more than surface-level familiarity.

The fifth area is VM availability options. Know the difference between availability sets and availability zones. Availability sets protect against single rack failures within a datacenter using fault domains and update domains. Availability zones protect against datacenter failures by distributing VMs across physically separate buildings within a region. Know when each is the right choice based on the SLA and redundancy requirements in the scenario.

Read More Info: https://prepbolt.com/paths/microsoft/data/az-104 

How to Use AZ-104 Practice Questions to Close Your Gaps

Most candidates answer practice questions and review the ones they got wrong. This is the minimum. Effective preparation goes further.

For every practice question, whether you got it right or wrong, ask yourself whether you could explain the correct answer to someone else. If you cannot explain it clearly, you do not actually know it. You guessed correctly or you recognized a pattern without understanding the underlying concept. That distinction matters on exam day when the question is phrased differently from anything you have seen before.

For networking questions specifically, open the Azure portal and build the scenario. Create a VNet, add a subnet, attach an NSG, set up peering with another VNet, and verify the DNS resolution behavior. This hands-on reinforcement is what makes networking concepts stick. Candidates who have spent time in the portal consistently score higher on the networking domain than those who have only practiced questions.

Target 80 percent or above on full-length practice tests before booking your exam. The passing score is 700 out of 1000 but a comfortable buffer protects you from the scenario-based questions that require you to hold multiple Azure concepts in mind simultaneously.

Your Azure Administrator Career Starts Right Here

Spend extra preparation time on Virtual Networking and load balancing options since these are where the most marks are lost. Make sure your study materials include the 2025 updates covering Bicep, Container Apps, and the updated Entra ID tooling. Build in Azure, not just in your notes. Target 80 percent or above on practice tests before you book your exam slot.

The AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate credential is one of the most in-demand cloud certifications in the world. It opens doors to cloud administrator, cloud engineer, and solutions architect roles with consistently strong salaries. Pass on your first attempt with PrepBolt's Microsoft AZ-104 Exam Practice Questions, built around real Azure administration scenarios with detailed explanations for every answer, including the networking questions that trip most candidates up.