Yeah! It's one more success story about cloud certification. I want to share my experience and guide you on how to prepare for the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam.
Required:
- Goal
- 2-3 hours every day along 1,5-2 month
- Some money for learning materials
- 150$ pay for the exam
Goal
You should clearly understand why you need this. It's a marathon rather than a sprint and first motivation should be supported via discipline. So you should have a confident "why" for this staff and strict deadlines.
What about me, certification is a way to confirm knowledge from a third party side, get objective assessment, and one more win under the impostor syndrome.
Preparation
The most effective way is:
- Learn basic materials on AWS
- Take a course
- Train on mock exam questions
There are many courses: Cloud Guru, Lear Cantrill, free classes on Youtube e.g., made by freeCodeCamp. There is no right option, make a choice based on budget and feedback.
I chose the Stephane Maarek course on Udemy - Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate.
The course has 27 hours of on-demand video. It combines theoretical lessons with practice sections.
I recommend repeating all "hands-on" sessions on your own because it's very efficient to learn something new and immediately try it in practice.
Also, take notes for key moments. It's helpful for memorisation and recalling materials before exam. Notion is my clear favourite. I've made a complete syllabus with critical concepts, screenshots, and diagrams.
Let's estimate the learning time
At least 27 hours will be spent just watching the videos. Also, you need time for practice, taking notes, and re-watch some concepts which weren't understandable on the first try. So for rough calculation, just round 27 to 30 and twice this amount of time and receive 60 hours of learning.
Next is just mathematics. Plan how much time every day you can dedicate to lessons or how much time you need to spend every day to finish the course by the planned date.
E.g., to complete a course for 1,5 month, you need to learn approximately 2,5 hours every weekday.
After finishing the course, I started to practice on mock tests. There are also a lot of tests from different sources with questions that are similar to questions that will be on the exam.
I chose mocks from the same author, Stephane Maarek, Practice Exams | AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, and they are pretty helpful. If you solve them with 85-90%, it's a guarantee of a successful exam.
How to train on mocks effectively? Tune into two loops solving all sessions.
Work with the mock exam:
- complete the test
- review all answers, not only failed but also passed
- understand why you failed the question or is the correct answer passed as you thought, rather random luck
- not memorize answers but rather understand the approach of the correct way
- go to the next test
The first attempt can make you upset, but don't worry. It just indicates white spaces which you need to fill. So read your notes and re-watch videos for topics you have a problem with.
After recall, start a second loop with all 6 sessions. This time your marks should be almost better. If you pass with 85-90% your preparation is done, and you can go to the exam.
For mock training loops should be enough one week, but that also personally depends.
Total time: 1,5 months to complete course + 1 week to complete mock exams. In general, two month should be enough to be fully ready.
Exam schedule
One motivation factor is a concrete exam date.
Visit [AWS Training portal (https://www.aws.training/certification/) select the planned date, and pay 150$.
Non-native speakers could request accommodation and get 30 additional minutes. So 130 + 30 minutes / 65 questions ≈ 2.4 minutes per question.
Accommodation should be requested before the exam schedule. If you missed this, cancel the exam, request accommodation, and schedule the exam again.
There are two exam providers: PSI and Pearson VUE. Select the provider that you like and choose an online or offline exam. I used Pearson VUE a few times, offline and online, and I want to say that I can't advise the online version.
My proctor was late for 1,5 hours, and tech support just played for time. With the offline exam, everything was pretty okay.
Before exam day
- Have a rest day and sleep well
- Take a look instructions for exam and make all preparations
- Plan your route to the testing center
- In case of online exam, prepare room and computer for the exam, also notify neighbors about exam time
Day X
- Take your documents
- Be in place 30 minutes before
- Keep calm. You prepared well
- Carefully read all questions, and don't make fast responses. Some questions are tricky, and one word can change the final result. (e.g., could be a large question about building service and the word "serverless" change all the sense)
- Don't hang on a question that you don't know the answer, just mark and go to next
- After you answered all, go back to marked questions that you are not sure about the answer
- Finish the exam and wait for the result
Your exam will be processed in a few days. I received a Credly Badge in a few hours and an exam certificate with scores on the next day. Certificate and score results will be accessible in the personal cabinet of AWS Training Portal on Exam History and Achieved Certifications pages.
Conclusion
It was a pleasant experience. I hope my story and recommendations help you with your preparations.
Good Luck with your exam, and welcome to AWS Community!
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