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geyuqiu
geyuqiu

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How I passed AWS Certified Developer Associate (AWS CDA) mostly using open source and free materials

Disclaimer: The following is just a list of useful points that I did while preparing for my exam for AWS Certified Developer. I am just sharing my experience as sharing is caring :) If you don't like some points, so what ;)

  • for book readers:
    • 900+ pages: certified developer aws book dva-c01
    • mock exams in Wiley test bank and exam questions after each chapter
  • if you like interactive sessions
  • what always helps: Google for
    • "mock exams for CDA": may come up with free sites offering CDA, SAA and sysops questionnaires, because a lot of the question are interchangeable.
    • "AWS certified developer github cheatsheet": make a summary on your own
    • "how to pass aws certified developer": people talk about their exam experience e.g. at Pearson/VUE or remote from home
  • practice appropriate strategies with discipline during the exams
    • do the shortest questions first
    • draw architecture diagram if a question involve 3 different AWS services and if you have time ;)
    • flagging and exclusion techniques (PearsonVUE exam program did support those features, comment function available, but did not use that)
    • take your time (130 minutes, in average 2 minutes for each question)
  • learn techniques
    • do not try to remember hard numbers (e.g. max allowed lambda memory, because it changed a lot during the years: 128MB → 1024MB → 3008MB), not 1 of 65 exam questions were about remembering hard numbers
    • but dig deeper regarding concept, practical architecture pictures, interaction/combination between AWS Services, e.g. encryption, use cloudFront as caching for S3, use ElastiCache as caching for RDS etc., most of the questions involve at least AWS 2 services

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geyuqiu

thank you for your advice. My point was about how to pass the exam with open source or free materials ;)