How NOT to Pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Exam

tl;dr: AWS gives you two cheat sheets for the exam: the Well-Architected Framework Whitepaper and AWS Solutions Architect-Associate Exam guide. Understand them first. Then, chase with the ACG course and Udemy Bonso exams and you'll pass with less effort than I did.

Passing the AWS SAA Exam the Inefficient Way

After some encouragement from others in a cloud challenge I recently finished - I fired up A Cloud Guru's certification course. 60 days later, I posted my brand new badge to LinkedIn, Polywork, and my personal site.

Here's what I did to pass:

1. Completed the Cloud Resume Challenge - AWS Version
2. Ran through A Cloud Guru's course as fast as possible - skipping the services I was already familiar with from the CRC. Note: Even though I "2Xed" the lectures, I did some of the demos, ALL of the labs, and both of their sample exams. I also followed their advice and did some labs on the side (built a few VPCs, played around with my own site, etc.)
3. Completed all six Bonso practice exams. H/T to @loujaybee for suggesting these from his retrospective on the DEV exam. I did the first three with multiple passes after reviewing where I went wrong. For the remaining three: I had just enough time to take the practice test and go over where I went wrong.
4. From completing the Cloud Practitioner exam in the summer, I had a code for a free practice exam. This was my "go/no go". I made an 80% and felt OK about continuing.
5. The last minute cram for the exam was listening to the exam tips for each of the 20 or so chapters (this time at 1X speed), reviewing the AWS Solutions Architect-Associate Exam guide and a scan of the Well-Architected Framework
6. During the exam, I followed the usual tips (doing a first pass of EACH question - only answering the easy ones, using the scratch paper in a grid to track which answers I eliminated, flag any question I had any doubts about, etc.) and I used ALL of the time.

Even though I passed, I can't stress this enough

DON'T DO IT THE WAY I DID IT!!!

Here's what was wrong with my brute force method:

• The first two Bonso exam results made it clear that I should NOT have skipped the ACG lectures I did.
• I spent a lot of time re-reviewing fundamental services and encountering service names and asking "wait, what's that?" far too late in the process
• I did not get to the adequate level of confidence to take the exam until very late in the game. That leaves too much to chance.
• The inefficiency in my approach spilled into other areas of my life. Thankfully, I have a supportive and long-suffering family and plenty of PTO to burn at the day job.

Here's what I would do instead:

1. Same step #1 - complete the Cloud Resume Challenge - AWS Version. Getting through that gets you adept at the basics of AWS, introduces you the basic serverless infrastructure, and passing the Cloud Practitioner exam gets you discount codes for the 1/2 price on the exam and a free practice test.
2. Take some time to read the the Well-Architected Framework Whitepaper. Chasing the Cloud Practitioner exam with this whitepaper gets you in the right mindset and helps you frame up the right mental models for this exam.
3. Review the AWS Exam guide. Spend some time walking through the "AWS services and features" portion of the guide answering the following question for each service:
   • What does this service do?
   • What are the basic limitations of the service (How does it span regions and AZs?, What are the performance characteristics, What's the general pricing method?)
   • How does this service relate to others (this comes up in the FAQ and by Googling "[Service Name] vs.") and how does it play with a VPC (and yes, that's actually applicable to VPCs)
4. Do the ACG Course. Do the demos. Do the labs. Pre-read the AWS service pages and FAQs ahead of going into a chapter. That goes a lot faster than repeating the lectures.
5. Finish the first ACG practice exam. If you haven't scheduled your exam - do it.
6. Now that you've got a fire lit with the exam coming: go through the Bonso exams. Do each exam, review what went wrong, repeat that exam, and then move on to the next one. Give yourself about 4 hours for each iteration (2 hours for exam and 2 hours for review)
7. The AWS Practice Exam is a good confidence booster. When you're doing well on the Bonso exams - knock that out.
8. At this point you'll know what you know and what you don't. Do the second ACG exam for good measure.

Good luck! I'd love to hear from some other SAA veterans on their approach (did the free AWS training work for you, what labs did you do, etc.)