How I passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam ?
Table of Contents
∘ Introduction
∘ Strategy
∘ Exam Preparation
∘ Practice Exams
∘ Cheat Sheets, White Papers and Official Documentation
∘ The Actual Exam
∘ Conclusion
∘ Resources
Introduction
I recently passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate Exam (SAA-CO3), and I wanted to share my experience, strategy, learnings, and preparation process through this blog. The exam can be quite challenging, but with dedication and a well-defined strategy, you can successfully overcome it.
Strategy
- Do any course to go through the content/topics of exam
- Learn by doing hands-on
- See where you stand by doing practice exams
- Fill the knowledge gaps by reviewing all the wrong answers
- Read whitepapers and official documentation
Let’s get started —
Exam Preparation
I began my journey in August, dedicating roughly two hours a day (on most days). I opted for Stephane Maarek’s Udemy course, which is an excellent resource for the AWS exam curriculum. I wholeheartedly recommend his course for gaining a deep understanding of AWS services and comprehensive coverage of all the essential concepts. Took me around 1.5 month to go over the course twice.
Practice Exams
Jumped onto the practice exams — Stephane Mareek’s & Tutorials Dojo’s (TD) (all resources are linked below) and scored a disappointing 53% on my first attempt. Below are my scores for first and second attempts on practice exams -
My Scores —
First attempts —
- Stephane’s Exams — 53% to 72%
- TD’s — 66% to 75%
Second attempts —
- Stephane’s Exams — 72% to 80%
- TD’s — 80% to 85%
Skill Builder Exam —
- Free — 13 correct out of 20
- Paid — 764
I found Stephane’s exams to be more verbose and challenging compared to TD’s exams. The actual exam seemed similar to TD’s practice exams, featuring a mix of easy and moderately difficult questions. However, both sets of exams offer valuable insights for identifying areas that need improvement.
To maximize the benefits of these practice exams, it’s crucial to thoroughly review the explanations for both correct and incorrect answers and truly understand the underlying concepts instead of merely memorizing options.
I took the Skill Builder exam (free and paid — $29) a week before the actual exam and achieved a decent score (764). I attempted the exam during the 7-day trial period and promptly canceled my subscription. The actual exam had a similar wording, but the difficulty level was notably higher than that of the skillbuilder practice exam.
If you consistently score above 70% on your initial attempts and reach 80% or more on your subsequent tries, then you’re well-prepared for the real test. Good luck!
Cheat Sheets, White Papers and Official Documentation
I recommend reading AWS Docs and Whitepapers to deepen your knowledge on the most important services like EC2, S3, SQS, Databases, EFS, EBS, Kinesis, Organizations.
Additionally, consider exploring the Tutorials Dojo Cheat Sheet for great summary of all the services and differences between them.
The Actual Exam
I booked the exam with 50% discount coupon (got from AWS Associate Challenge — now closed) in person and I’m glad I did that. It turned out to be an incredibly hassle-free and smooth experience. The exam questions ranged from simple (mostly) to quite challenging (very few), and I found myself flagging 20 questions. I felt quite nervous on my way back home.
The relief came when I received my Credly badge the very next day, exactly 24 hours after the exam. The following morning, I received my official scores from AWS.
Topics I got in exam —
- EC2 Instance types
- S3 Storage and Lifecycle rules
- AWS Organizations
- Kinesis (Only one question related to Kinesis Data Firehouse)
- A lot of Database questions (RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB)
- Many networking questions (Route 53, VPC Endpoints, NATs, Security groups)
- IAM
- SNS, EventBridge
- EFS, EBS
- Surprisingly no question on SQS, CloudWatch, KMS, ECS
Conclusion
Passing the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam is a significant achievement in your cloud computing journey. Start with the basics, build a strong foundation, and gradually delve into more complex topics!
Go get it! 🚀
Resources
- Udemy Course — Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03
- Practice Exams — Tutorials Dojo Practice Exams
- Website
- Udemy Link
- Stephane Mareek Practice Exam (Udemy)
Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn with any questions, or you can drop them into the comment section below. I would be more than happy to assist you. If you found any value in this blog, please consider following or subscribing.
