Credentials

🔗 Certificate

🔗 Credly Badge

🎬 YouTube Video

Introduction

I’ve passed the AWS Solutions Architect - Associate certification exam with just a month of preparation while pursuing MSc in Applied Computing at the University of Toronto and working as a DevOps Intern at 16Bit, a med-tech startup based in Toronto. In this article, I’ll be sharing everything about this exam, my preparation strategies and tips. So, if you have plans on taking this exam anytime soon, read this article till the end.

What is AWS Developer - Associate Certification

With the rise of Cloud Computing, companies have constantly been shifting from running their infrastructure on-premise, which is hard to scale and manage, to running them on cloud, which offers far more elasticity in terms of scaling and resiliency in case of disasters.

The AWS Developer - Associate certification validates your expertise in developing and maintaining applications on AWS, which is the leading cloud provider today. It focuses on AWS core services, development tools and deployment practices. It can help developers enhance their skills, increase their earning potential, and demonstrate their proficiency to potential employers.

Exam Format

In this exam, you will get 65 questions and 130 minutes to answer them which means you get 2 mins per question. Out of the total questions, 15 will be experimental (ungraded). But you will not know which ones are experimental, otherwise you will skip them. So, you need to attempt every question on the test.

You will be graded on a percentile basis on a scale of 100 to 1000 where you will nead to score more than 720 to pass the exam. Based on this information, you can approximate that you will have to answer about 72% of the questions correctly in order to pass. You can refer this link for more details on how scoring works.

This exam has a pass / fail criteria. If you pass the exam, your score doesn’t really matter. It will only be written on your score report for your reference. It will not be mentioned anywhere on the certificate.

The cost of taking this exam is 150 USD but I got 50% off, so I paid just 75 USD. The way it works is that if you passed your first AWS certification exam, then you can get 50% off on the second one if you take it within a year of taking the first certification. Since, I passed the AWS Solution’s Architect - Associate Certification exam in the month of May last year, I was eligible for the discount.

My Preparation Strategy

I prepared for about 4-6 hours everyday for a months while being a grad student and working as a DevOps intern. I took the AWS Developer - Associate Course by Stephane Maarek which is available on Udemy. Preparing for the DVA exam was a bit easy for me as I had already passed the SAA exam, because the concepts overlap to some degree between the two certification exams.

Once I was done with the course, I bought three sets of practice tests on Udemy that are provided by:

Each of these practice test packages contain 6 practice tests. Additionally, a free practice test is provided with the course.

While going through the course, I took easy to follow notes in Notion. Additionally, while taking the practice tests, I saved the questions along with their explanations, into a Notion page, for the questions that I got wrong and the questions that I found difficult to answer. This would come in handy later when I revise everything before the exam.

I also created a notion page for quick notes to include information that’s hard to remember, things like message retention duration of a Kinesis Data Stream or the IOPS limits for the different EBS volume types. I just glanced through this stuff before taking the actual test to have all that information fresh in my memory.

🔗 My notes

Taking the Test

You can take the test either at a testing center or online at the comfort of your home. I would suggest you go for a testing center if it is available nearby. The experience is so smooth and you don’t have to worry about internet connectivity or proctoring issues. I took the test at a testing center and my experience was good.

Last year, I took the AWS SAA exam online from my home and my experience was pretty bad. The proctor asked me not to move my lips while reading the questions. So, the proctoring was way too strict. I was stressed and mindful about my body position, and was not able to focus well on the actual test. Another problem with taking the test online is that if the proctor cancels your exam, you won’t get a refund. You will have to rebook and retake the test at a later date.

Tips for taking the AWS SAA exam

  • Take as many practice tests as you can. They will give you an idea of the kind of topics that come up in the exam most often. Also, the questions in these practice tests match very well with the ones appearing on the actual exam.

  • The amount of information that you will have to go through to prepare for this exam is enormous. You not only need a good understanding of the various AWS resources and architectures, but you will also have to remember a lot of information. So, keep at least 3 days to revise your notes before the exam.

That’s all folks

That was all about the AWS Developer - Associate Certification exam. Thanks a lot for reading!