Two weeks ago, I found myself stuck in a mundane routine of work and gym, yearning for something more. As a self-hosted lover who has been maintaining servers and services with automations and firewalls, I realized that I could leverage my knowledge to pursue a professional certificate that would benefit my long-term career path. That's when I discovered the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam, a highly reputable certification essential for anyone seeking a career within a big company.

On November 11, 2024, I took the exam in the afternoon at 2 p.m. By around 10 p.m., I received the results and was thrilled to see I had passed!

I'd like to share how I successfully prepared for the exam in just two weeks.

Choosing the Right Exam

After browsing the official AWS certificate website, I decided to start with the Solution Architect Associate exam, as it requires knowledge closely related to self-hosting. This exam focuses on designing, developing, and managing cloud infrastructure and assets, as well as collaborating with DevOps teams to migrate applications to the cloud. As a DevOps enthusiast who loves automation and reducing maintenance overhead, this exam seemed like the perfect fit.

Learning Path

Udemy Course

To kick off my study journey, I enrolled in Stephane Maarek's Udemy course on the AWS SAA C03 video course. As a complete beginner with no prior knowledge of AWS, I dedicated one week to watch the course, allocating one hour in the morning and four hours in the evening after work. The course is approximately 24 hours in total, making it a manageable timeframe.

While the course is fairly basic and only delves deeply into a few topics, it is perfect for beginners like me. The course provides a simple mention and a short video for some topics, allowing for a quick overview. I recommend following the course schedule and quickly going through everything to gain a basic understanding. It's also beneficial to create an AWS account, as they offer a free trial, enabling hands-on experience.

Practice Exam

To solidify my knowledge and prepare for the actual exam, I chose Tutorial Dojo's practice exams. I cannot praise these practice exams enough, as they cover a wide range of topics that frequently appear in the real exam. I allocated another week to complete all the practice exams.

I began with the time mode review, which simulates the actual exam environment with a timer displayed. As a beginner who had just finished the video course, I was incredibly nervous and felt almost ignorant. Every single question left me hesitant, unsure of the correct answer. The most challenging aspect of the time mode is that I couldn't immediately check the answers; I had to complete all 65 questions before reviewing the results.

The practice exam consists of 8 sections in time mode, and I struggled to make progress initially. The topics covered were extensive, and I consistently scored around a 55% correct rate in each section.

I can assure you, this was one of the most stressful and worst moments of my life. I found myself questioning my intelligence and wondering if I was truly ignorant.

However, the best part came after the time mode finally ended. I entered the true review mode, where I could immediately see whether my answer was correct or not for each question in the same question bank. Because I had enhanced my knowledge in time mode by reading every question's explanation, things started to improve slightly in the review mode. However, the progress was not significant yet.

Although the review mode uses the same question bank as the time mode, you need to achieve at least a 72% correct rate for the website to show that you have passed the section. In the first few review mode exams, I barely managed to reach this threshold. But as I read the explanations repeatedly and tried to commit them to memory (I chose not to take notes, as it would require a significant amount of extra time to write and review them), I began to perform much better in the later sections.

Trusting my memory was a risky move, but fortunately, it did not fail me. I was able to retain the information effectively, which greatly contributed to my improved performance.

In total, both the Time and Review modes took me 5 days to complete, as there were 325 questions in total, some of which were incredibly lengthy and required a great deal of reading and understanding.

I also utilized section-based and topic-based questions to further solidify my knowledge. Compared to the previous two study modes, these question sets contained a smaller number of questions, allowing me to complete them within the last two days of my study plan.

I took a one-day break in these two days, and after my much-needed break, I dedicated an entire day to completing the remaining section-based and topic-based questions. This final push helped reinforce the concepts and boosted my confidence going into the exam.

Exam Day

I opted to take the AWS SAA exam at home since there was no nearby exam center available. On the day of the exam, I carefully read the guidelines on how to prepare my test space. Taking the exam at home actually brings some additional overhead, as you need to completely clear your table, leaving only one monitor and necessary tools like a mouse and keyboard. Everything else must be moved out of arm's reach.

I encountered some difficulties during the check-in stage. After successfully testing my microphone and connecting with the proctor, she still couldn't hear me, which was incredibly terrifying. In such a situation, she could have ended my test and declared it a failure. Fortunately, it seemed to be an issue on her end. She reconnected with me, and finally, everything returned to normal.

Another annoying part was having to use my webcam to show the proctor around my desk again. Due to the length of my PC's wire, I struggled to meet her requirement of seeing the entire table. My wire wasn't long enough to achieve the desired view. Luckily, I managed to pull it hard enough, and eventually, she verified the setup and allowed me to start the exam.

During the exam itself, everything proceeded normally. I followed the software's instructions, avoided reading questions aloud, and refrained from any suspicious actions. As long as you adhere to these guidelines, you should be fine.

I did find that Tutorial Dojo's practice exams were slightly more challenging than the real one. However, I still encountered several lengthy and difficult questions in my actual exam.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would not recommend anyone to take the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam in a rushed manner like I did. The only reason I pursued this accelerated timeline was due to an upcoming trip, which left me with a tight timeframe. However, I can confidently say that the two materials I used—the Udemy course and Tutorial Dojo's practice exams—should be sufficient for you to prepare for the exam.

The most challenging aspect of this journey was not remembering every topic and piece of knowledge but rather overcoming the stress of self-doubt. When I first started taking the practice exams, I consistently received low scores, which was discouraging. However, I persevered and eventually passed the exam.

If you are currently preparing for the AWS Solution Architect Associate exam, I hope that my experience and the information I have shared can be of help to you. Remember, even if you encounter setbacks or moments of self-doubt, trust in the process and keep pushing forward. With dedication and the right resources, you can succeed.

I wish you the best of luck on your certification journey!