11 Tips to pass the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Exam in 30 Days

Editorial Team

Amazon is the leader of the public cloud market. There are hundreds of consulting partners for AWS. These consulting companies need AWS professionals, and hence there is a huge demand for people who bear the AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam. AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam is a certification that is offered by Amazon Web Services for the professionals who have a year or more than a year of experience with AWS Cloud. This test is held in a real-time environment with time constraints and proctored surroundings. The total duration of this exam is 130 minutes and has 65 multiple-choice questions. 

The individuals who offer services for a solutions architect role are awarded this certificate. They mostly have hands-on experience in designing available, cost-efficient, scalable, and fault-tolerant distributed systems on AWS. You have to score 72% in this exam to be able to fall in passing criteria. This exam is quite tough because of the various topics covered in a single exam. But with proper preparation and by having complete information about what kind of questions you will be asked in the exam, you can score high as well.  

There are many jobs for people who bear this certificate. And there are many bright options for freshers as well. They are hired at good salaries even from the start. This salary keeps growing with time, experience, advanced skills, and after getting the associate-level and professional-level certificate. This certificate is worth your time and attention. In this field, there is a huge scope for freshers because there aren’t many AWS certified professionals available at the moment. A cloud engineer architect is not easy to become, but its high demand makes it quite attractive. You can pass this exam with a few months of full preparation. Studying around 3 hours a day is enough to score well for the AWS exam.

Following is the step by step guide to prepare for AWS exam and pass it in the first try.

1.    Have A Full Course Of The Free AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Training 2020

You need not search anywhere else for preparation for the AWS exam as Exam Pro has a full free training video that will considerably help you gain a basic knowledge of AWS Cloud. It will give you a basic understanding of the subject. You need not worry if you don’t understand all the concepts explained in that training video, as you only need to get 50% of it. This training video will prepare you to move to the next step. You should skip the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Exam and just prepare for the AWS Solutions Architect certification, as the latter is in higher demand. If you have a basic understanding of the concepts of the AWS exam, then you can skip the training video.  Another option is to take the study course at ExamLabs, an online learning platform that provides exam preparation resources for various professional certifications. 

2.    Take The AWS Certified Solutions Architect- Associate 2020 Course Provided By A Cloud Guru

This course is 14.5 hours long and is for 60$ on Udemy. This course will provide you with hands-on labs on the AWS Console. To pass the exam, you must have experience with these labs. This course, along with other preparation materials, will help you pass the exam with good scores. It will bring you cloud knowledge up to 60%, and you can cover the rest of the cloud knowledge with other preparation materials. If you re able to pay, then checking out A Cloud Guru will be a good option as they have the best training ways for AWS Certification. This course will give you a basic understanding of the course material so you must not feel bad if you don’t score well in practice exams after getting this course.

3.    Read Course Books

You must consider reading course materials and study guides for the preparation of AWS Certified Solutions Architect. These books will provide you a deeper understanding of what you are studying and from where a concept is coming from. Some of the books and guides are easily available online. Some of the guides are also easily found over the web.

4.      Make Flashcards From Tutorials Dojo

This is the most important step. From the past two steps, you have a 60% knowledge and readiness for the AWS exam. And getting your preparation to 100% will mean that you will be able to score 72% in the actual exam. And for this, you will have to make flashcards from the Tutorials Dojo comparison of the AWS services section. You must try making flashcards for the following topics:

  • S3
  • EBS
  • EFS
  • RDS
  • DYNAMOBD
  • CLOUD TRAIL
  • CLOUD WATCH
  • SECURITY GROUPS
  • NaCl
  • EFS
  • API Gateway
  • ELASTIC BEANSTALK
  • CloudFormation
  • ELB
  • VPN
  • IAM
  • EC2
  • VPC
  • DNS
  • VPC
  • Lambda

All of these 20 flashcards knowledge will give you all you need to cover the major part of the course material. It is better to write keywords associated with these flashcards on the back as they will help you remember all the details better. For example, for the flashcard of S3, you can write durable, object, multi-AZ, etc. try making the top three keywords for each. These keywords will train your mind to associate the information on the flashcards with these words. You must have a good time making these flashcards and also writing the keywords because they will help you considerably in clearing the exam. These flashcards will take you to 65% for your exam preparation.

5.    Go Through The AWS Best Practices Well-Architected Framework

This will be the practice for preparing cloud-based architectures. It is written by AWS experts and is based on the general design principles, the best practices, and acts as a pillar for a well-architected framework. You must read it even though it is an 80-page long read and is quite tough. But through these practices, you will get to know about many services that weren’t covered in previous videos. You should write those services down for reading them later as well. Reading these practices will take your preparation to 68%, but all these services are important to read. They give you a piece of knowledge about what AWS is looking for. This document will also help you in AWS projects apart from helping you pass the exam.

6.    Take The All-In-One AWS Certified Solutions Architect Exam By Dolfined

It is an 84-hour course provided on Udemy. It has a deeper understanding of AWS services. It gives you even more knowledge than you need to pass the AWS exam. It is a complete guide to cover all the concepts for the AWS Solutions Architect Exam and also prepares you for the professional exam. You get sample questions by the instructor at the end of every section. Whenever you get the hands-on labs section, you can skip it as you have had already prepared them from the upper mentioned courses. But if you have enough time, you can do these as well for better preparation.

7.    Do Deep Dives Into VPC, S3, EC2, And RDS

You can find many free videos on YouTube regarding these services. Half of the exam will be based on these services. You must understand these four services fully. Dive deep into each of them and try spending one day on each service. You can then take the Job Bonso Test #2 to assess your preparation. You must be aware that Jon Bonso Tests bring something new on every single test, and you might keep scoring the same on each of them. But that isn’t a matter of worry. If you score 72% in these practice tests, then you are ready and can go for the actual exam. 

8.    Prepare AWS Services With Shallow Dives

The AWS Services will be covered by 10% of the exam. These services are Kinesis, Global Accelerator, FSx, Redshift, etc. 

But for this, you need not study deep. Just have some understanding of what they do. You should again take a Jon Bonso Test #3 to assess your knowledge of AWS services. And for the questions you don’t have an exact answer for, just add them to your list and study them thoroughly when you come home. And once you know why you got those questions wrong, you will be at a preparation level of 90%. Remember, you need not go deep in these concepts, and you only need a shallow knowledge of the services explained in this section.

9.    Join AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam, Practitioner Groups

You can choose to join practitioners’ groups for the preparation of the AWS exam. It will give you a chance to talk to fellows and experts of AWS about certain topics and concepts. Talking about anything will give you more and more aspects of the subject. You will be able to clear all your queries an also learn from the experience of experts in the field. You can find many such groups and boot camps on Facebook and LinkedIn. Through these groups, you will get a hands-on experience of those who are already working in the AWS infrastructure. Many students and experts will be in one place, and it will be easier to communicate and have an understanding of the concepts you are confused about. People will readily help freshers and clear their confusion. 

10.Watch AWS Certified Solutions Architect- Associate 2020 By Exampro

They provide a great video about the review of the subject and are only 10 hours long. It also provides you with cheat notes that will help you clear the exam. Now your preparation must be at 90% and you will b able to understand the video easily. You will go to 95% after watching this video and your chances to pass the actual exam will increase to the maximum. These practice tests are unique in such a way that they cover something new every time. You might get 60% on them and it’s totally fine because you will be learning something new every single time.

11. Take The Practice Tests To See If You Score 72% Or Not

Now is the final time to take the Jon Bonso Practice test #5, which will cover all the topics needed for the AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam and will be your final shot to schedule your real exam. Here you can get full tests and also smaller tests that are one service focused each. You can use this way to check which services are causing a problem for you and can prepare them more. You might also get 50% on this final test, but it will give you a cloud knowledge to 100%, and that would mean that you must get 72% on the real exam. With these practice tests, you will be able to get a clear understanding of where you stand and how much you need to prepare more. 

Conclusion

Taking the AWS Solutions Architect will be a great shot for you as it has a huge demand in the market. You can get huge paychecks while serving as an AWS architect as few people offer these services. Due to the huge scope and deficiency of professionals in the field, freshers can also make good money through this field. Though it is a tough exam and preparing, it would require covering a deeper level of AWS concepts, but it’s worth it. The knowledge you will gain through this won’t only be of help for passing the exam but also will help you later on in your career. You will use this knowledge for dealing with issues in your AWS Solutions Architect career. This exam contains 60 questions, and you will have 130 minutes to solve them. The passing criteria are not to score the highest but only to get 72% marks on the AWS exam. You may find many helping materials and blogs for preparing for this exam. A deeper and better understanding of the topics is required to maintain your chances of passing the exam. All the questions offered in the AWS exam are fair and are not designed to trick you. They are basically to assess your knowledge and understanding of the services in AWS. AWS professionals are considered to be an asset as there aren’t many who can do the tasks of Cloud market management.