I Passed AWS Certified Solutions Architect-Associate (SAA-CO2) 2020 | Sharing My Experience & Tips

With cloud technologies becoming the future for many organizations, I see huge value in building up knowledge in this area. I wanted to share my personal experience in hope that it will help you with your exam preparation too.

I will be sharing the resources I have used, the time I have spent on each module, my studying techniques and my experience with the online proctored exam.

My Background: I am a student from Information Systems with minor project-based hands-on experience with AWS. I have done the AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification a year ago.

Exam Preparation Resources

1. Read the SAA-CO2 exam guide. This is the new version released in March 2020.
2. ACloudGuru AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate 2020 (14.5hr): This course provides a comprehensive series of lectures and hands-on labs which lay a good foundation for the exam. The course has been updated with new topics from the SAA-CO2.

Highlights

• Review quizzes after each chapter
• 2 overall review quizzes + Exam Simulator
• Does not require any background knowledge / Serves as a good refresher for those who have
• ACloudGuru Discussion Forum— Community forum for questions. Most of my questions were answered by reading the forum posts.

Limitations

• Explanation for some of the quiz questions can be rather vague.
• ACloudGuru Discussion Forum — There iss no ACloudGuru instructor answering the questions so it might be quite frustrating when there was no definite explanation.

Study Schedule

• Everyone’s learning pace will be different but I thought it will be useful to share my schedule for your planning. I took a much longer time than what I have planned for the 14.5hr course. I spent about 6 hours studying everyday and it took me about 10 days to complete the course.

I got a score of 56% for my first attempt and 69% for my second attempt.

3. AWS Exam Readiness: AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate (Digital). This is a completely free course provided by AWS. It is a fantastic pre-exam summary lecture with exam axioms provided.

If you are looking for a full comprehensive course, you would have to go for the 5-day AWS Exam Readiness Intensive Workshop instead.

4. AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Practice Exams. These 6 practice papers are worth every single buck!

Highlights

• Detailed explanation with additional illustrations was provided for every question.
• There is a community Q&A feature where you can post a question and an instructor would typically respond to your question within 2–4 days. I have asked 4 questions and I have received clear explanation from the instructor within 3 hours (exceeded my expectations)!
• The practice questions prepared me well for the exam.

Study Schedule

I supplemented my own notes with Tutorial Dojo Cheat Sheets and AWS Q&A sections. I used the Tutorial Dojo Exam guide as a reference for the specific services that are of higher weightage in the exam.

Study Techniques

• I would listen to the video lectures and take down notes. Do note that due to copyright issues, the above online courses did not provide the PowerPoint slides. Taking notes helped me consolidate the learning points but it took more time as well.
• I would also create tables to compare key feature differences between similar services. Eg, EFS vs S3 vs EBS vs instance store.
• Test Reviews: Whenever I have doubts for a question, I would flag it immediately. After finishing the test, I would go through the explanation for all the flagged questions even if I have answered them correctly. The explanation would sometimes surprise me. I would go on to read the AWS documentations/watch more YouTube tutorials/do further research as required to strengthen my understanding.
• I am more of a visual learner so I found drawing out the architecture and verbalizing the content to myself helpful.

Finally... It’s time for Online Proctored Exam

I took my Cloud Practitioner certification at a physical examination venue. This was my first time taking an online proctored AWS exam through Pearson Vue.

1. Remember to run the system test to ensure your system works. Download the OnVue application and follow the instructions.

Troubleshooting: I was unable to launch the application at first. It worked after restarting my laptop and closing my background apps (eg, Skype, Telegram). I performed the system test on a spare laptop, just in case.

2. Schedule a suitable date and time as it will be a quite a long paper (140mins). You are not allowed to leave your seat (not even for the washroom), eat or drink during the exam.

3. On the exam day:

• You can check in as early as 30 mins before your scheduled exam timing. My check-in process took about 10mins and I did not face any technical issues.
• After the check-in, I was redirected to a waiting page. Due to heavy traffic, do note that this waiting time can take up to 30 minutes. My schedule exam time was 1200 and the proctor contacted me at 1225. Nevertheless, be punctual for your exam.
• If you need assistance during the check-in, I would suggest reaching out to the helpline chat on their website without closing the waiting page as that would cancel your examination.
• If you need assistance during the exam, there would be a chat feature for you to communicate with the proctor directly.

You can do it! :)

This certification was definitely challenging and it took lots of commitment and effort to complete it. Don’t lose heart and give it your best!

“ Sow the seeds of hard work and you will reap the fruits of success ” — Israelmore Ayivor

I hope you find this sharing useful! Good luck and happy learning! 🍀