How I passed AWS SAA, SAP

I passed AWS SAA and SAP exams.
I will share how I passed the exams just for your reference. 

# Background
I used AWS services for five years. At the beginning, I just used AWS console to start/stop EC2 instances.
As the business expanded, I started to use more and more services: S3, IAM, CloudFormation, CodeBuild, System Managers, Lambda, DataSync...

I usually just read the AWS documents to learn one service before I use it. It's enough for most of the cases. But if I need to design the architecture on AWS, it becomes difficut because I don't know which servers AWS has and what each service can do.

My company has many support on employee self growth. We have the udemy business on which there are many good courses. There is also AWS campaign. We can get refund (more than the registration fee) after passing the AWS certificate exam.

Under above background, I decided to take AWS certificate exam.

# Prepare
I used udemy and techstock to prepare for the exam.

## Udemy
I took below courses on Udemy to learn and practice.
[Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-saa-c03/)
[Practice Exams | AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate](https://www.udemy.com/course/practice-exams-aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate/)
[Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional 2022](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-solutions-architect-professional/)
[Practice Exam AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional](https://www.udemy.com/course/practice-exam-aws-certified-solutions-architect-professional/)

The SAA course has hands on. It's helpful if you haven't used that service/feature before. By the hands on, you can know how the service/feature looks like and how to operate on AWS console or CLI.

The SAP course doesn't have hands on. The author recomended to take other associate courses to have more hands on experiences (I didn't do that). In the SAP course, only advanced and detailed usage are explained, the basic usage is not included. The SAP course is more like a cheatsheet.

## Techstock
https://techstock.jp/
I practiced AWS SAP questions on techstock. You can answer one question and check the result immediately. No need to finish all the questions. It's useful to get feedback quickly.
There is only Japanese. So I enabled google translate plugin to help me understand the questions.
![image.png](https://qiita-image-store.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/0/2732441/65fc8531-334e-63c4-ab94-895f0015f373.png)

I took the questions from SAP01 to SAP30. The accurary rate is 70%.
There are many questions coming from AWS FAQ. Some questions are about very detailed configuration. I feel it's more difficult than udemy practice exam.

## How much time I took to prepare for the exam
SAA: 55.5 hours
```
udemy course:
video: 27 hours
practice exam: took (1.5h), reviewed (3h), retook (1h)

udemy practice exam:
practice 1, 2: took (1.5h), reviewed (3h), retook (1h)
practice 3, 4: took (1.5h), reviewed (3h)
practice 5: reviewed (3h)
```

SAP: 39 hours
```
udemy course:
video: 16.5 hours

udemy practice exam:
practice 2: took (2.5h), reviewed (3h)
practice 3: reviewed (3h)

techstock:
SAP01 ~ SAP30: 30 * 7 = 210 questions, 4 minutes for each question, 14 hours.
```

I took less time on SAP than on SAA. It's because I just finished SAA course and still remembered the basic knowledge.

# Register exam
My company is AWS partner. I need to login by company email, then register the exam to get the refund.
When I registered SAA exam, there was a campaign by Pearson VUE to retake the exam free if you failed the first time.
I chose English as the exam language. English is not my native language, so I got 30 more minutes for the exam. You need to request exam accommodations to get this additional 30 minutes. It turns out this 30 minutes are really valuable.
![image.png](https://qiita-image-store.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/0/2732441/1c57b690-5691-0ad2-6e50-3db2962b3fdd.png)

After passing one AWS certificate exam, you will get benefit "50% Discount on your next Exam". I used it when registering the SAP exam. The previous Pearson VUE campaign can not be used together with other discount. So I just used the 50% discount. 
 
# Take exam
Went to test center, checked two IDs with alphabeta name.
I booked the exam to start at 14:00, and the test center was open at 13:30. You can choose to checkin and start your exam immediately, or wait until near the start time and checkin.

When I took the SAA exam, the test center was noisy. So I changed to another one when I took the SAP exam.

The time was not enough for both SAA and SAP.
SAA has 130 minutes to finish the exam. I had additional 30 minutes. When I finished all the SAA questions, the remaining time was 30 minutes.
SAP has 180 minutes to finish the exam. I had additional 30 minutes. When I finished all the SAP questions, the remaining time was 10 minutes.
So pay attention to the time. Basically 2 minutes one question.

# Result
For SAA, I felt it's difficult, but I thought I could pass. 
The first 20+ questions were relatively easier. It became difficult after that. I marked the uncertain questions to review at the end. Finally I had around 15 questions to review.
There are 4 questions which are the same with udemy practice exam.

For SAP, it's much more difficult, and I prayed to pass.
There were many services that I even didn't hear about. I marked many questions to review at the end, but actually I didn't have time to review them.
Some questions are similar with techstock questions.


I got the exam result around 20:00 in the same day. Luckily all passed.

# Thanks
Thank you for watching. Wish you can also pass the exam.