My Experience About the Preparation of AWS Certification Exam

In this blog, I will share my experience about how I prepared AWS Certification exams.
Although I know Japanese, I write this article in English since I learned AWS and took the exam using English.
I hope this blog could help people all around the world :)
(I will update this blog if anything changed which related to the exam.)

# Background About Me

I am a developer and my main job is coding (Java, Javascript, etc..). I am developing a web service using AWS as the cloud platform. This web service is using service related serverless framework such as Lambda, API Gateway, S3, dynamodb and etc. 
I use some AWS services but not that frequently. That is also why I want to learn more about those services by taking the exam.

# AWS Certification

## Explanation

The following page explains AWS certifications. 

https://aws.amazon.com/certification/?nc1=h_ls

It has 4 categories: foundamental, associate, professional and specialty as below.

![image.png](https://qiita-image-store.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/0/3335050/a5541421-53c4-0f4a-6391-b74b05f4f0c4.png)

The exams has different duration, question numbers and passing score as belows.

|  Category  |  Exam duration(Mins)  |  Question Numbers  |  Passing Score  |
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| foundamental | 90 | 65 | 700 |
| associate | 130 | 65 | 720 |
| professional | 180 | 75 | 750 |
| specialty | 170 | 65 | 750 |

※questions are either multiple choice or multiple response

According to the English as a second language section in the link below, you can have extra 30 minute if your native language is not English.

https://aws.amazon.com/certification/policies/before-testing/

AWS certifications are valid for 3 years, so you need to take the exam periodically if you want to maintain the certified status.

## My AWS Certifications
I have 7 certifications now, and I'm learning other 2 certifications recently.
The following table shows the complexity of the exam I personally think. 

|  Certification Name  |  Test Code  |  Complexity  |  Score  |
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
|  AWS Certified Developer - Associate  |  DVA-C01  |  ★★☆  |  900～  |
|  AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate  |  SAA-C02  |  ★★★  |  750～800  |
|  AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional  |  DOP-C01  |  ★★★★☆  |  800～850  |
|  AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty  |  MLS-C01  |  ★★★★  |  850～900  |
|  AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional  |  SAP-C01  |  ★★★★★  |  800～850  |
|  AWS Certified Database - Specialty  |  DBS-C01  |  ★★★☆  |  800～850  |
|  AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty  |  ANS-C01  |  ★★★★★  |  750～800  |

# How I Learned AWS

I'll take AWS Certified Developer - Associate as the example. The other exams i learned used almost the same method. 

## Udemy

I used Udemy to learn AWS mainly.
The first course I took is as the following link.(AWS Certified Developer Associate)
I love this course and find it very helpful.

https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-developer-associate-dva-c01/

The good points about Udemy
1. it has many hands ons for people who do not have much experience about how to use AWS services.
2. the course is updating whenever AWS update the test and services. It is the best part of these courses.

Two tips about Udemy course:
1. buy the course when it has discount(90%, the discount shows up quite frequently)
2. terminate EC2 and delete resouces which may cost money after usage 
(I paid $20 since i forgot to terminate my EC2 instances T_T)

You can take the course freely if your company have collaboration with Udemy.  
(Recently, our company has bought udemy courses. It is quite beneficial for me.)

## Other learning material

For some exam like AWS Certified Machine Learning, it requires not only the AWS knowledge but also basic machine learning knowledge.

Kaggle is the website i am using to learn machine learning and python.

https://www.kaggle.com/learn/intro-to-machine-learning

https://www.kaggle.com/learn/python

# How I Practiced the Exam

## Exam Guide

https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-dev-associate/AWS-Certified-Developer-Associate_Exam-Guide.pdf

The exam guide explains the detailed skills you need when you take the exam, also the percentage of exam of every domain like below.

![image.png](https://qiita-image-store.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/0/3335050/cb6e95f1-6331-90c5-bc0c-7ea010fd45a4.png)

## ExamTopics

I used ExamTopics to practice the exam.
It has many questions which showed up in the real exam. 
Also, it has the explanations by other people and related link to help you have a better understanding of the question.
I only used this to learn AWS but it also has many other exam questions.

https://www.examtopics.com/exams/amazon/aws-certified-developer-associate/view/

## Udemy Practice Test

I did not use Udemy to practice the exam but the content seems very useful. It has a very detailed explanation of every question. 

https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-developer-associate-practice-tests-dva-c01/

# Registration of the Exam

## Where to Take the Exam

Altough you can take the exam at home, but i'm not recommend it. 
When I took DOP exam, since the network problem of the test, i could not receive the test content. So, the test was cancelled by the supervisor. Then, I had to register the test again.(fortunately i still passed the exam)
Therefore, i recommend you to take the exam at test center near your home.

## 50% Discount of the Exam

AWS periodically have campaigns for people who want to take the exam, so check the AWS homepages before you register the exam.
The following page shows the discount information about associate certifications recently.

https://pages.awscloud.com/GLOBAL-ln-GC-Traincert-Associate-Certification-Challenge-Registration-2023.html

 
Also, if you passed 1 exam of AWS, you will receive 50% discount token which can be used in your next exam. (don't forget to use the token :))

![50%off.JPG](https://qiita-image-store.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com/0/3335050/2f80bc94-7503-3e9d-1550-469cc5edf144.jpeg)

# Last

I hope all of you can pass the AWS Certification Exam!
Good luck!