How I Passed The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate C03 Exam
Published: 2024-01-08 16:57:16

I successfully cleared the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate C03 Exam on December 28, 2023, on my first attempt.

## My Preparation Time For The Exam

There are many videos in Youtube where they say they have cleared the exam in just two/three weeks time; but for me it was quite a long journey. It took me almost five months to study and get prepared as I had no prior experience in AWS.

## How I Studied For The Exam

As I have said earlier that I had no prior experience in AWS before this, to get myself familiar with AWS and its basics I have gone through the Cloud Practitioner course that is available for free on Youtube. As I went through the course I have taken notes of services such VPC, EC2, S3 Bucket, EFS, EBS etc. Similarly I have speed run through a AWS Solution Architect Associate course on Youtube. In addition to that, I have researched more into the syllabus contents, the exam question patterns and exam duration from the internet.

After getting to know about the basics, I have dived into the Solution Architect course by Stéphane Maarek on Udemy. This is the best course in the market and has enough resources to take on the exam. I went through this course several times before I felt confident about the topics covered within the course.

Finally, I would like to emphasize on mock exams! Practice! Practice! Practice! Without practicing for the test, you will most probably wont be able to score much. The questions are quite lengthy will long MCQ options. Practicing just like the real exam environment is very much crucial for success. I have trained my brain to be focused for 140 minutes. This is a very big challenge.

## Lab Works

I have followed the lab-works from Stéphane Maarek's course and tried to complete all the labs. The labs were a great learning step for me because when I have done the work myself the concepts became clearer.

Tip: AWS provides 12 months free tier access for newcomers. Everyone should try to take the best advantage of this offer.

Pro-Tip: If the 12 months free tier is expired, just create another account with a different email address with the same credit card! You will have another 12 months of free AWS usage.

## What Materials I Have Studied For The Exam

i. [AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification Course (CLF-C01) - Pass the Exam!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOTamWNgDKc)
ii. [AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate 2023 | Learn AWS Free | AWS Full Crash Course](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc5C1Zt5tD8)
iii. [Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-saa-c03/?kw=aws+saa&src=sac)
iv. [AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Practice Exams](https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-amazon-practice-exams-saa-c03/)
V. [AWS Well-Architected - Build secure, efficient cloud applications](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/framework/welcome.html)

## My Next Challenge

I have decided to take the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate exam next. I have researched the internet and found out the basics of the exams. I hope to study the same way for this exam as I have studied for AWS SAA.