My experience on AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional certification
Tags: aws, cloud, sapc01
Published: 2022-01-05 23:10:42

Obtaining a certification is everyone’s dream. Moreover, the accomplishment of an AWS certification is most likely to be at the top of the list. In my blog here, I am going to take you through my journey of certification in **AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional**.

![AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/pesgl74pt9345n9katu7.png)
Founded in the year 2006, AWS has emerged as the widespread cloud provider. Thousands of organizations are moving to AWS cloud and this has created plenty of requirements for AWS experts. As a result, people learning about AWS and pursuing AWS certification is constantly on the rise. Also, AWS certification has the stature of being one of the most difficult and the best ones to have.

When I began to use AWS, I was eyeing the solution architect associate certification. But, never imagined accomplishing it and, the solutions architect professional was not on my list at all. 

I had enrolled for an organizational level AWS solution architect associate program and I pursued the associate level certification. By this time, I found AWS to be very fascinating and I started to think about professional-level certification. I read a few reviews by individuals who had taken the professional-level certification and went through the sample questions on AWS official site. The inference was that the exam is too tough, and it requires a very deep understanding of AWS services plus a lot of preparation. It took me about 3 days to decide that I must go for it. I said to myself “if others can do it, why can’t I?”. With that, I started planning for it. I took Neil Davis’s course in Udemy. This course comprises theory as well as hands-on labs and hence my choice for this course. It’s an amazing course and I started gaining some confidence. I had to repeat some of the chapters to get a strong understanding (for example SAML, SSO, active directory services etc.). At the same time, I started reading the AWS official documentation on some of the popular and essential services such as load balancers, auto-scaling groups etc. Reading the official documentation is never-ending and time is also running, so I had to complete it as early as possible so that I won’t forget the ones learnt in the beginning. I made a lot of notes and combined them with the notes I had prepared for my associate certification. 

After completing the Udemy course, I attempted the practice test by Neil Davis. There are 6 tests each comprising 25 questions. I didn’t score well in the first test which I felt OK for the first attempt. I went through all the questions, their answers, detailed explanations and made notes. This exercise has allowed me to improve my knowledge. I did the same for the remainder of the tests too. By the time I had completed all 6 tests with at least 80% or more, I was ready for the actual exam. Am I? Not quite though!

Before continuing, let me give a brief about the exam format. The actual exam consists of 75 questions which are to be completed in 180 mins. That is ~2.4 minutes for each question. Though it looks like there is plenty of time to complete 75 questions, it’s not so.
 
**Firstly**, many of the questions are too long including the answer options, so it would take nearly 2 minutes just to read the questions and options (it may vary based on the reading skills). Hence time management is the key to completing all questions on time. 

**Secondly**, there can be (and will be) multiple correct answers and we must choose the right fit for the given scenario. Some questions will have 2-3 answer options to choose from. All the selected options will have to be correct (and best fit for the given scenario).

**Thirdly**, it’s a three-hour-long exam. Sitting for 3 hours without moving and without access to any food is another test of patience, focus and concentration.

Back to my journey. After completing Neil Davis’s course and practice tests, I picked up practice tests from Stephane Marek. These are the main practice tests I attempted. Additionally, I attempted sample practice tests in AWS official exam site, TutorialDojo and Wizzlabs each having 15 questions. All these tests along with detailed explanations have provided me a wealth of knowledge on AWS services.

Next, I scheduled the exam with 2 weeks gap for additional preparation. During this time, I did some hands-on, re-attempted practice tests, read AWS blogs and white papers, watched a few Re:Invent videos. Just two days before the exam, I attempted AWS official practice exam in which I got just 75%. This made me a little nervous, and I sensed a possible failure. I re-scheduled the exam to obtain another two weeks for more preparation.

I picked Stephane Marek’s course in Udemy and went through it with 1.75x speed. This is another amazing course and helped me to revise and learn some of the concepts which are quite complex. I also read more blogs, white papers, documentation etc. and did hands-on. There is also an exam readiness course on AWS official website which has provided me with more insights about the exam preparation and comprises a walkthrough of a few sample questions.

And finally, I felt I am ready for the exam. I believed that we will be fresh in mind in the morning and hence I had booked the exam in the morning. I had a good start with the exam. Based on my reviews, some were suggested skipping long questions and attempting them in the end. It may work for some; however, I didn’t skip any question as I felt I won’t get time in the end. Also, we will be exhausted towards the end which will make it even more challenging for answering the skipped questions. There was some panic moment towards the end as I had to hurry with the questions. I completed the exam just on time, completed the survey (with little panic thinking about the result) and finally saw the screen saying “PASS”. Wow, finally I did it. Innumerous hours of study and preparations have finally resulted in an incredible outcome. 

I hope my experience will help others in preparing for this exam and be successful. I recommend taking an associate exam before attempting a professional exam. 

Following are some of the resources I used for my preparation.
1.	Neal Davis course – Udemy
2.	Stephane Marek course – Udemy
3.	Neal Davis and Stephane Marek practice tests – Udemy
4.	AWS official documentation and FAQ
5.	AWS blogs - https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/
6.	AWS white papers - https://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/
7.	AWS re:invent videos
8.	Sample questions from TutorialDojo, Wizzlabs, AWS official site

Thanks for reading. Good luck!