Finally I got my certificate AWS Solution Architect Associate and I want to share my thoughts about preparing and passing the exam itself.
What is AWS
First, a few words about AWS - Amazon Web Services. AWS is the same cloud in pants that can offer, probably, almost everything that is used in the IT world. I want to store terabyte archives, here's the Simple Storage Service, aka S3. Need a load balancer and virtual machines in different regions, keep an Elastic Load Balancer and EC2. Containers, Kubernetes, serverless computing, call it what you want - here it is!
When I first got acquainted with the principle of AWS, I was most hooked by the availability of all services. With a pay-for-what-you-use model, it's easy to run different configurations for testing or just out of curiosity. My hands really itched when I realized that for a couple of dollars an hour you can rent a 64-core server with 256 GB of RAM. Real such pieces of iron are quite difficult to get your hands on, and AWS makes it possible to play with them for reasonable money. Add to this a quick start, when there are only a couple of minutes between the start of configuration and the launch of services, and ease of setup. Yes, even after registration, AWS gives you a whole year to play with a lot of free services. It is not easy to refuse such a tempting offer.
Prepare for AWS Solution Architect Associate Certification
To work with resources, AWS promotes special documentation and a lot of thematic videos. In addition, Amazon offers everyone who wants to take exams and get certified. I will tell you a little more about the preparation and the delivery itself.
The exam lasts 140 minutes and consists of 65 questions. Most often you need to choose one option out of four, although there are also two out of four or two out of six options. The questions are, for the most part, voluminous and describe a typical scenario for which you need to choose the right solutions from the AWS world. Passing score 72%.
Documentation and short videos on the Amazon site are a good start, but for exam preparation, it would be very good to have experience in the cloud and system knowledge. It was with this mindset - to understand the materiel - that I went to look for an online course to prepare for AWS Solution Architect Associate. I started my acquaintance with one of the many courses on Udemy from A Cloud Guru:
The course turned out to be successful, and I liked the combination of theoretical materials and practical labs, where I could touch most of the services with my hands, get my hands dirty and get the same work experience along the way. However, after all the lectures and lab, when I took the final test in the training course, I realized that my superficial knowledge of the general device is clearly not enough to score a passing score.
After the first failed tests, I decided to take a similar exam preparation course on LinkedIn. I thought to refresh and systematize knowledge and purposefully prepare for the exam.
This time, in order to avoid gaps in knowledge, I started a notebook and began to write down the main points from the lectures and important questions for the exam. In general, the course seemed to me less exciting than the course on A Cloud Guru, but in both courses the material is professionally analyzed and, I think, it's more a matter of taste, who likes what.
After two courses and a well-written lecture notes, I again took up trial tests and hardly scored 60% of the correct answers. Considering all my preparation and the time spent at the lectures, I, of course, seriously thought about it. It was clear that my knowledge was not enough to correctly answer some of the questions. This time, it seemed to me, it was not the knowledge of the system as a whole that was lame, but a misunderstanding of specific work scenarios.
It seemed inefficient to review all the courses in a new way, and I tried to find more test items and detailed discussions of the questions. As often happens in such cases, I βfoundβ just such a course with trial tests on . This is no longer a course, as such, but six trial tests close to the exam. That is, in 140 minutes you need to answer the same 65 questions and score at least 72% to pass. Looking ahead, Iβll say that the questions are really very similar to those that can be obtained on a real test. After completing the trial test, the fun begins. Each question is discussed in detail with an explanation of the correct options and links to the AWS documentation and a site with cheats and notes on AWS services: .
For a long time I fiddled with these tests, but in the end I began to gain from 80%. At the same time, I solved each of them two, or even three times. On average, it took me an hour and a half to complete the test, and then another two or three hours to analyze and fill in the gaps in the abstract. As a result, I spent more than 20 hours only on trial tests.
How the Online (PearsonVUE) AWS Solution Architect Associate Exam Works
The exam itself can be taken either at a certified center or at home online (PearsonVUE). Due to the general quarantine and madness, I decided to take the exam at home. There are detailed requirements and recommendations for passing the exam. In general, everything is quite logical. You need a laptop or PC with an Internet connection and a webcam. First you need to test the connection speed. There should be no records, gadgets, or any other screens turned on near the change-in area. Windows should be covered if possible. No one can enter the room in which the exam is being taken during the test, the door must be closed.
During the test, a special utility is installed on the PC, which allows the examiner to monitor the screen, camera and sound during the test. All this information is available before the test on the site. The details of the exam itself, such as questions, cannot be disclosed, but I would like to tell you about the process of passing.
About 15 minutes before the appointed time, I opened the Peasonvue application and began to fill in the required fields like full name. To confirm your identity, you must take a photo of your driver's license or passport. Interestingly, you can take a picture either on your phone or on a webcam. More out of curiosity, I chose the option to take pictures with the camera on my phone. After a couple of seconds, I received a link in SMS. Following the prompts, I took a picture of the right and then pictures of the room from four sides. After the final confirmation on the phone, after a couple of seconds, the screen on the laptop changed, saying that everything was ready for the test.
Photo of the room from four sides and my camp table from an ironing board:
About five minutes later, he wrote to me in the chat, and then the examiner called. He spoke with the usual Indian accent, but through the speakers on the laptop (headphones cannot be used), it was difficult to understand him. Before the start, I was asked to remove the documents from the table, because. there should not be anything superfluous on the table, and then they asked me to twist the laptop to make sure that everything in the room corresponded to the photographs received earlier. I received a wish of luck and the exam began.
The interface with questions was at first unusual, but then I got involved in the process and no longer paid attention to the appearance. The examiner called me the only time and asked me not to read the questions aloud. Apparently, in order not to declassify questions. An hour and a half later I answered the last question. After the test, there was also a verification screen, where it turned out that I missed one of the questions and did not choose an answer. A couple more clicks and... you can admire the result. As a result: after almost two hours of intense thinking, it was finally possible to relax. At the same moment, the examiner connected and congratulated on duty, on which the exam ended successfully.
A couple of days later, I received a nice letter βCongratulations, You are Now AWS Certifiedβ. The AWS account displays the passed exam and the score. In my case, it was 78%, which, although not ideal, is quite enough for credit.
Summing up, I will add a couple of links that I already mentioned in the article.
Courses:
AWS abstract site:
Course with practice questions:
A couple of free resources from Amazon:
Preparing for AWS Solution Architect Associate has been a long road for me. Once again I was convinced that the abstract is one of the best ways to understand the material. The funny thing is, just before the exam, when reviewing the key videos from Cloud Gury, I perceived the material already familiar to me in a completely different way, noting more details. True, it was possible to come to this only after two online courses, a summary and trial tests. Indeed, repetition is the mother of learning.
Source: habr.com