Over the past few years, I’ve been aspiring to acquire the AWS Associate Architect certification. Despite facing setbacks and being a procrastinator, I finally committed to a three-week study plan that culminated in taking the exam. I’d like to share my study journey, highlighting the steps I took and my thoughts on each.

Me studying on my exercise bike

In the context of my background, I’ve spent several years working with AWS as a developer, occasionally assuming the architect role for web application stacks. I’ve also dabbled in Digital Ocean and Azure for personal web applications. Prior to committing to my three-week study plan, I had engaged in sporadic bursts of exam preparation.

The learning resources I zeroed in on were:

I embarked on my study journey with ACG’s AWS Architecture Path, starting from scratch and progressing to the AWS Certified Solutions Architecture - Associate (SAA-C03) course, selectively skipping over sections like ‘What is CLI?’, ‘Introduction to Python Scripting’, and a few supplementary videos. Despite debates over whether to bypass the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C01) course, I decided to skim it for a comprehensive understanding of the products. Before the course, I scored 71% on a practice exam, which improved to 85% after reviewing unfamiliar course sections.

ACG progress in course

Following this, I attempted my first ACG Associate Architecture practice exam and scored a humble 51%. Despite finding the ensuing deep dive courses somewhat tedious, I found them incredibly thorough. Armed with extensive knowledge of AWS products, I took another ACG practice exam, scoring 69%, and scored 59% in my first Jon Bonso practice exam.

My focus then shifted to the Associate Architecture course, which was content-heavy and quite verbose in places. However, I later found out that the course missed some crucial exam topics. Initially, I was actively engaged in the labs, but as I found them relatively simple, I began skipping them. Post-course, I scored 80% in the ACG practice exam and 64% in Jon Bonso’s second practice exam.

Practice exam results

While my scores in the Jon Bonso exams were less than stellar, these exams have a reputation for being tougher than the actual exam, giving me a glimmer of hope. Notwithstanding, I decided to boost my confidence by honing in on my weak areas, refining my understanding of certain products and reading a cheat sheet.

Rather than revisiting the ACG course, I opted for the Stephane Maarek course. This course covered a few topics missed by the ACG course and seemed more exam-focused, making it more beneficial for my preparation. Post this course, I attempted the official AWS practice exam but managed only 50%. However, a subsequent ACG practice exam saw a promising score of 91%.

The day of the exam, I felt fairly well rested, I didn’t have a coffee but I grabbed some sushi before the exam. I decided to do the exam in person, I was a little surprised how serious the procedure was, needing to do a supervised pat search on myself. I would say I flagged around half the questions as needing to come back to. During the practice exams I normally finished all 65 questions in 40 minutes, but I took just over 2 hours for the real exam. After the exam I did not feel confident in my performance, I had assumed I failed and had already started thinking about how I will keep on studying.

Later that night, while at dinner with a friend, I received an email announcing that I had passed! Two days later, a follow-up email revealed my full results - a score of 793/1,000. To be honest, I was surprised yet extremely relieved that I wouldn’t need to retake the exam.

My Notion Kanban board for tracking my study practice

Looking back, I would still choose the same study resources, but probably skip the AWS Cloud Practitioner course and the FreeCodeCamp YouTube video. I believe a more effective approach would have been to use that time to review Jon Bonso’s practice exams and understand the reasoning behind incorrect answers.

Although the certification may not significantly alter my professional standing or employability, the process endowed me with extensive knowledge about the AWS ecosystem, which I believe will be beneficial in the future. Despite the enriching experience, I doubt I’ll be riding the certification treadmill again, at least not this year. Hopefully, my journey provides some useful insights for those aiming to conquer the AWS Associate Architect exam.

Exam results (in order of completion)

  1. A Cloud Guru Cloud Practitioner Exam 1 - 71%
  2. A Cloud Guru Cloud Practitioner Exam 2 - 85%
  3. A Cloud Guru Associate Architect Exam 1 - 51%
  4. A Cloud Guru Associate Architect Exam 2 - 69%
  5. Jon Bonso Associate Architect Exam 1 - 59%
  6. A Cloud Guru Associate Architect Exam 3 - 80%
  7. Jon Bonso Associate Architect Exam 2 - 64%
  8. A Cloud Guru Associate Architect Exam 4 - 91%
  9. AWS Official Practice Exam - 50%
  10. AWS Architect - Associate Exam - 79.30%