I passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam back in April and the process was so taxing that it’s taken me two months to write a reflection about the exam. I passed on the first try so surely I did some things right, but I think I will make a few changes to my study routine the next time I take the exam.

Adjusting what I spend my time on

I bought a study course through ACloudGuru, which I liked, but I spent an extraordinary amount of time going through the study videos and taking notes, when I think I should have been targeting my studying more towards the exam questions. The videos are very informative, but they don’t cover all the material tested on the exam, which means you have to spend a ton of additional time learning all the little things that were missed. I was surprised how many things came up that were not in the ACloudGuru study material. Next time, I’m going to start by taking practice exams to see how much of the material I already know, and then work my way backwards and study the specific sections that I need help on.

Research which study exams are most similar to the exam and focus on those

I bought the first few sets of practice exams that came up on Udemy without doing any research as to which ones were most similar to the exam questions. Then when I started taking the practice exams, I was getting wildly different results. This caused a lot of confusion and self-doubt, until I got on Reddit and read about other people’s experiences with different courses, instructors and exams. This helped me focus my efforts on the tests that people said were most similar to the exam, so I could get a more accurate picture of how I was doing. Next time, I will do more research on which practice exams to get.

Preparing for the discomfort of that testing center

One thing that I think really played out in my benefit was retaking the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam before the Solutions Architect exam. This is mainly because I forgot how uncomfortable and stressful testing centers are, and how much that can be an inhibitor to exam performance. When I went to take the AWS SSA exam, I felt like I knew what I was getting into, and I had somewhat of a plan for how I was going to deal with it.

Overall the exam went well, and given the things I was able to take away from it, I will be really prepared for the next exams.