I mainly work backend, but I am taking on infra work too, so I sat AWS SAA first and passed with 782. I crammed for about 10 days, so I am sharing the process and the materials I used.
The web is full of SAA pass reports, and a lot of them say the same things. I also want to cover what you can skip.
Up front: Ping-t is enough for most people. You do not need the Udemy mock exams. I would rather you skip them.
I also do not think you need CLF (Certified Cloud Practitioner) at all. I sat Azure’s Foundational exam in the past, and it was mostly memorizing resources. I expect AWS Foundational to be the same kind of thing.
Introduction
I want to walk through the upsides and downsides of getting SAA.
Upsides
Calling it system design might be a stretch, but learning common patterns is useful. I would not treat it as “because it is AWS” so much as “AWS happens to have this kind of resource” — keep the generic pattern in mind.
- You can learn well-worn design patterns and system design through AWS.
Downsides
The scope is fairly wide. It also covers things you will probably never use in practice, such as on-prem data migration. Treat that as exam tax and move on.
- The exam range is wide, and you have to cover material that is not practical.
Studying
Materials
I mainly used three materials.
Ping-t
Strongest web question bank: AWS Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C03)
This is the well-known strongest site for cert prep. This site alone is basically enough.
The SAA question bank is paid now, but it is a necessary expense — buy it.
I worked through every question and covered the common design patterns and the basics. I was not in a state where I had memorized everything perfectly. I still passed.
Udemy hands-on
【SAA-C03 edition】 This is enough! AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam course
A video course where you build things in a hands-on format.
In my case I only actually built the basics: VPC, IAM, ECS, ALB, and similar. The videos add up to just under 50 hours, so I do not recommend doing all of them.
Also, video makes it easy to just follow the clicks. I think you understand more if you detour a bit and try “what happens if I change this?” as you go.
Udemy mock exams
It includes 6 sittings. I quit after 2. I recommend reading the reviews yourself; I mostly agree with them. If I sat the same exam again, I would not do even one sitting.
Schedule
I booked the exam first and set it 10 days out (I think you can cancel up to 24 hours before).
You can take it online at home, but slots are limited, and test centers fill up more than you expect, so I recommend locking a date early. I did not want it to drag on, so I set the date first and then started studying.
10–8 days before the exam
I studied by actually creating resources in the Udemy hands-on. I spent serious time on VPC and IAM and built a basic understanding. That was well worth it. Honestly I also wanted to touch the slightly more obscure resources, but I stopped the hands-on once I decided I would not use them at work for now.
7–4 days before the exam
I did Ping-t and talked with AI when I did not understand something. That combination is the strongest approach.
At this stage I could handle basic questions about each resource well enough. For exam-level questions I had worked through them once, but I still did not understand more of them than I understood.
3–1 days before the exam
I added the Udemy mocks on top of Ping-t. After 2 sittings the question quality felt low. I read the reviews and, as expected, a lot of people said the same thing. So I dropped the mocks and put everything into Ping-t.
The day before, I could almost always get the Ping-t basics, and I could barely get the exam-level ones from keywords, but I did not really understand them in a deep way.
Honestly I was not sure I would pass, ha.
Exam day
I still had about 60 questions I had wanted to finish the day before, so I skimmed those last and stopped.
I passed with 782.
During the exam it felt much easier than Ping-t, and I was sure I would pass.
I started at 11:00, and I had the result around 21:00.
Takeaways
For exam prep: do Ping-t.
If you only do Ping-t it turns into test studying, so building the basic resources — VPC, IAM, ECS, ALB, and similar — as you go is more useful, and it also helps the understanding stick.
Tips
Besides Ping-t, I have two tips for passing.
Read the questions very carefully
When you pick an option, keywords are scattered through the stem (availability first, cost first, and so on). Training yourself to catch those keywords matters. The real exam is 130 minutes and that is a lot, but you almost never run out of time, so practice reading slowly and then answering.
Unscored questions
There are 65 questions, and 15 of them are not scored. Taking it, I did feel there were questions with a different flavor that probably were not scored. There is not much point worrying about that during the exam, so let it go and do not drop the questions you can definitely get.