AWS Solutions Architect Professional exam (technical resources) — Part 2

In Part — 1, I explained my process for study sessions. This part covers the resources I used and how I used the content. I mainly needed to work on AWS services and features, I wasn’t familiar with.

Let’s get into it.

I went through the AWS Solutions Architect Exam Guide and did the Sample Questions to get a feel. I must have gone over the exam guide quite a few times to create a mental map of which services belong in which domain (it doesn’t really matter much). I believe what’s important is to realise which domain the question belongs, it helps you eliminate the wrong choices.

A Cloud Guru

Then I started the A Cloud Guru course to go through the content and the services. I did all the labs, some were straight forward for me cause I had experience with the services. The course content is good and relatively straight forward. Sitting though the course forces you to extend your knowledge for AWS services or features, you haven’t previously used.

I paused often in the course, made notes, looked up services and features, used CLI/Console to actually create services.

AWS FAQs

These FAQ pages actually hold a lot information that directly impacted my ability to answer questions on the exam. Every time I was stuck in a lab or reviewing a practice test. I often went digging through these.

Resource Links

Exam content — This post has covered the services you can expect to see on the exam very well.

Jayendra Patil — I am sure you must have come across it by now. This dude has put in some serious effort into cataloging vast knowledge. Big thanks!

Blue Clouds — I supplemented this with the Jayendra’s blog.

Well Architected Labs — I tried to do as many of these as possible.

AWS Mysfits Lab — I really enjoyed doing this lab. It touches on a lot of services (mainly Cognito, Kinesis and API Gateway for me that needed to dig deep into) and how they are used to form a solution. When I was doing this lab, I often paused and went the FAQ pages to understand the details.

Reference Architecture — The scenarios in the exam are actually based on solution derived by AWS or the AWS customers themselves. The “right” answers are pretty much the best practices for a given scenario. It’s worth going through these architecture diagrams.

AWS Solutions — Pretty similar resources to the Architecture pages above.

Practice Exams — I would recommend do as many practice exams you can get your hands on. I did AWS practice exam and BrainCert.

Questions

The questions in the exam are very wordy. I believe it’s important to realise which domain the question belongs, it help you eliminate the wrong choices.

• Scan the question to pick up keywords like (cost effective, highly available, least complex, least management overhead, etc).
• Scan the answers vertically, try not to read the common sentences, which are often the first and second sentences.
• Eliminate obviously wrong answers quickly.
• You will often find yourself stuck between two similar answers with one differentiator. The answer is actually hidden in the question, recall the keyword (is the question asking for most secure solution, picking an answer where encryption is not considered can help you eliminate it).

Partner Up

A friend of mine who took the exam earlier gave me his flashcards. I also discussed questions with my team mates who had previously taken this exam. I asked them for tips and tricks they used.

Part — 3 will cover time tracking and time saving tips during exam.

Stay tuned!