One good reason to cherish this summer - AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional

I am excited to share that I have successfully completed my certification on AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional 

Tips & Tricks for the certification exam preparation based on my experience is captured in another article.

That has automatically re-certified AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate too.

Tips for `AWS Certified Solution Architect - Professional` Preparation

Here is little tips & tricks on how to ace AWS Certified Solution Architect - Professional certification

Self Evaluation

Review the Exam Guide under https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-professional/

and take up the Sample Questions. Never mind its absolute disappointment and disheartening :) 

Refresher

If it has been long time since you have taken up AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate Exam, I would suggest you to go through that course again. I followed Linux Academy at 1.5x speed including their trademark labs.

Course Material

• 50+ hrs AWS Certified Solution Architect - Professional - Linux Academy course sounded so exhaustive but its quite detailed. some lessons can be done with 1.5x speed too. 
• Linux Academy - The Orion paper is a very good reference material. 
• Linux Academy uses different set of use cases while explaining concepts and different set in labs. I would suggest to try those use cases used in concepts demo in your personal account, so you would get a better hold on the core concept.
• Exam Readiness: It’s a free course in AWS Training which you can enroll and take it. Worth going through it 2nd time, especially before the exam. It gets struck many times but worth it.
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional (Digital) . 
• Worth taking the re:Invent videos mentioned in Linux Academy course (last video)
• Take the free courses mentioned in the Exam Guide 
• EC2 Systems Manager 
• Deep Dive into Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
• Deep Dive into Elastic File System (EFS)
• Migrating and Tiering Storage to AWS

Practise Tests

1. Linux Academy Chapter Quiz - Final Quiz - multiple times (though it will be a good learning, the questions as well as answers are short and not anywhere in par with the real exam. I am sure they are still working on the questions)
2. WhizLabs CSA Pro Practice Tests - Irrespective of you fail or pass go through all the answers and explanations of other choices are not right. Explanations are good.
3. Take Dojo practice tests. Irrespective of you fail or pass go through all the answers and explanations of other choices are not right. Explanations are good.
4. Took Practice test from Amazon 5 days before the scheduled exam and somehow got 75%. Thats when realized about the lengthy questions & long answers.
   Now I understand that reading the questions at 1.5x speed is critical to complete all questions in final exam.
5. Continue to take practise tests for next few days and understanding the choices
6. Finally too the exam and cleared it..

Blogs worth reading!

1. https://gist.github.com/leonardofed/bbf6459ad154ad5215d354f3825435dc
2. https://medium.com/@talhaocakci/how-to-pass-aws-solutions-architect-professional-exam-87bebfdae86f
3. https://medium.com/@yashbindlish1/my-journey-to-aws-certified-solutions-architect-professional-f287bfe88da4
4. Jayendrapatil's Blog on AWS Solutions Architect Professional (didn't find time to go through this and some content are outdated too but his questions in each section are worth trying)

FAQs & WhitePapers

Exam Results

After 3 hours of exam, there is always a question on how would the result look like.. 

Pass result: "Congratulations! You have successfully passed the AWS Certified _____ exam. You will receive an email once your detailed results are available in your AWS Certification Account."

Fail result: "Thank you for taking the AWS Certified ______ exam. Unfortunately, you did not meet the minimum score required to pass the exam. You must wait 14 business days until your next attempt. You will receive an email once your detailed results are available in your AWS Certification Account."

But the email will say this, which will sound scary on whether you have cleared it or not J

Hello <your name>,

Thank you for taking the  AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional exam. Within 5 business days of completing your exam, you will receive an email stating your exam results are available to view in your AWS Certification Account. At that time, your score report will also be available for download.

Do not reply to this email. If you have any questions about the AWS Certification program, please click here for assistance. Thank you.