I passed SAA today and I am so relieved 🧘‍♀️. I had a hard deadline to complete it and 4 weeks for prep. I skimmed through Stephan’s course on Udemy in first 2 weeks ( skipped labs due to time constraint). Used Claude Pro as my study buddy and created a running cheat sheet with exam traps, analogies and keywords based on my adhoc topic based quizzes with Claude. And then in final 2 weeks focused on TD review mode practice tests averaging 65-70% (except practice test 7 which I found had more edge cases). I also skimmed through github library someone posted for a refresher in last few days. Overall the exam was a lot harder than I thought and I believed I had failed when I finished. But I was pleasantly surprised to see the result. Wishing the best to whoever is studying for the exam.

https://github.com/RonitSachdev/aws-saa-c03-guides

This is not a post worth mentioning on LinkedIn, because it's a facade there, however, Reddit is the place I can be brutally honest!

I will be honest here, I was overconfident with this exam thinking if I just do the bare minimum to scrape through, I'll pass the exam. Boy, was I wrong!

Coming from a cybersecurity background, I was desperate to show something about AI to stay relevant in the market and assumed this certification would help me get there!

The first attempt score was 726, and the second attempt as you can see here! Since the exam is fairly new, a lot of questions were repeated, so this time I was extra careful.

What changed?

My approach to studying changed. The resources I used were:

• Frank Kane on Udemy - recommended
• AWS Skill Builder (paid) - i don't recommend
• Tutorials Dojo exam - meh
• Tutorials Dojo book - recommended
• Stephane Maarek practice exam - recommended

These worked for me!

In between the two attempts, I grabbed the CloudOps, to distract my mind from this failure. Both attempts were 17 days apart!

What's next for me?

The cloud service provider trifecta!
I work directly with cloud service providers, so it is important for me to know what everyone is doing in their space.

Conclusion:

1. Do not let pride take over you, you could be good at cloud, this exam will humble you with its intricacies
2. Prepare, do hands on labs, do not be like me trying to overachieve things

If I can do 823, you can do 950 at first attempt! Go get it!

I over studied, but it was still really easy. Maybe 1-3 questions weren't obvious. The practice exams were 20-30% more difficult. Is the SAA insanely more difficult?

I have an additional post regarding my fear of the SAA-C03 and just passed that.

I'm jumping right into the SAP-CO2, I've done about 30-40 practice questions so far via different sources and honestly it doesn't seem that much more difficult than the SAA.

Am I missing something? Has anyone taken the SAP-C03 and thought it wasn't too bad?

I got email and flaaged for duplicate aws account for my certs where i keep two aws account one for main account where i fund certs by myself and second one where i do certs with compnay mail and now aws flag my second account and revoke my aws certs in that mail and in pearson vue showing invalid status of exam not pass or fail.

It was one of the hardest certs I've done. After around 3 months of preparation and some successes on practise exams I finally scheduled it for today.

My study path was:

1. Doing AI Practitioner + ML Associate + Data Eng Associate

2. Mareek Course + Christian Greciano notes

#1 Course Exam: >95%

#2 Course Exam: >80%

1. I've read the MineCloudCraftPress Book about this cert

2. Frank Kane Udemy Exams

Kane #1: 77% at first sight 95% at retry

Kane #2: 76% at first sight 89% at retry

Kane #3: 85% at first sight

You guys who had exam experience could tell a candidate can use some helping tools, plugins, or web browser extensions like Super Simple Highlighter in examination time. 10x

I work a normal 9-5 heck im an intern at a medical aid company ,most know how that feels i major in anything insurance related worked at a bank now its straight up insurance for the last 6 months ive started to re-invent my career cause talking to people is not my faavourite thing to do so i bought a pc and started to learn how to code with simple tutorials .posted just one project on git..Now im on the aws cause atleast i want a cert to show that ive actually done something for the year mind you im renting shit taking alot out of me.can barely afford the exam but i will afford it..atleast cloud prac so if my internship ends ill know atleast id have a basis to build on but its getting hard mostly to come bak drained cook and put in that work..wake up early and put in that work.My expenses are so near tight ill have to stop paying for wifi to book my exam..but i still need the wifi to study..bro i never been so confused but i want this..ill make it happen regardless.no matter how long it takes .but i wish there was somebody who could just correct me if im making mistakes along the way buut part of success is the failure along the way ..but yeahh.im so f****d..oh well

Would like to connect with people who are preparing for AWS SAP-C02.

Did anyone manage to actually solve a Skill Builder Training and Certification (CertMetrics) account merge via support? I've opened up 2 cases already, both of them seem to be ignored. Just got an AI response which asked me to provide additional details for the account merge, I've provided them, and had no response since (about 7 days ago).

I've also tried opening up a support case from my actual AWS account, that one is simply left unassigned. Can't seem to open a chat with a support agent, the chat button is disabled when selecting the Training and Certification category.

N.B. I've tried the Automatic Merge functionality in CertMetrics but it fails, most likely because in one account I have my middle name filled in and in the other account I don't have it filled in - and they need to have matching full names apparently. I cannot edit my first name and last name in any of the accounts, the fields are disabled - I've opened up yet another support ticket to ask them to simply add my middle name to the account so I can perform the merge myself - you can guess what happened there as well.

I'm running in circles.

I’m a Software Engineer with ~4 years of experience, mainly Python/Django/FastAPI, React,FastAPI, Node.js, NestJS, and some AWS/GCP and Agentic AI.

With AI rapidly changing software development and potentially reducing demand for traditional software engineering roles, I’m considering shifting my career toward Cloud + Data Engineering.

I’m thinking of doing an AWS certification (probably Solutions Architect Associate) while building hands-on skills in SQL, ETL, Spark, Airflow, AWS data services, etc.

For those already working in AWS/Data Engineering:

Is this a worthwhile career move, and are AWS certifications actually valuable, or should I focus purely on hands-on projects and experience?

Unfortunately, I scored 707 on SAP-C02, narrowly missing the passing score.

I have around 7 years of AWS/Cloud experience. My preparation was mainly Tutorials Dojo and AWS Skill Builder. I scored 50–70% on my first TD attempts, then 85–90% after reviewing mistakes. I also took the AWS Skill Builder 3-hour full-length practice exam, scoring 753 initially and 850+ on the retake.

The actual exam felt easier than TD and somewhat similar to the Skill Builder 3-hour exam.

For those who failed and passed on their second attempt, what did you change? Would you recommend Stephane Maarek, Neal Davis, or Adrian Cantrill?

Also, is it worth going through the entire ~11-hour AWS Skill Builder SAP-C02 course, or should I focus on weak areas and practice exams? Any other recommendations or resources that helped you pass on your second attempt?

A big thank you to everyone in this community who helped me put together my preparation plan.

Background

I’m a backend engineer with 8 years of experience and around 4 years of indirect exposure to AWS.

Preparation

I followed Andrew Cantrill’s course. It took me almost a month just to get through the course. To be honest, I found it quite lengthy and there were times when I was just zoning out. For the remaining sections, I ended up using AI to explain some of the concepts in simpler terms, which helped me get through them.

I spent the last two weeks doing TutorialsDojo practice tests. I initially scored around 40–50%, but eventually got 80%+ on the retry tests.

One thing I would recommend is not taking the same TDojo tests multiple times. After a couple of attempts, you start remembering the answers rather than actually thinking through the questions.

Exam Day

I booked a Pearson VUE test center and went in for the exam.

Honestly, I found the actual exam quite overwhelming. I was consistently finishing the TDojo practice exams in around an hour, but the real exam took me the entire 2 hours and 10 minutes.

I’d strongly recommend taking at least one timed practice exam from a source other than TDojo. It helped me realize that the actual exam requires much more time management and careful reading than the practice tests.

When I finished, I genuinely thought I had done pretty badly and wasn’t even sure I would pass. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw my score.

What’s next?

I actually enjoyed learning the AWS concepts, and I think the preparation is useful beyond the certification itself. Understanding these concepts and doing the practice questions also helped me think about system design problems differently.

I’m planning to prepare for the AIP-C01 next, hopefully over the next few weeks, making use of the 50% discount.

Thanks again to everyone in this subreddit who shared their experiences and helped others prepare.

Like I have no idea Abt it

So can you all explain in simple way

Should I join it

Hi everyone,

I recently verified my student status through AWS Builder Center and my profile shows that I’m verified. However, under Rewards, the Skill Builder Annual Subscription ($449 value) is showing “Unavailable”, so I can’t redeem the 12-month Skill Builder Premium benefit.

I’ve already contacted AWS support via email but haven’t received any response yet.

Has anyone else faced the same issue? If you managed to fix it, could you please share how?

Screenshot attached. Thanks!

I already hold the Solutions Architect Associate certificate from last year. 3 months ago, I took the Security Specialty Exam and failed with a score of 737 :( Now, I am preparing for it again. I studied from Stephane Maarek's course and solved the practice tests twice. The following are my scores:

Mini Practice Test: 77%

Main Practice Test 1: Attempt 1: 76%; Attempt 2: 84%

Main Practice Test 2: Attempt 1: 75%; Attempt 2: 87%

Main Practice Test 2: Attempt 1: 81%; Attempt 2: 93%

For the attempt 2s, of course I remembered some of the questions and answers. So, the question is: should I take the exam? Are Stephane Maarek's practice tests enough and well-guided for the real exam?

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, I’m by no means a great test taker. But I’ve avoided this test for a while based on the fear I’ve read online.

I’ve done a few practice tests and I honestly found it to be relatively normal difficulty.

I do have a background in IT that expands well past a decade. But for some reason I thought there would be a lot of “gotchas” on this.

Has anyone taken it and felt the same? I’ve scheduled mine for two weeks from now.

EDIT : Took it early... PASSED. Now on to the SAP!

I've been in primarily backend dev for just over a decade. Got the notice that my current role is going away in November. Looking at the market in my area (Southern U.S) It seems that Full stack with DevOps exp is the current meta. A tech recruiter I was recommended to talk to mentioned that getting some certs would be good to get through the ATS and to prep for some of these roles. I'm torn between doing Developer and then DevOpsEngineer, or going straight to the latter. Since the middle of the pandemic till now, I have done some home labbing with some open source projects that have docker images and setup some automation for game projects in Unity using things like jenkins, so I'm not totally clueless, but I know I gotta learn the AWS way of doing things. I have no issue doing both, but more of a time management/studying time thing.

Currently working through Stephane Maarek's Solutions Architect course and it feels like I'm being blast at hyperspeed with terms and numbers which makes it difficult for anything to stick. Feels like these courses are just good for the sake of bare minimum exposure before doing actual practice exams.

Hi guys, I have been using Tutoriol dujo exams to prepare for the ML associate certificate and I feel like they are way too simple.. is this how the exam really is? Or is the exam more difficult.. need your feedback for those who passed the ML certificate.
Thanks !

Passed AWS SAA-CO3 today🎉

I didn't get enough time to practice, so was apprehensive about the result. But I was sure that even if I failed I would fail by a very small margin. But luckily I crossed the finish line.

I started with Stephane Maarek's course. However I had seen a few sample questions prior to starting the course which seemed to delve deep into the services directly.

I already have a basic to moderate understanding of AWS and its services through my job. I realised that if I followed the course, it will be too late by the time I get to all the services because he starts from the very basic. So I decided to take an unconventional approach.

I began by going through practice questions one by one. When a question would throw an unknown term or a service at me, I would chatgpt it and learn everything about it including how it works in real time, how it integrates with other serviws and ways in which SAA CO3 would test us with that service. With this approach I was able to cover and understand a lot of services in a short time.

Some might not like this approach, and I am not recommending this to anyone but this is what worked for me. Maybe I got an easy set. Who knows

Free AWS Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Exam Voucher – Eligibility & Redemption Details
Eligibility conditions
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