Introduction

I’m him.

During the exam, I felt becoming more dreadful as I saw more questions because I couldn’t pick an answer immedeately and at best could only eliminate one option. I wrote down all the question numbers on the scratch piece of paper I was given and decided to track what opinions I had of each set of options for all 65 questions.

This system definetely helped me pass the exam because I didn’t have to remember what options I felt could not be correct.

For context: Pearson’s testing platform doesn’t let you strike through answer choices, so managing your own process is key - especially when you’re unsure and need to revisit questions later.

My Experience

I already knew a lot of the services from my previous AWS Certified Cloud Practioner (CLF-C02) exam and from my own dabbling with AWS services (such as EC2, ECS, Secrets Manager, etc.) while building my discrete instagram bot.

Even though I had this knowledge, I felt it would be useful to formally certify this knowledge via this exam. So for the past 2 weeks or so, everyday I spent at least a couple hours going through Stephane Maarek’s course + practice exams as well as Tutorial Dojo’s Practice Test material.

Shout out to the users on r/awscertifications for posting about their success stories and thus giving me the motivation for studying.

Takeaways

Solid exam, really tested my AWS knowledge thoroughly.

  • The exam will test your depth. Knowing what a service is isn’t enough - you need to understand when and why you’d use one over another.

For example, you should know when to choose FSx for Windows File Server vs FSx for NetApp ONTAP, even though both support Windows-based workloads.

  • Don’t cram like I did. Two intense weeks worked for me, but it was high-stress. If I could do it over, I’d spread it out more.
  • Track your progress during the exam. My scratch-paper tracking method helped reduce panic and focus on logic over memory.

If you’re thinking about taking this exam - go for it. Whether you’re deep in security or just getting into cloud, the SAA cert forces you to actually think through cloud architecture. And that’s what makes it valuable.