Hi

I would like to share with everyone that on October 9th I cleared my AWS SAA. I learnt from both Stephen Maarek and Adrian course. Since I am new to cloud and was not much confident on exams.I took multiple exams, below is the list

1. TutorialsDojo (Best explanation for each question and answers)

2. WhizLabs (Questions were easy but few of the questions came exactly in exam)

3. Stephen Maarek Practice Test in Udemy (tough but very helpful)

4. Practice test/ questions from Sybex book(the online one has(mostly) same questions to book)

Practice test book helps in mental drill down. So, here is how I prepared I studied a concept or topic from Stephen for slides and general overview(at bit higher speed), for in-depth or through understanding or repetitive clearance watched Adrian course for same topic. It can be exhaustive but I wanted to be through.

I went to practice exams after i finished all my course. I used to take each exam seriously and as real exam, full screen, no or rarely getting up from exam. Even though I felt sleepy or use to get distract in mind due to wandering. I still use to finish test in one go without pause. Before going to next practice exam I used to study all questions and answers even which were correct. Revise concepts and then go for next exam. I started from WhizLabs and then TutorialsDojo alternating between them. I stopped taking WhizLabs and TD cycle after Test 3 as I scored 80% in WhizLabs and went to Stephen Maarek.

I completed Stephen Maarek 6 tests, this were really good and contained few different questions than other two. Then came back to TD to finish remaining 3. Taking test really helped to identify gaps and my learnings. For folks which are interested in score which I got in each exam during practice exam.

Official Sybex Certified-Solutions-Architect-Practice-Tests book with 900+ questions, was not able to complete entire book because of time crunch.

I was averaging in 60s, I was worried whether I will be able to clear the exam or not but still I went for exam and scored 770/1000. Although I could have taken more time to study and review but because of time issue(company mandated to have a cloud certification, although was studying for this way before there mandate) I had to give exam. P.S: I used to complete practice test with 50 minutes remaining(see below to understand what happened on final day).

Before 3-4 final exam I gave TD final exam 1 day and Whizlabs the next day, followed same pattern to take notes and study the wrong answers. Taking notes from exam was more helpful as it help me to identify gaps and what was not in course. For exam about AppSync Templates no course covered it so I had to study and learn from revision notes.

On final day, at start of exam I got hard questions(I think this is done on purpose by AWS cert) which shook my confidence but still I answered and marked them for review for later and moved to next question. I had around 20+ question mark for review. Questions were lot more on S3, Cloudfront Distribution, 1 had on Kinesis Streams(if I remember more will add more). Few of the questions were so weird that my mind went into blank and I was stuck onto staring at screen. Few questions I just did within 1 minute as they were pretty straight forward. I had only >30 minutes to review all questions. I changed answer for few of them not sure if it helped but in my head I said at least I gave another shot. Usually you go with your first choice only. I completed exam with 3 minutes remaining. The result came within 3-4 hours that I cleared. Score for exam came the next day.

My learning's

1. Focus on pattern and Anti-pattern for services/ use case.

2. Theory and understanding exam is 1 thing, solving exam question with 1 key differentiator to find correct answer is different

3. Preparing all notes did not help so much in my understanding or may be it did as I can go revise them anytime and slow pace absorption, The caveat was because exam questions/topic were not cover specially some key areas in both the courses, at least that's what I felt. Study Notes may come handy in future.

4. Take practice exam seriously. during exam you will more pressure as you know each correct answer counts. Practice exam helps in telling mind its ok, you can handle this during real exam.

5. YES, they are so many....so many services.

6. For first time native to cloud, it was tough even though I am Fullstack Java developer with 11+ yr experience

7. I also did as much as possible to be hands on with any video but after some point I just gave up and watched the video content only(I skipped Adrian extensive demo videos as somewhere too long).

Hope this helps and inspire someone. Please let me know your thoughts on what I could have done better or how to move forward from here to AWS Solution Architect Professional.

I will try to add more points if I can think of it.