5 Useful Tips to Pass AWS Developer Associate
A simple roadmap to help you get the certification
Recently I took the AWS Developer Associate exam. Preparation for which, like the exam itself, was quite stressful for me.
I read a lot of resources on how to prepare for the exam, and what resources to use, but all the articles and videos were mostly clickbait with information that can be found on the official Amazon website.
Therefore, I decided to follow my own path, which led me to the fact that the exam was successfully passed and useful information was received, which I already use in my professional life.
In this article, I have highlighted 5 useful tips for making your preparation and the exam as easy as possible.
Let’s get started)
1. Prepare the resources you will use to study
To prepare for the exam, as well as to familiarize yourself with AWS technologies, one course is enough, which will guide you through everything you need and also test your knowledge.
There are many such courses, but I liked the course from Stephane Maarek the most, which perfectly explains the material and builds a good foundation for your professional growth.
But in addition to the knowledge itself, you also need to have a trained eye for tricky questions that will come up on the exam. Sometimes some questions are very veiled and one word can contribute to the whole answer.
But luckily, you can find great practice tests on Udemy that 1) test your knowledge 2) train your eye 😅
One of these tests, from the above-mentioned Stephane Maarek, perfectly helps to prepare for the real exam.
One problem with these tests is that they are fairly easy and not as complicated as the real exam, but they really test what you know and what you still need to learn.
That’s why I advise you to take other tests from another excellent specialist Neal Davis. They are more difficult, but after them, I was much more confident in passing the exam.
The idea behind these tests is quite simple. You need to take the tests, then read the answers and go through them again until you have about 90% of the answers correct.
Believe it really helps to gain confidence in your knowledge and acquire certain triggers for questions that have already been encountered.
2. Make a list of what you need to know
When you learn a lot of different information, you need to somehow organize it in your head, some people just make lists in their heads, and some people write them down, I belong to the second group 😅
Here is my list of what you need to know to pass the exam. The main thing is not to be afraid of its length, it is not as scary as it seems:
- IAM
- EC2
- ELB
- ASG
- RDS
- Aurora
- Athena
- ElasticCache
- Route 53
- VPC
- S3
- AWS CLI
- AWS SDK
- CloudFront
- ECS
- ECR
- Fargate
- CloudFormation
- Elastic Beanstalk
- CodeCommit
- CodePipeline
- CodeBuild
- CodeDeploy
- CloudWatch
- X-Ray
- CloudTrail
- SQS
- SNS
- SES
- Kinesis
- Lambda
- DynamoDB
- API Gateway
- SAM
- CDK
- Cognito
- Step Functions
- AppSync
- KMS
- SSM Parameter Store
If you know what is behind these names, and how these technologies work, then everything is great.
3. Determine the date of the exam
I know it sounds silly, but really, determine the date of passing the exam, so you will create a deadline that will help you not to procrastinate and focus on studying.
Setting deadlines is important for most of our goals, without this we can stretch the implementation of plans as far as our imagination will allow us.
4. Get everything ready before the exam
Before the exam, you must prepare, and check the camera, microphone, table, everything under the table, everything above it, and everything you can reach at arm’s length.
While I was preparing for the exam, I found so many things that I thought were lost forever 😂
In fact, you need to understand that you should not have anything that can contribute to certain cheating, no notebooks, additional monitors, and headphones with microphones. Just you and the computer, that’s really enough, you’ve read up to this point, and I believe you’ll succeed💛
5. Believe in yourself
The most important tip.
Believe in yourself while you are preparing. No matter how difficult it is, many have succeeded and you will definitely succeed.
Believe in yourself while you’re taking the exam. Halfway through I thought I’d already failed the test, but I actually scored almost 900, so I’m sure you’ll do even better.
Believe in yourself after passing. The next 3 days were extremely stressful because of the uncertainty, but remember that you prepared and invested a lot of time to get this knowledge, which means that it was not in vain.
Conclusion
I am sure that these few tips will help you successfully obtain certification and make a significant boost in your career.
Thank you for reading this article, subscribe and clap, there will be many more interesting articles soon 😉
Good luck in preparing and passing the exam.
I believe that you will succeed. 🙏
See you!
