So you want to take the AWS SA Professional exam?
There’s a few resources I would recommend for this journey. Depending on the depth at which you want to understand the material, you can follow one of two paths:
1. I just want to pass the exam…
Sure, this is certainly a valid approach depending on your current experience and role. I wouldn’t recommend this if you aren’t yet working in the cloud and don’t feel comfortable discussing cloud technologies and services. Actually, I wouldn’t ever recommend this exam if you aren’t in the industry.
Let’s start with course material.
If you’re like me, this is where you’re going to spend most of your time. Courses help you build the foundational knowledge required to understand a variety of topics and wrap your head around all content presented in the exam as a whole.
I only have one recommendation for this course. The man… the myth… the legend… Adrian Cantrill
I can’t actually recommend separate paths for this exam. It is tough. I was beating myself up for months studying for this. I highly recommend you take your time, as most other exams will probably come easier. As usual, Adrian delivers with this course like any other. Demos, in-depth explanations, interesting and consistently detailed diagrams, and a few exams. If you don’t have lab experience, certainly do take the time to spin up the demos as they will help round your understanding of the content.
How do I practice for the exam?
I mentioned I was being myself up for months with this exam. I actually blame my first set of exams for this one. I initially took the exams first from Jon Bonso at his site.
Many have disagreed with me, but here’s my honest opinion on the Jon Bonso SA Pro practice exams:
- These exams feel like Jon and team were lazy and took questions from every specialty exam, and tossed them together to build the “pro” exam. This isn’t how the actual test is, like at all.
- The questions go far more in depth on specific topics than the actual exam or competing practice exams do.
- I passed the exam with flying colors (880), and I couldn’t score above like high 60% on these.
I can’t recommend these, but plenty have been successful. I genuinely don’t think these exams will help “over-prepare” you for the exam. I think they’ll just make you question your life choices.
I would instead highly recommend Neal Davis in this case. I used the exams from his site, but they disappeared after their site did an update, so I will only link the Udemy exams: Neal Davis SA Pro Practice Exams
These exams were almost verbatim what was on the exam. I’m concerned Neal got access to the actual content. I was able to score much higher on these – 80s and 90s – which improved my morale and made me feel like I could pass the exam. Please use this instead. Neal didn’t deliver on the SA Associate exams, as those questions seemed far too easy, but he nailed the SA Pro exams.
My study plan is as follows:
- Complete all portions of the course you don’t know anything about. Take notes, but typed notes are fine.
- Practice Exams:
- Take one. Worse than 50%, back to the course (this hasn’t happened to me if I complete the course).
- Better than 50%? Review each question in detail and understand all of the wrong answers, as well as the correct one. Take notes on this with pen and paper. Then take the next exam and do the same until you’ve done them all. You should be good by the time you’ve taken every exam multiple times, and this will likely cover most questions you’ll face in the real exam.
- If you’re really struggling, maybe evaluate how focused you were on course content.
I recommend keeping your exam scores and questions missed in an excel sheet. My template is here:
You can fill the boxes with nothing (correct), an “x” (wrong), or an asterisk “*”, indicating you were unsure (yellow). I would highly recommend going through the answers and explanations for the unsure ones as well, as those might stump you on the test. I built this when I took the SA Pro, and the exam lengths will vary or may have changed, so feel free to shorten or lengthen as needed in your own copy.
Now, for those who have some interest in the content (forced or not)..
What now?
Good luck in your studies! The earlier you get started, the easier. I promise the more you work with cloud the more it will make sense and the easier these exams will get.
I hope you find the resources valuable and reach out if you need anything at all!
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