In July 2022 I passed the AWS Solutions Architect exam at the first attempt with a score of 833. Here is how I did it, and some tips on how I would approach it if doing it again.

Resources

I started by working through the AWS Solutions Architect microcredential course on Futurelearn. Other similar (and cheaper) courses are available from the likes of acloudguru and on Udemy, however I was having this one funded so this is what I went for.

For practice exams I really recommend Jon Bonso’s course on Udemy. I found these questions ended up being very similar to the real thing.

For deeper dives into certain topics Jon Bonso’s website provides excellent summaries, cheatsheets and comparisons between services. The offical AWS docs and whitepapers are also helpful for this purpose, but are less tailored towards the exam so it can be harder to determine the most important information at times.

Strategy

I first worked through the video lectures on the course, taking categorised notes as I went. The futurelearn course also had interactive labs and end of section sample exam questions that I would ensure I could get 100% in before proceeding.

Once the course was finished I reviewed the notes again before moving onto the practice exams. At this stage I found there were many topics not covered by my course (as there are so many it would be difficult to cover everything) so I worked through the first few exams slowly using notes. I then reviewed the questions making notes on any wrong answers before attempting them again.

The last few exams I then worked through with no notes which really helped identify where I still had gaps. I followed the same process of making notes on wrong answers but this time I spent a bit longer reviewing the topics using the deep dive resources.

At this stage I had a good collection of notes and a fairly decent idea of what topics I was confident on and which to review more carefully before sitting the exam. Another tip I have is to write notes on paper, as I found I retain knowledge better that way.