Passing the AWS Developer Associate & Cloud Practicioner exams

This year, I decided to study and take the exams for the AWS Cloud Practicioner (score of 883) and AWS Developer Associate (score of 819) certifications offered by Amazon Web Services. Both certifications covered a vast array of AWS fundamentals, services, and methodologies, fundamentally challenging my understanding of how serverless development and IaaS concepts are applied in everyday life. I studied approximately 35 hours worth of content for each exam, and applied those concepts in my own projects, such as Auxdibot and a private content delivery network (CDN). In this blog post, I wish to impart some of the study materials and test-taking strategy I used to pass the exams for these certifications.

AWS Cloud Practicioner

I found the Cloud Practicioner exam to have many more resources available than most of the other AWS certifications out there. I personally would recommend the AWS Cloud Practicioner Essentials course (free), which covers basic AWS philosophies—such as the Well-Architected Framework—and basic service attributes and settings. I also recommend Stephane Mareek's Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 course, for the very detailed and easy-to-follow hands-on videos that are provided. Despite this, in my experience, I encountered many services that were not in the course in the exam. I do recommend reviewing the official exam guide from AWS and familiarizing yourself with a brief description of all the in-scope services, as well as their various offerings (ex. Amazon FSx for Windows).

The AWS Cloud Practicioner certification has a wide variety of both paid and non-paid options for practice tests. I personally used this amazing GitHub repository I found online by GitHub user Kanani Nirev, which contains over 23 practice exams to help you get familiar with the style of the questions in the AWS exam. I found these exams to have provided me with essential experience, which I am convinced I would not have passed the exam without.

AWS Developer Associate

I found the AWS Developer Associate exam to be focused on applying the concepts that you have studied in the AWS Cloud Practicioner certificate in a development-focused setting. Before studying for the AWS Developer Associate exam, I recommend that any exam-taker should familiarize themselves with the syntax and functionality of atleast one programming language proficiently. I found Python to be an apt choice, as the exam tests heavily on Lambda functions, and the psuedo-code used in the exam is very syntactically similar to Python. I additionally would suggest anyone studying for the AWS Developer Associate certification to have a basic understanding of encryption algorithms (symmetric vs asymmetric encryption), permission philosophies (principle of least privilege), and basic knowledge of using AWS services in the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI before studying and taking the AWS Associate Developer exam.

In contrast to the AWS Cloud Practicioner certification, I found AWS Developer Associate study resources of quality to be few and far between. I personally took Stephane Mareek's AWS Certified Developer Associate DVA-C02 course, which covers a wide variety of concepts, contains a large amount of hands-on activities, and has amazing assessment questions that grew my understanding of AWS services and their application professionally. Alternatively, if you cannot get Stephane Mareek's course on sale (I purchased it for about $18.99 USD during a Udemy flash sale), the official 4-step exam plan offered by AWS training has shown to cover the essentials required for the exam, at a $29/mo (or $449/yr 😬) subscription cost.

When taking practice exams for the AWS Developer Associate certification, it was also hard to find any practice tests of quality. The set of practice exams I found most accurate to the official exam were offered by Stephane Mareek on Udemy, which I purchased for $22.99 USD during a flash sale. Additionally, I found these five sets of practice tests online from KnowledgeHut, which despite being less accurate, helped me prepare further for the exam.

The Exams

AWS weighs exam score on a scale of 100-1000, which is decided from a series of scored questions in your exam. The passing score for Associate-level exams, such as AWS Associate Developer, is 720, while the passing score for Foundational-level exams, such as AWS Cloud Practicioner, is 700. You can read more about how exams are scored in this article by Wayde Gilchrist.

I chose to do the online proctored option using OnVue for both of my certification exams, which I found to be relatively easy for exam taking from the comfort of my home. While the convienence of being able to take an exam from home is beneficial to many, the requirements and policies for taking an exam using OnVue are extremely rigorous and may require you to move things around in your workspace to clear out distractions or obstructions for the exam.

AWS offers generous accomodations for their exams. Exam-takers who only know English as a secondary language can request an additional 30 minutes to be added to their exam using the "Accomodations" section of the AWS certifications portal.

In conclusion, I hope the resources and advice provided here help you on your journey towards passing the AWS Developer Associate & AWS Cloud Practicioner exams as well.

👋 Until next time,

steven/auxdible