How I Passed AWS SAA-C02 and Any Online-Proctored Exam Issues I Faced
Hi everyone! Yesterday I passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C02) certification and I wanted to share my experience during the exam like facing any issues with Pearson Vue (different kinds of issues from what I’ve experienced in my Cloud Practitioner exam here). I’ll also put the resources I used to prepare for this exam and I’ll start with it. For more information about the certification, click here!
Resources:
1. Udemy course by Stephane Maarek
2. Tutorials Dojo practice test by Jon Bonso
Why? Cause I heard that:
1. “If you want to know or dive deep into AWS (in and out), Stephane’s course is the best choice.”
2. “If you able to get a consistent score at a minimum of 80% from Tutorials Dojo, then you’ll most likely pass the exam cause it’s more difficult than the real exam itself.”
I think those resources are enough for anyone who doesn’t have deep experience in using AWS services like me. You know, I just spin around basic services for basic use cases like S3, EC2, etc. I can say that I’m new to AWS and I’m lucky enough to pass this exam (I learned AWS for the first time since I joined the She Builds program on the last September).
Any Tips?
Since I posted this achievement on LinkedIn, I received a bunch of questions:
Q: “Did you attend a special session?”
A: No, I just bought a course and learning from it.
Q: “Do you think self-study is good?”
A: Yes, cause I do so. I don’t have a figure or someone to ask if I have something that I don’t understand. The only one hero for me is search engine LOL :)
Q: “Did you do hands-on?”
A: Yes, but not too deep and only for the basic services.
Q: “How did you organize the learning plan?”
A: To be honest, I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t learning every day, but I can spend more than 5 hours in a day or even almost all day (anytime and anywhere I can).
Q: “Did you have to pay for the course?”
A: AWS suggested to have a minimum of a year of experience to take this exam (while I don’t), so yes I did. But if you have experience and believe that information provided on the exam outline is pretty enough, it’s fine if you don’t want to buy a course.
My exam score isn’t high enough but here are what I can catch as highlights (if I may suggest to you):
- Focus more on general topics like EC2, VPC, Storage, Database, and Lambda.
- You have to know the best match or combination of AWS services for many use cases. For example: for a global static website, the best choice is S3 and CloudFront.
- Well-architected frameworks are important. You will see “tricky” questions with keywords like “the most cost services vs. the best services”, that sound similar but they aren’t actually. So please just relax and read each question carefully :)
Note*: AWS SAA-C02 will be retired on August 29th this year and replaced with AWS SAA-C03.
Pearson Vue Online-Proctored issues I faced
1. The exam was temporarily paused due to an unexpected app launching in the background
In the middle of my exam, a window suddenly popped up and it was saying like “Hey, Skype is running in the background. So, please close it before you continue the exam.” Wow! I was shocked. Since I’ve never faced this kind of issue, I was scared like “What if my exam ends and been cancelled?” cause I haven’t answered some questions yet and flagged some of them too to be reviewed again later. But I’m glad it didn’t happen and I could continue to launch the exam with a new proctor after solving the issue. I did it and the exam ended with a delivery successful state.
2. On-screen score was not showed
I don’t know if this is the new AWS rule or something because it usually appears right after the exam ended and as per AWS rules, we need to wait till the next 5 business days to get the final result (but it’s less than 24 hours for me).
Here’s the link to contact Pearson Vue https://home.pearsonvue.com/onvuehelp in case you may facing any issues (but I hope you won’t) :)
I used to think that I wouldn’t face any issues since I had experience doing OnVue but unexpected things still happened. Online exam always makes my heart beat faster, not because of I didn’t have enough confidence to take the exam that but the unexpected technical issues made me even more worried. So, I would recommend you take the exam at the test center (if you able to) instead of doing the online exam. You may become more relaxed and focus on the exam questions.
In the end, today I got an email from Credly saying that I’ve earned a new badge. Special thanks to the She Builds team for making such a great program.
That was it for now. Thank you for coming and reading this story :)
Good luck to anyone who’s gonna take the exam!
