Cloud certifications can boost your career significantly. Before I got AWS certified, I wasn't getting contacted by many recruiters on LinkedIn. After getting three of them, my inbox hasn't seen any rest. Out of all three, I think the Developer Associate certification is the one that benefited me the most.
In this article I will recommend some resources that I used for passing the exam.
It took me around 30 days of studying to pass the exam, but I already had some professional experience using AWS. If you are completely new to cloud computing, I wouldn't suggest taking this exam as your first. Instead, try completing the AWS Certified Practitioner exam before. Even though that one probably won't get you too far in the sense of job offers, it will give you an excellent foundational knowledge about the most important services that AWS offers. Only then will you be really ready for the more advanced topics that will appear on the Developer Associate exam.
If you do already have a solid knowledge of how the cloud works, then I would recommend using these 4 resources for passing the exam:
This one was by far the most useful for me. It covers extensively all of the topics that will appear on the exam. Most importantly, Stephane really does a good job keeping the course up to date. This can be of crucial value, because AWS is constantly adding new services to it's palette, and updating the already existing ones, so the exam questions also tend to change accordingly. Some courses don't really update their content that often, which can cause you to give a wrong answer on the exam. This course is always updated regularly, so you don't have to worry about getting outdated information.
2. Neil Davis and Digital Cloud
This is also an amazing source of knowledge for many cloud related topics. Besides having a large number of excellent courses, Neil Davis's platform has a large number of practice exams, which are extremely important. You can spend weeks studying, but if you do not do at least 7–8 practice exams, your chances of passing will be significantly lower. The reason for that is because the questions on the actual exam can be very tricky. You need to determine the answer by reading the questions very carefully and excluding answers that are obviously misleading. The practice exams that you can find on this platform resemble the actual exam very accurately.
Finally, on this platform you can also purchase a PDF that contains training notes, that can also be very useful. The entire PDF has around 500 pages, but if you just read 100–150 it can really make a difference in your exam score.
This is another great source of practice exams. Although Neil Davis's practice exams are awesome, Tutorials Dojo ones are definitely on par. Plus, doing a set of practice exams from another platform is definitely a good idea. If you see a question that is in the practice exams of both platforms, you can be almost certain that it is a question that comes up very often on the actual exam. Apart from the practice exams, Tutorials Dojo has very good study guides, and they are usually on sale quite often. These study guides have around 200–300 pages, and listing over them the night before the exam can be really helpful.
The official AWS FAQs are very important to go over. You can be certain that they contain up to date information, and many of the phrases used in the exam resemble the ones you can find in the FAQs. There is a set of FAQs for all of the AWS services that will appear on the exam. Going over all of them is not mandatory, but going over the ones of an area where you feel you are not that confident is definitely a good idea. For example, If you feel like you aren't quite grasping how a service like CodeBuild works, go over the FAQs, and the information you get from there might just help you answer those questions about that service that will appear on the exam.
Now I would like to go over some suggestions for passing the exam, that are not related to resources:
- Don't just watch the course, do the labs. Reading about something and actually doing it is a whole different experience.
- If you can, avoid doing the test from home. I always went to a exam center near my house, because I've heard of many people having bad experiences taking the exam from home. If you experience internet connectivity problems, the examiner may fail you.
- There will be questions where you won't know the answer. Try to deduce the answer by excluding obviously incorrect ones. The exam lasts for 130 minutes, so you will definitely have time to answer each question carefully.
- If you aren't getting at least 80% on the practice exams, you aren't ready yet. Don't rush. You can always reschedule the exam for a week or two. The passing score is 72%, but if you are getting 70–75% on the practice exams, it is too risky. Wait until you are getting at least 50 correct answers out of 65 on each practice exam.
- If you start the exam poorly, don't freak out. When I took the Solutions Architect Associate exam, the first 3 questions were very difficult and I told myself- You are definitely failing. However, the next 7–8 were a breeze and I realized that you can't judge the entire exam by the first few questions.
I hope this overview will help you prepare better for your Developer Associate exam. It is a very valuable certificate and you will also gain an enormous quantity of valuable cloud computing knowledge that is in high demand.
Good luck and thanks for reading!