Score 900+ in AWS Certification Exams

8 min readNov 30, 2023

As the significance of cloud certifications continues to soar, and I’m here to guide you every step of the way. Having recently passed an AWS certification exam with a “950+ score”, I’m excited to share my study approach and the invaluable resources that I used. Whether you’re aspiring to become an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Solutions Architect, Developer, or any other role, this blog is your ultimate resource hub. Join me on this journey to discover the study materials and strategies that will empower you to pass any AWS certification with confidence and ease.

🏆Scroll down to get a list of my end-to-end, resume ready AWS Projects.

🔜🔜Next in this series : I will be posting all my notes topic-wise for AWS CLF-C02. Kindly follow and subscribe for email notification!! ✅✅

🔖First Chapter: Coming soon in few days..

While your study approach can be different from mine but the resources I am going to list down are more than enough for the exam. Believe me I did some good research on internet (LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube etc.) to finalize these.

There are three competencies required for a cloud certification exam:

Theoretical knowledge about services
Hands-on
Experience

Among these three the theory part you can just read and revise. But there is going to be a lot.

Only my notes are of 500+ pages and that too for Cloud Practitioner exam. 😅

And here the hands-on part becomes important. This helps in making more sense of what you learnt as theory as well as reduce the amount of info need to be memorized.

But again there are a lot of services to cover (theory + hands-on) which might take months. And here comes the experience part. Means if you have been working on AWS for few months/years then you are already well aware about few services, their usage, features as well as limitations.

And this will also help in tackling the case study questions in the exam.

⚛️FREE!! End-to-End Cloud and Data Engineering projects — Click here

Approach n Preparation

Disclaimer: I follow the approach of “Keeping no stones unturned”, so it might feel my prep is much more than what was required. But my target was to gain knowledge and get 950+ score so, it worth the effort.

Here I will be listing down my preparation steps and the resources I used. Let’s break it down to simple steps:

Step 1 : Hands-on

Yeah, you heard it right, the first step is to get acquainted with the AWS environment, services and Hands-on. Generally people suggest to focus on concepts first and then do some hands-on as per the certification requirements.

But my approach have always been to get my hands dirty first. This comes with few advantages:

It adds on to the excitement for the exam and act as a source of motivation
The cloud components will not be completely new to us and we can easily connect the dots when we go through the theory part.
It is a good way to see if cloud technologies align with your goals and interest.

I have already started working on AWS, building small projects before preparing for exams but if you are new to AWS or cloud then just create a free tier AWS account and start exploring. Then you can go through some YouTube videos or my projects listed below.

🎖️Projects

Another optional thing you can try is to build one or two small projects on AWS. It can be something at your workplace or just a hobby project.

In my case I got the opportunity to learn and work on some projects at my workplace as well as I did some good hobby projects. These can be found here: 🚀🌟🚀🌟🚀🌟🚀🌟

Step 2 : Theory

There are many resources I followed for this and took a lot of notes. Here are some best ones:

1️⃣Stephane Maarek Udemy course

I started with going through this and taking notes

This is the best rated video course to crack any AWS certification. The best thing I like about this is the author regularly updates it as well as he provide the ppt notes and practice exams. As it is on Udemy, you can buy it as low as $5 during any discount period. There are also sufficient hands-on videos as per the exam curriculum.

For Cloud Practitioner : https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-cloud-practitioner-new/

I repeat, do not miss the hands-on part.

There are other websites like “A Cloud Guru”, “Whizlabs” which provide the same but this one course is more than enough.

✨Special mention : I saw some great reviews of courses by Adrian Cantrill at https://learn.cantrill.io/, but these cost $40. The pros here is his courses take you through additional topics which will help you do better as a Cloud Engineer while other courses mostly focus on passing the exam. Do check that out. 🤩

2️⃣AWS Cheat Sheets and Notes

I personally followed these two resources:

⭐TutorialsDojo — https://tutorialsdojo.com/aws-cheat-sheets/

⭐DigitalCloud — https://digitalcloud.training/aws-cheat-sheets/

I used these to add to my notes as well as refine my understanding. I got some really good insights about the services like usage, comparisons etc.

The only cons here is these cheat sheets might have much more info than you require for a certain certification. But as the saying goes “The More the Merrier”.

3️⃣ AWS Official Documentation

You are coding or preparing for an exam, never underestimate the official docs. These are the most updated and detailed sources. So while going through a topic if you need any clarification or some more info, this is the best place. Feel free to have a look if you get some time and for a better, precise preparation.

Link: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/

Step 2.5 : Revision

This is a mandatory step for any exam. A normal approach might be to complete going through all the services, taking notes and then go for a practice test. But for me this approach did not work, at first I started forgetting stuffs and then I just got bored completing modules and taking notes.

✨✨So, what I did was I covered half of the course and started revision in parallel. So, let’s say there are 20 modules, while starting with 11th module I revised the first 10 modules side by side. Then did full revision in jumbled order like module 1,2 then 11,12 followed by module 3,4 etc.

Step 3 : Practice Tests

Now after revision it is time to attempt some practice tests. Here my approach was to complete all modules, then revise everything 1–2 times and then I went for practice tests. But you can choose to start giving tests in the middle of course too (as it suits you the best).

Here are some of my (and internet’s) favorites-

🌟Tutorials-Dojo — https://portal.tutorialsdojo.com/product-category/aws-practice-exams/

Tutorial-Dojo tests are the best in industry and you get a wide variety of tests as mentioned above. It costs around $14 but there have been discounts going on time-to-time.

🌟Stephane Maarek Udemy — https://www.udemy.com/course/practice-exams-aws-certified-cloud-practitioner/ (also have tests for other AWS exams)

The video course comes with one practice test but that is not enough.

Personally I followed these two and I feel these are sufficient. There are other websites like Plurasight, Whizlabs and few other good practice tests on Udemy which you can have a look.

🧮Points to remember

While taking the tests try to do it seriously like you are taking the final certification test
Read the questions carefully and the options too. Because even if the question is straight forward the options will be very much similar. And here you have to choose the most correct one.
🔎Start with precision — While taking first 2–3 tests focus on getting the answers right rather than finishing it early.
⏩Move to speed — Then give some tests in a faster way i.e., spending bit less time on each question. You can also mark few questions to review at the end.
Then combine speed with precision.
👉In case of a right or wrong answer always read the explanation and if there is something you are missing, add it to the notes.
👉At end of each test it displays in which category (security, networking etc.) you scored how much. Based on that you can decide to work on your weak areas.
When you start getting 95% in every category, consider yourself ready.

Voila!! Now you seem to be ready to appear the real test. And believe me if you have followed the above steps and you have some experience working on AWS, the test might look bit easy.💯💯

Timelines

I took a month to prepare the theory and hands-on part along with my job. Then another month for practice tests and to revise multiple times (I did it more than 10 times, I guess).

For you it might take the same if you are completely new to cloud or maybe less. For many people the goal is to pass the exam which is completely fine, but there is no harm in putting some more time, understanding the services better and getting a 950+ score.

So, that’s all from my side. Feel free to comment here or reach out to me in case you have any question. Happy to help!!

🔜Upcoming blogs : Topic wise notes for AWS Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 Exam. Stay tuned..

🔖First Chapter: Coming soon in few days..

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Thank you!!