[Must-see for test takers] We'll teach you how to study for the AWS Certified SAA (Solutions Architect) exam!!
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* Ramen Hayato (Minamimorimachi, Osaka City)
Hello!
I'm Hide, the Ramen King from Beyond Inc.'s Osaka office.
This is my third post.
In this article, I'll talk about the AWS SAA (Solutions Architect) certification I recently obtained!
I also wrote two articles, "Let's use docker commands easily with Makefile!" and
"Let's get access logs with AWS ELB!", so
if you're interested, please take a look.
I have also uploaded the contents of this article to YouTube, so if
you would prefer to watch a video rather than read the text, I would be happy if you could take a look here.
What is AWS SAA?
AWS SAA (Solutions Architect) is a certification established by AWS.
Obtaining this certification proves that you have a certain level of understanding of AWS services.
This certification is very popular and is sometimes used as a selling point during job hunting and as a factor in the decision-making process for promotion to management positions, so it is
a qualification that many people aim to obtain every year.
In addition, the level of SAA in the overall AWS certification is positioned as [Associate].
"Wait a minute!!"
"It says '1 year of experience solving problems and implementing solutions using the AWS Cloud'... can I get in?" (sweat) "
I'm really worried about that... is it okay?"
Some of you may have thought the above, but don't worry!
This only means that questions of a certain level will be asked.
Don't worry, you won't be unable to take the exam if you don't meet the above criteria!
However, because the exam only states "one year of experience solving problems and implementing solutions using the AWS Cloud,"
the questions are quite varied, and some questions require knowledge of AWS services and infrastructure to be answered.
"It seems kind of difficult..."
"SAA seems a bit tough to jump right into..."
"I want to start with a more basic exam than SAA!!"
For those people, there is the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification, which is easier than the AWS SAA.
This certification measures basic competency in AWS services, so it is relatively easy to obtain. It is
recommended for those who want to steadily obtain certifications one by one.
If you're interested in learning how to study for the AWS Cloud Practitioner certification,
public relations officer, Umishu, provides a detailed and easy-to-understand explanation
on our official YouTube channel, the Biyomaru Channel if you're interested, be sure to check it out!
About the exam content
①About the question format
First, the exam question format is as follows:
* Quoted from the AWS official website.
The questions are multiple choice, so I think it's still a relatively easy exam to take.
If it had been a written exam, it would have been quite difficult...
However, because it's multiple choice, be careful not to make careless mistakes like selecting the wrong answer or choosing only one answer from multiple options!
②About the exam scope
The scope of the test is as follows:
* Quoted from the official AWS website
You probably won't understand even if you look at this, so you probably won't have any idea
what services are likely to be tested on lol. So, based on what I've seen, heard, and experienced in passing, I'll introduce the services and functions that are likely to be tested on, as well as
the services and functions that you can remember to help you score points.
- Frequently used services and features
VPC, Route53 (routing type), IAM, EC2, S3 (storage type), ELB (load balancer type), RDS (Aurora), SQS, EBS, EFS, CloudFront
- Services and features to remember to score points
RDS (DynamoDB), DirectConnect and VPN, Code Series (CodeDeploy, etc.), Lambda, Kinesis, CloudFormation, ElastiCache, Redshift, ElasticBeanstalk, Storage Gateway
③Example
Below are some sample questions.
We have come up with sample questions that are very close to the questions on the actual exam.
Please give them a try!
What did you think of the exam questions?
I think the sample questions were very long. The
actual questions are also about 5 to 15 lines long, so
you're tested not only on your service knowledge but also on your reading comprehension within a limited time frame.
When answering exam questions, the key is to clearly understand what the client wants to do!
By the way, the answer to this example question is ②.
It's educational to find out why, so please take a look!
I think you'll say, "Ahh, I see!"
About the teaching materials
From here on, I'd like to introduce the study materials I used.
When I first started studying, I had a hard time choosing from the many available materials...
But after researching various things on my own, including blog posts and Twitter, and asking my colleagues at work, I'd like to introduce the best study materials I've come up with.
Please use this as a reference when you take the exam!
①Reference books
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Exam Textbook
I have never used this book myself, but
a colleague who also recently passed the exam used it, and it seems to have been extremely helpful in the early stages of studying, as it uses plenty of illustrations.
book is known as the black book in the SAA certification exam community.
It's true that in the early stages of studying, it's hard to imagine what services are configured like without illustrations....
When solving problems, it's much easier if you can recall the configuration diagram in your head.
I recommend it for people who don't have work experience and want to study visually while looking at diagrams!
AWS Certification Exam Textbook AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
I used this book early in my studies!
It's known as the "orange book" in the SAA certification exam community.
This book isn't overly illustrated, so it's not as beginner-friendly as the "black book," but it
covers even the niche services that appear on the exam, so it's great for getting a general grasp of AWS services.
Each section comes with questions and detailed answers, and a practice test is also included.
However, I don't think this book alone was enough to get me through the exam.
I recommend this book for people who like text-heavy reference books or who want a quick overview!
②Hands-on teaching materials
This is all you need! AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Exam Preparation Course (SAA-C02 Exam Compatible Version)
This hands-on material is so good that all of the engineers who have taken the exam in our company have used it to study.
What's great about this material is that it covers everything about the SAA exam.
Also, because it's a video material, you can study by actually doing the exercises while watching the video, and it's full of illustrations.
Not only that, it also comes with three mock exams that are just like the real thing, and it's cheap, so it's great value for money.
However, some of you may be thinking,
"If I just do this straight away, I don't need a book!" It's true that if you study using these hands-on materials, you might not need a book...
However, since it covers everything, it is quite voluminous, so first-time students may find themselves giving up...
Therefore, if you don't want to give up, I recommend starting with the book.
Also, although I wrote that the mock exam was just like the real thing, I had the impression that the actual exam was easier than the mock exam.
If you don't get a good score on the mock exam, there's still a chance you can pass if you get over 60%, so don't worry!
③Other
techstock
Surprisingly, many people don't know about this problem set.
If you pay a monthly fee, you can solve over 600 problems.
It's recommended for those who want to solve the problem set before taking a mock exam!
There are many more reasons to recommend this site!
This problem set also includes questions related to on-premise and Windows. These
questions were not included in the mock exams for the hands-on materials, so I learned a lot from them, and similar questions were also asked in the actual exam!
Furthermore, this site also has problem sets for AWS certifications other than the SAA exam, so you can use it even after passing the SAA exam!
You can also solve the questions on your smartphone, so you can use your spare time.
The fee is also low, so please give it a try!
AWS Black Belt Online Seminar
These are the seminar materials officially released by AWS.
Therefore, actual AWS personnel will explain each service in an easy-to-understand manner with accompanying materials.
Also, most of them are uploaded to YouTube, so you can easily watch them.
However, I don't think it's effective as exam preparation, so
it might be better to use it as a study aid!
Difficult points and countermeasures
Here, I'll introduce two points that I and other engineers at my company who have taken the exam struggled with when taking the exam.
Knowing the points you struggled with beforehand will make it easier to prepare for the exam, so
be sure to check it out!
① It's hard to remember a service you've never used before
I use AWS services in my daily server operations and development work.
For example, I have experience with VPC, EC2, Route53, and other
AWS services. These services were not difficult to learn, and I was able to pick them up quickly.
However, it was extremely difficult to remember services I had no experience with.
I had a particularly hard time with services like kinisis and DynamoDB, which I don't use much in my daily work.
Other services I personally struggled with are listed below.
There's a chance that all of them will appear on the exam, so be sure to check them out!
The best way to deal with this problem is to actually try it out, even though it's a pain.
After all, it's difficult to remember long-term just by reading or listening.
Rather than being explained, it's more likely that you'll remember it longer-term by thinking about it and setting it up yourself, experiencing success and failure, and using it in your actual work after the exam.
Hands-on learning takes a lot of time, but try it out, thinking, "slow and steady wins the race!"
②The Japanese in the questions is difficult to read
As you can see from the example questions, the questions are written in a way that makes it difficult to understand what the client wants to do.
Therefore, if you are reading the questions and thinking about the answer, you may lose a lot of time on the exam.
In addition, because AWS is a foreign company, the exam itself is written in English.
To make it easier for people in Japan to take the exam, a Japanese translation of the exam is available for those who cannot read English. However,
the Japanese is sometimes a little unnatural, and the length of the text makes the questions very difficult to read.
To prevent this, it is important to isolate only the client's requests.
Based on the example above, if we isolate only the client's requests, it would look like this.
By extracting only the requests that the client wants to realize, you can reduce the amount of time spent reading.
If you get confused while solving a problem during an exam, extracting the problem will help you think more simply, and you
will be more likely to get the correct answer.
Also, by cutting out unnatural Japanese, the meaning will become easier to understand to a certain extent.
If you can read English, you can switch to English questions, so if you don't understand the meaning,
I think it will be easier to understand if you read the questions in English!
summary
I've written a lot, but what do you think?
If you try to study for the AWS SAA from scratch by looking at various articles,
you may find that there are too many options and you don't know how to study.
I also passed the exam by researching and practicing various things through blogs and Twitter, but it
took me a lot of time just to research how to study...
In this blog, I've introduced my study methods and the points I struggled with, so
I hope that reading this will give you a head start on preparing for the exam!
Thank you for reading.
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