r/AWSCertifications

I was anxious during and after the exam because that MF was HARD AF! I was off to a rather bad start, flagging the first 5 questions for review! Crazy: I'd say the first 20 to 30 questions were the most difficult, and that was were most of my flagged items came from. I felt it started to become somewhat "easier" after question 40, and that was when I started to have a little hope again, only for that hope to be dashed again when I reached question 70. Those last 5 were TOUGH!

Anyway, final score came in as 813. Can't believe it! I'm eyeing the Networking Specialty now and that'll probably be it for me with AWS, at least for this year, of course.

I'm open for work, by the way, remote only. DM me for my LinkedIn.

Hi,

I’m happy to share that I passed the AWS SAP-C02 last Friday! This is my 5th AWS certification. I’m currently working in a Cloud role here in Brazil (earning approx. R$ 5,600/month CLT). I actually just started this new position about a month ago.

For those who have earned the Professional level cert, did you see a direct salary increase shortly after, or did you find that you needed to combine it with other moves (like internal promotions or job hopping) to see a real financial bump? Would love to hear your experiences.

Happened last week. Failed first attempt for beta, scored over 800 this go round.

I have production grade 22 years of remote freelancing experience — one man army for end to end web app. all web stacks, vps and dedicated servers

This certs will improve my ATS visibility among YC level companies.

I passed CCP with 889/1000 in march

This was not easy exam.

From 65 questions I got 50+ questions like high school essays.

But practical hands-on + TD mocks improved my reading resiliency.

I would like to thank Reddit AWS Community for clarifying my doubts. It took me 1 and half month for preparation. Course: Stephane Maarek and Tutorial Dojo for the mock tests.

Reference to CSAP: https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/1sw0zie/cleared_solutions_architect_professional_791/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Please use this as a testament, that if I can do it you can do better!

Everyone fears practice exams. They assume, a poor score, means you are not ready! Let me change that perspective for you!

When I gave the skillbuilder exam with no prep the day I passed CSAP, I scored 60%, after studying, I scored 45% for the same questions. This is called the knowledge paralysis bias!

My TD practice exam scores were 61.43%, 58.57%, 55.38%, and 37.14%

But that did not let me down!

I used my wrong answers to study why they were actually right, and for answers I got correct, I studied why the incorrect answers were incorrect.

This sub has many pass cases, I read all posts end to end to see what are the tips and tricks I could find!

Topics that came for my exam were:

1. GuardDuty findings
2. Trusted Advisor
3. Support
4. IAM policy review
5. Design security strategy - multiple drop downs
6. IAM permission sets

Around 8 questions were exact replicas from TD, however, I think Stephane's questions were more aligned on the difficulty for this exam.

So happy that I passed the SAA-C03 with a 843!

After 4–5 weeks of continuous studying using course material and multiple practice tests, day and night, the hard work finally paid off.

Truly grateful to Stéphane Maarek for the incredible course and practice tests, which prepared me for even more than what was required for the exam. 🙏🏼

I just passed the AWS Certified Developer Associate exam!

I wanted to share my experience and the path I took to get certified. I’ve been a developer for about 3 years, working with stacks like React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, Git, and TypeScript. This year, I decided to scale my skills to the cloud. Being a dev, this certification felt like the perfect entry point.

Background & Preparation I started with almost zero AWS experience. However, the more I researched, the more fascinated I became by how these services handle infrastructure and high availability, allowing us to focus on code.

• Timeline: About 2.5 to 3 months of consistent study.
• Course: I started Stephane Maarek’s course in February, dedicating 2–3 hours a day.
• Resources: I used some flashcards (though I wasn't as consistent as I should have been) and took extensive notes on core services.

The Turning Point: Practice Exams I completed every single test from Jon Bonso (Tutorials Dojo). I cannot stress this enough: DO THE TESTS! Failing a question, feeling that frustration, and then diving deep into the documentation to understand why you were wrong is where the real learning happens. It’s much more effective than getting a right answer without knowing the "why."

Tutorials Dojo exams are definitely harder than the real thing, which is great because they over-prepare you for complex scenarios.

The Exam Experience The real exam felt "easier" in terms of phrasing, but surprisingly complex when it came to choosing the best option among several correct-looking ones. That’s where your architectural understanding kicks in.

I walked out feeling uncertain, but confident that I had put in the work. Five hours later, the "PASS" email arrived—it was an incredible feeling to see months of discipline pay off with a score of 869.

My Recommendations:

• Prior Experience Matters: My dev background helped a lot. If you have zero dev experience, this might be a steeper hill to climb.
• Study Habits: Eat well, sleep well (rest is as vital as study time), and use flashcards daily if you can.
• The "Rubber Duck" Method: Try explaining concepts to a friend or even a wall. If you can explain it simply, you’ve mastered it.
• Deep Dive into Serverless: My exam was heavy on SQS, SNS, API Gateway, and Lambda. Understand the "when" and "why" for each integration pattern.

Final thoughts: If I could do it, you can too! Don't let your ego get in the way during practice tests—embrace the mistakes.

Good luck to everyone on their cloud journey! 🚀

Took the Cloud Institute course around last July, but had some personal stuff come up so I ended up rescheduling the exam a few times. I ran through a few online practice tests and used Copilot to help me study. The actual exam took me about 20 minutes, and then I spent another 20 minutes going back through my answers just to be safe.

I work in AWS every day, so none of it felt new. I’ve got A+ and Sec+. I work in Cybersecurity and pretty much wear every hat: IT Admin, Sysadmin, Helpdesk, ISSO, and DevSecOps.

Which exam should I take next?

Big thanks to you guys for keeping me motivated throughout the journey. Prep was on and off for about 6 months, but seeing others share their progress and success stories kept me going.

Posting this to motivate someone else the same way you guys motivated me. Keep pushing, you’ll get there too.

Hello everyone today I passed my clf-02 exam it took me 1 week to prepare for this exam and now after this I've became more motivated and confident for cracking the next which Solutions Architect and also to learn AWS hands on more practically by doing projects.