How I passed my AWS Sysops Administrator — Associate Exam

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About a week ago, I took and passed my AWS Sysops Administrator Associate exam, which was my second AWS certification, the first being Architect Associate. This a short recap on what I did and how I achieved the certification in hopes of helping people who want to take it themselves in the future.

Preparation

I took this certification after about 3 weeks of preparation and a few resources here and there. The materials I used are listed below and they helped me out so much in passing the exam:

1. A Cloud Guru Sysops Course here
2. Official study guide for the exam on AWS website
3. AWS Academy Cloud Operations class
4. TutorialsDojo Cheatsheets here
5. Free Practice Questions on Digital Cloud here

After utilizing all these resources, it was still a pretty challenging exam. I tried to keep everything free and hence only paid for the ACloudGuru course. The rest of my resources were all free. My advice for preparation would be to ensure that you have a VERY thorough understanding of common AWS Sysops services like CloudFormation, S3, Networking and others. The best but tedious thing you can do is to read the AWS Whitepapers recommended by the official study guide. I avoided it due to its length but it really is a detailed and informative document that you should use to gain a deeper understanding of your learning.

Furthermore, if you can afford to spend a bit more money preparing, I would suggest buying more practice exams. The theory is good but personally, I find the practice questions most useful as they give you an idea of what to expect during the actual exam itself.

The Exam

The exam itself consists of 65 MCQs and 130 minutes for you to complete them. If you complete it early you can end the test early too. You can find more details regarding this on the official AWS website.

Some skills that the exam tests you on include:

1. Troubleshooting ability
2. Ability to analyze and read the question VERY CAREFULLY and identify even the most minute of detail
3. Selecting the BEST answer based on best practices and usually the well-architected framework
4. Being able to factor in many different considerations, concerns and requirements for each scenario

Here are some tips which helped me out for the exam as well:

1. Use the “Flag for Review” feature generously if you have doubts about your answer for any particular questions
2. I personally did not have issues with the duration of the exam but make sure you keep time to ensure you can finish the exam on time
3. Schedule your exam early so it pushes you to work hard towards your exam date
4. Log into the exam 30 minutes before to do your check-in (VERY IMPORTANT)

I hope all these can help you with your attempt to preparing and taking the AWS Sysops Administrator — Associate exam. In today’s world, it is important to be skilled in cloud computing due to its increasing presence and importance. Good luck and go for it!