In January 2025, all five of my AWS certifications were set to expire: three associate-level and two professional-level certifications. For those familiar with AWS certifications, you know how challenging they can be—even for seasoned AWS professionals. While associate-level exams are tough, professional-level exams are downright brutal, far surpassing the difficulty of any university exams I’ve taken.
I decided to tackle all five exams over five days (January 2–6). Crazy? Probably. But I passed them all:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
- AWS Certified Developer Associate
- AWS Certified DevOps Professional
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional
This was my third time taking the associate exams and second time taking the professional ones. Here are 15 essential tips I’ve picked up along the way.
1. Pick the Best Courses
This one’s easy. Stephane Maarek’s Udemy courses are by far the best. It is unbelievable how quickly you can learn with his courses. I cannot compare it to any course I have ever gone through or any teacher I have had at school or university. It is crazy that you can get them for $10 on sale. And he constantly upgrades them. Also, buy his practice exams, you will need them. If you plan to take professional exams, buy associate courses as well. They are foundational for professional-level content.
2. Get a 50% discount
Once you pass the exam, you get a 50% discount on your next exam. It expires after 3 years. Exams are pretty expensive.
3. Get the Exam for Free
If you are an AWS Community Builder, you get one exam per year for free. If you write articles or you are active in the AWS community in some other way, you can apply to become an AWS Community Builder in January each year.
4. Get an Extra 30 Minutes
If you are a nonnative English speaker, you can get an additional 30 minutes. You must apply here before you register for an exam. You will definitely need those 30 minutes for professional exams.
5. You Can Reschedule
You can cancel or reschedule an online exam up to 24 hours before your scheduled appointment without additional fees. You may only reschedule two times after scheduling your original appointment.
6. Preferably Take the Exam in Person
I took my exam online. The main reason was that I could pick any time. However, there is a downside to it. First, you need to have a really quiet room. For some reason, my neighbor, who is always quiet, decided to be really loud for two of my exams. Test your system before the exam. Make sure there is no random service that is starting during the exam. I had quite some issues 3 years ago with some Microsoft service during the exam. This time, I had issues with some Lenovo software, but I uninstalled it before taking the exam.
If you take an exam online, you cannot stand up, go to the toilet, eat, or drink for nearly 4 hours during the exam (for professional exams, less time for associates). It is similar in the exam center, but there they will probably let you go to the toilet.
7. Network Issues That Are Not What They Seem
Before taking the online exam, I tested my computer twice. On the second, the software reported network issues that were impossible to resolve. It was not a real network issue. You need to get new access codes each time. If you do not, you get some weird network error.
8. You Can Get Your Perfect Date, Even If It Is Unavailable
When I was ready to schedule my exams after completing most of the courses, I discovered that all the slots were fully booked. Fortunately, there’s a workaround. People are rescheduling all the time, and you can get a desired date and hour easily by just retrying. I had to log out and log in to get new available dates. A simple refresh did not work for me. In just a few retries, I got my new perfect slots.
9. Don’t Spread Studying Over Months
You might want to study every afternoon for half a year, but it is a really tough way to pass the professional exams. There are so many details that you need to memorize. Things that you learned 6 months ago will be long gone. That works to build base knowledge and pass associate exams, but for professional ones, you will need to dedicate some full days of studying.
10. Learn to Answer Quickly
This sounds like stupid advice, but on professional exams, you will run out of time, and you will probably not be able to read all the questions and answers in a peaceful manner or read them at all.
Here’s a strategy that works:
- Scan the answers first for keywords to get a sense of what the question is about.
- Read the question itself and look again for keywords.
- Imagine the answer and try to pick it from the available ones.
- Double-check if you have time (which you won’t have).
Questions are very tricky. More than one answer can be correct, but you should choose the best one. You will need to take some preparation exams to really grasp the concept.
11. Postpone the Long Questions
Some questions and answers are really long. You will basically need 10 minutes to really study them, but you have just 2–3 minutes on average. For those, just pick a random answer, then mark them for review. There is no penalty for a wrong answer. Try to memorize one or two question numbers that have the subject that you are really good at, so your time will be a good investment when you hopefully have some “spare” time for them in the end.
12. The Hardest Questions are at the Beginning
Well, they are not. But it seems like they are because of the time pressure. Just do not worry too much.
13. Split the Time into Four Parts
For the professional exam, I split the questions into three chunks of 25 each. Then, I calculated how much time I had for each chunk, leaving 30 minutes on the end for review and questions that I’d skipped. I checked the time when I passed each chunk of questions. You will be too nervous if you check the time constantly, and there are questions that are not ultra-hard, so you can gain some time. Well, there are not (m)any easy questions, but if you study hard, some questions will look easy. I managed the time perfectly for both professional exams and finished after the last reviewed question on the dot.
Note that you do not get the full time that is specified. Ten minutes are subtracted for registering. It is 10 minutes exactly, regardless of how much time you actually spend on that.
14. An Easy Way to Renew the Certificates
If you have associate certificates that did not expire, they are automatically renewed if you pass the professional exams. If you pass the Solutions Architect Professional exam, the Solutions Architect Associate certificate is renewed. If you pass the DevOps Professional exam, the Developer Associate and SysOps Administrator Associate certificates are renewed. Unfortunately, I figured this out after the fact. But that will not save you any time studying. You need to study all the material for associate exams and all the material for professionals to pass the professional exam.
15. Get Results Quickly
After you finish the exam, they notify you that the results will be usually available within 24 hours, but that it might take up to 5 days. It used to be that they told you that you passed as soon as you pressed the finish button. Now you have to wait. I received the email in about 24 hours, but the results are actually available on the portal within a few hours.
Final Thoughts
AWS certifications are a great way to understand the full AWS ecosystem and prove your knowledge, but they’re only part of the equation. To truly excel, hands-on experience is essential.
Certifications push you to explore areas you might not encounter otherwise, making them a valuable milestone. But combine them with real-world practice to build the skills needed for tackling real AWS challenges.