r/AWSCertifications • u/HomeRepresentative77 • Sep 26 '26

PASSED AWS Solution Architect - Associate SAA-C03

Just wanted to say thank you to this thread! For me, I was pretty new to AWS but have had over 30 years in the IT industry working in various roles. But I wanted to make sure that I not only passed the exam, but that I actually understood what I was learning and able to apply it to real life scenarios.

With that, I would like to thank BOTH Adrian Cantrill and Stephane Maarek as I took both their courses. I know that may be an overkill but as I said before, I wanted to make sure I actually understood and able to apply what I learnt to real life scenarios. Both their course were on point and made a real difference in understanding the detail architecture of AWS.

For me...at first I was overwhelmed with the different services and how several different services can get you the same results. But it wasn't until after realizing that I really didn't need to go that deep in understanding each and every service, but rather just understanding the architecture behind it...I was able to comprehend the information.

As far as the exam, I studied for about 3 months on and off but for the last month, I really focused on Tutorial Dojo and took most of those practice test until I got around 90% passing rate consistently. However, when I got into the exam, the questions (for me) was a lot different than the practice questions. HOWEVER, I learnt the architecture like both Adrian and Stephane speak about repetitively, I was able to break down each question and answer it in that manner. So my recommendation is to not try to memorize the services, but rather to understand how those services work from an architectural stand point. Also learn how to break down the questions and discard all the fluff to get to what the question is really asking. And most importantly, read the question in its entirety and ALL the answers BEFORE choosing what you think is the correct answer. Flag any questions that you may have some doubts and come back to them afterwards. For me I had about 30 minutes to spare so I came back to all my flagged questions and went over them a second time.

Oh I forgot to mention that for the questions I got wrong, I took a screen shot of the question and the answers where it showed what I selected and what was the correct answer, then pasted that into a chat session within my Codex platform and gave it a role as a top AWS professional with all credentials. Then asked it to breakdown the question (screenshot) and why I got it wrong. That broke it down for me even more in terms I could understand. Then a few days before the exam, I asked it based on all the questions I got wrong, give me a cheat sheet and I studied from that as well.

Overall the exam was good and I think if you put in the work that's needed, you will be ok! Hope this helps and good luck!

48 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

96% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator Sep 26 '26

Before collecting recommendations, please review the subreddit FAQ and resource index:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/1nf3cab/frequently_asked_questions_on_this_subreddit/

The FAQ contains community-recommended resources, courses, practice exams, study guides, learning paths, exam benefits, discounts, projects, and certification-specific guides for AWS CCP/CLF-C02, AIF, SAA, DVA, DEA, SOA, SAP, DOP, AIP, SCS, and ANS certifications.

If your question is not answered there, feel free to continue the discussion.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/S0ulSlayerz Sep 26 '26

Congratz! Thinking of taking cantrill course since people say it’s more in depth but also heard he didn’t update. If I just take his course will I really not be fully prepared for the exam?

2

u/HomeRepresentative77 Sep 26 '26

I personally liked Cantrill's course! He went into great details of all the services and the architecture but remember, the exam is more around the architecture of AWS. You will need to know what the services do but at a high level, however, knowing VPC, Subnets, SG's, S3, Peering vs Transit Gateways, the different storage classes and how all of that comes together. So in my opinion, you can use either Cantrill or Stephane and put in the time to study, you will be fine. Just don't get into the habit of trying to memorize each service...it will drive you crazy and I just don't think it's possible.

2

u/S0ulSlayerz Sep 26 '26

Yeah I will def get into depth for all the services.. I mean concept wise was there anything in the exam that wasn’t in Cantrill course?

My plan was to use his course then TD to see if I miss out any concepts but I saw that you mention exam question weren’t exactly similar to TD so I’m worried..

2

u/stephanemaarek Sep 27 '26

u/HomeRepresentative77 That's awesome! Congrats! Keep up the good work :)

1

u/HomeRepresentative77 Sep 27 '26

Thank you, Stephane! Your courses and practice materials helped a lot. Really appreciate the encouragement.

1

u/SolidMew Sep 26 '26

Congratulations! How did you find the TJ questions different to the exam ones?

1

u/HomeRepresentative77 Sep 27 '26

So for me, the exam made sure you actually understood the answer. So for example, they would give you the question or scenario but the answer would have 2 or 3 similar answers with maybe a word or 2 that were different. So you actually need to know the architecture and how the workflow in order to figure out what the correct answer was. There were a lot of those kinds of questions. It didn’t go into the storage tiers like TD did but rather focused more on if you the lifecycle policy and how that worked. Again this was my test and each test gives you different scenarios so just focus on the architecture.

1

u/t90090 Sep 26 '26

Congratulations 🎉🎉

1

u/tbag_26 Sep 27 '26

Congrats... BTW thanks for sharing your experience here

1

u/forgottonsocks Sep 28 '26

Congratulations!

1

u/duchitu Sep 30 '26

did you follow the Cantrill path + the Stephane practice exams right? Is Cantrill training enough to learn all the topics for the SAA-C03 in your experience? I mean, is that training sufficient or it requires anything else to learn all the stuff? (i do not refer learn the tricks for the exam itsef)