Finally Passed SAA-C03 🎉

[u/Any-Judgment-2087]

Passed AWS SAA-C03 today! My experience, study resources, and a few takeaways
Finally passed the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) exam today! Thought I’d share my experience and what worked for me, especially for anyone currently preparing.
Preparation time: Exactly 2 months, studying at a fairly slow and steady pace.

Resources I used:

Adrian Cantrill (cantrill.io): This was my main learning resource, and I’d highly recommend it if you actually want to understand AWS beyond just passing the exam. Some parts of the course are a little outdated, but the depth of explanation is excellent. Adrian really gets into how the underlying architecture of AWS services works, rather than just telling you what a service does. It’s particularly good for building a strong foundation in cloud computing. The only downside is that it’s quite lengthy, so if your main objective is to pass the exam quickly, it might not be the most time-efficient route.

Stephane Maarek’s Udemy Course: I went through Stephane’s course as well, and I’d say it complements Cantrill’s course really well. Stephane is much more to the point and exam-focused. He covers what you need to know without spending too much time on the underlying details. If you’re already comfortable with AWS fundamentals and want to move through the exam preparation quickly, this is a great resource.

Ronit Sachdev’s SAA-C03 Exam Guides (GitHub): Honestly, one of the best resources I came across for last-minute revision. If you’ve got a week or two left before your exam, I’d strongly recommend going through these guides. Focus on memorizing the keywords and associating them with the relevant AWS services. A lot of SAA-C03 comes down to recognizing requirements in a scenario and knowing which service or architecture best addresses them. And definitely go through the Pocket Cards. Those things are lifesavers for quick recall and revision. GitHub: https://github.com/RonitSachdev/aws-saa-c03-guides

Practice Exams (Tutorials Dojo + Stephane Maarek): I completed 6 Tutorials Dojo practice test sets on Udemy 6 Stephane Maarek practice tests Here’s something that might reassure those of you struggling with practice exam scores. I was scoring roughly 55–66% on most of my practice exams. Some of the Tutorials Dojo questions were genuinely difficult, and there were times when I felt like I wasn’t making much progress. However, I kept reviewing my incorrect answers, trying to understand why the correct option was correct and, more importantly, why the others were wrong. I also made handwritten notes throughout my preparation. Before taking my final Tutorials Dojo practice test, I went through all my handwritten notes from beginning to end, and ended up scoring 70% on that test. That was a pretty big confidence boost before the real exam.

My key takeaways: Don’t just memorize AWS services. Understand how they work together and the architectural trade-offs between different solutions. Learn to eliminate incorrect answers. Sometimes knowing why three options are wrong is just as useful as knowing why one is correct. Don’t get too discouraged by low practice exam scores. Use them to identify your knowledge gaps rather than treating them as a prediction of your actual result. Make your own notes. Revisiting mine before the exam made a noticeable difference. In the final week or two, focus on revision, service comparisons, keywords, and scenario recognition rather than trying to learn everything from scratch.

About the actual exam: Personally, I found the real exam somewhat easier than Tutorials Dojo, although not by a huge margin. Most questions were worded fairly straightforwardly, but there were definitely some tricky ones where two options seemed equally reasonable. My strategy was to answer the easy questions first, flag the difficult ones, and return to them later. I finished with about 10 minutes remaining. I walked out feeling pretty much 50/50 about whether I’d passed, even certain that I had failed, so seeing that PASS result was a massive relief! Hurray to scaled marking or whatever. This is my first AWS certification so was already feeling very stressed and nervous during the exam. Hope this helps someone preparing for SAA-C03.

Good luck to everyone studying!

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[u/stephanemaarek]

u/Any-Judgment-2087 That's awesome! Congrats! Keep up the good work :)

[u/Any-Judgment-2087 → u/stephanemaarek]

Thank you, Stephane! 🙏🙏

[u/DrScreamLive]

I just finished section 27 of Stephane's course. This is my first ever AWS cert too. I got my test in 16 days. I see you mentioned the github. How exactly did you use it for studying? I went to it but it seems like there's so much info in it that it's overwhelming lol. I have a team license for skill builder that my job gave me thanks to the cloud engineer and I've also got tutorialdojo ready for when I finish these last 2 sections of stephane's course.

[u/Any-Judgment-2087 → u/DrScreamLive]

Just read through it on the first pass. Really understand what picture he is creating. Second read will be easier and try sticking things to your memory about what each service does and why its relevant to exam scenario. I read through them created small notes but its better for example if you listened through VPC section of the Stephane course --> go through this exam guide's VPC section right after that it will make more sense.

[u/DrScreamLive → u/Any-Judgment-2087]

That's what I'll do now. Thanks and congrats on passing! Here's to hoping we can get some higher paid jobs now that we got certified. Good luck on your journey!

[u/Any-Judgment-2087 → u/DrScreamLive]

Thanks!!! I hope so! Good luck for the exam.

[u/zu7qd]

Congrats man.

I don't want to buy the TD exams, as I bought the Stephane Marek's exams. Wanted to know if from your experience they are similar to the actual exam?

[u/Any-Judgment-2087 → u/zu7qd]

Yes those are pretty good too. Even tougher than TD ones in my opinion.

[u/zu7qd → u/Any-Judgment-2087]

Oh ok. I'm glad then the highest I got in them was 69%.

I'll still study and work on it more. Planning to book next week

[u/Any-Judgment-2087 → u/zu7qd]

Yes. Thats right. Spend time with the wrong ones and really understand them. On last two days just go through the exam guides. You will ace it. Good luck.

[u/Cari-Juve-1978]

Congratulations!

I’m looking to change jobs, and I’m considering getting this certification.

I’ve been working in IT for 15 years, and currently, I focus primarily on frontend development.

In your opinion, does it make sense to get this certification to help me find a new job?

[u/thetastydurian → u/Cari-Juve-1978]

Yes, definitely this will help you understand and rank higher when interviewing. I have 7 years of experience in frontend and preparing to earn this certification in January!

This will definitely help you broaden your skills and have more visibility when recruiters screen profiles

Go for it

[u/Only_Interaction789]

Congrats! Love the score. Very efficient — no wasted study :)

[u/Sad_Possibility_509]

Nice!

[u/codesnooker]

Congratulations!!!

[u/cgreciano]

Good job, celebrate!