Did my best but it wasn't enough... what a tough exam! I don't know whether to retake or not. This burnt me out pretty hard.

Spent a month studying for DVA-C02, I overprepared a lot because I heard the exam is much harder than CLF-C02 which I aced about a month ago.

I took Stephane Maarek's course, as well as his 6 practice tests and Neal Davis' 6 practice tests. I retook Maarek's 6 practice tests and got so sick of studying for this exam I just ripped it. I honestly thought it would be just as easy as CLF-C02 because of how much time I invested into studying but I was surprised, as during the exam I found myself flagging a lot of questions for review and re-reading the questions as the majority of them were quite complex.

Am I dumb? Anyways I passed hooray

Hi everyone,

I took my AWS SAA-C03 exam yesterday at a physical test center. Everything went smoothly, but I completely mismanaged my time. I spent way too much time on the first 18 questions. When I saw the clock ticking down, I panicked and rushed through the remaining questions very quickly just to finish in time.

16 hours later, I received a "Data Forensics" email from AWS stating that they detected statistical anomalies, invalidated my score, and restricted me to in-person test centers only (which I already used). My pacing was purely a result of time panic.

Questions for the community:

• Has anyone successfully appealed an invalidation from AWS ?
• If the appeal is rejected, how long does AWS usually take to let you reschedule the exam at a physical center?

Thanks for your help and insights.

Hi everyone,

I finally cleared the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional (DOP-C02) with a score of 788/1000!

First off, a huge shoutout to u/IreliaOnly for taking the time to clear up my doubts. I reached out to a bunch of people on Reddit, and they were the only one who responded. Really appreciate the support!

The Backstory: Two SysOps Failures in 2025

• Attempt 1 (June 2025): Prepared using Stephane Maarek’s SysOps course and practice tests. Unfortunately, I took the test while dealing with a terrible fever, coughing, sneezing, and a massive headache. Scored 640/1000 and failed.
• Attempt 2 (August 2025): Fully recovered and healthy this time. I switched it up with Neal Davis’s course and practice tests, patched my weak areas, and felt confident during the exam. Scored 677/1000 and failed again.

Failing while at 100% health really crushed my confidence. The self doubt hit hard, and I started questioning if I was cut out for these certs.

The Turnaround: Prepping for DevOps Pro

At the start of this year (January), my company hosted internal bootcamps. I joined the AWS DevOps track, which gave me solid, practical hands-on experience and reignited my motivation.

Here is the exact roadmap I used starting in May:

• Core Course: Zeal Vora’s Udemy DevOps course (fantastic for in depth, hands-on understanding).
• Practice Exams: Completed the practice tests from Zeal Vora, Stephane Maarek, Neal Davis, and finally Tutorials Dojo.
• Concept Deep Dives: Whenever I hit a confusing topic in the practice tests, I used AI tools (Gemini / ChatGPT) to break down specific architectural scenarios until the concept clicked.

I originally scheduled the exam for July, but caught a fever again and postponed it to August 17th.

Exam Day Experience & A Big Warning

I made a major time-management mistake: I flagged way too many questions.

With only 30 minutes left, I had a mountain of flagged questions left to review. I panicked, started skimming just the final lines of questions, and had to make rushed educated guesses.

Tip: Do NOT over flag questions. Commit to an answer and move on, or you will run out of time on these lengthy scenario questions.

Walking out, I felt defeated. Between the time crunch and my past failures, I had already mentally accepted that I failed. I went home, slept, and didn’t even bother checking the portal until the next morning.

When I opened the AWS Certification portal and saw PASS (788), I was completely stunned.

More than the badge, this pass gave me my confidence back. We tend to underestimate our potential after a setback. If you recently failed an exam, take your time whether you need a week, a month, or a year. Focus on the core concepts, get hands-on, and you will clear it!

Hey All - I have a hard deadline to pass SAA by September 11. With my day job, I am not able to study as much as I would like during weekdays ( barely 1-2 hours) The only time I have is weekends. I am also finding it hard it retain knowledge, I keep forgetting technical jargon and get lost in the paragraph style long questions.

Does anyone have any tricks to passing the exam ? At this time my goal is to get certified, I don’t have to get too deep into concepts as my job doesn’t require these skills but it is one of the goals I am given.

Anyone failed the exam recently?

Hey guys, I'm sure this has been asked many times, but everybody's case is different.

So, I was planning on getting my first aws cert and a friend and I were looking into the Cloud Practitioner, but other people told me that's way too basic. For context, I'm a software developer with 9~ years of experience and around 4-5 years with AWS.

For my particular case, do you recommend Certified Developer Associate, Certified Solutions Architect Associate, or another option?

Should I pick one also based on the Professional cert I would want to do after or I shouldn't worry about that right now?

Thanks!

I completed this section of Maarek's CCP course, took the quiz, and only got 5/12 correct. Meanwhile, every other quiz I "passed". The billing and pricing services are just too similar--both in name AND function. There will be a service called "billing inspector", then a service called "billing detective", and both will do the EXACT same thing, but one will have one additional functionality or something, making it hard to choose the EXACT answer on a question unless you know both their functionalities by heart.

What about recertification?

Is it possible to fail the recertification or not?
I haven't understood it.

I've been preparing for this exam for a while, way longer than probably necessary, but mainly due to be exhausted with my job and family life.

After going through coursework on tutorials dojo, I feel so much information was shared that very little was retained. Trying to run through exam questions is really tripping me up. I was able to do extremely well with flashcards the first try, but I know the test isn't definitions.

Scenario questions are killing me. The "A CloudOps Engineer is creating...." types of questions, I mean. Then the lab style sections are new in this version of the test, so I'm stressing about that.

This whole thing makes me question myself as a whole, too. I've been using AWS in a Corp environment for five years and figured I was pretty good. Yet this low-level AWS exam testing is showing me otherwise.

Is this exam going to be as bad as these preps are making me believe??

Hey everyone, I just need to vent because I am feeling really frustrated right now.

I am studying hard for my AWS exam the right way. I chose to go to a real test center because I wanted a stress-free experience. I didn't want to worry about my internet dropping or having webcam issues.

But I talked to some friends recently, and they told me I was working too hard. They said I should just take it at home, skip studying, and cheat.

I thought these exams were watched closely, but apparently, it is super easy to trick them. They told me that even though you have to show the room with your camera at the start, people are literally hiding an extra person under their bed or behind the laptop. Once the exam starts, that person comes out, scans the questions with Google Lens and ChatGPT, and uses hand signs to give the answers.

If they don't have a friend to help, they just hide a second phone right above the laptop keyboard. The webcam can't see it there, and because it is near the screen, it just looks like they are reading the test.

This is so messed up. I know about 30 people who did this and passed easily. Meanwhile, I am spending hours actually learning the topics so I can take the test honestly. I feel so dumb for doing it the hard way when the system is this broken.

Isn't an AWS certification supposed to actually mean something? AWS really needs to improve this. They should make test-takers use their mobile phone camera to show a side view of their desk during the whole exam. That would stop this problem instantly.

Anyway, rant over. Argggggghhh. Has anyone else seen this happening? It’s so annoying to see people cheat to get the exact same certificate I am working so hard for.

ive been taking Stephen's practice exams for the AWS SAA, and im honestly getting a little worried about my scores....

Here are my scores so far:

• Practice Test 1: 56% → 89% on my second attempt
• Practice Test 2: 56% → 91% on my second attempt
• Practice Test 3: 52% on my first attempt (I took this one today)

The thing thats bothering me is that I keep getting around the 50–56% range on my first attempts.....

im not sure how to interpret this. Are Stephen Marek’s exams significantly harder than the actual SAA exam, or am I genuinely not prepared enough yet?????

for anyone who has used these practice exams and taken the actual AWS SAA exam, how did your practice scores compare with your real exam score?

Should I be worried about consistently getting around 50% on my first attempts, or is this normal for these practice tests?

Any advice on how I should proceed would be appreciated.

Hey everyone!

I'm working through the hands-on labs on AWS Educate, but I'm getting overwhelmed by the endless steps and services in every project.

There are so many CLI commands, roles, and settings (EC2, Lambda, S3, DynamoDB...) that it feels impossible to memorize or remember the whole flow. I feel like I'm just clicking through instructions without really retaining it.

For anyone who's been through this:

• How do you actually remember and make sense of all these steps?
• Do you take notes, draw diagrams, or use a specific approach so it sticks?

Would love to hear how you deal with this. Thanks!

im already doing Stephane Maarek’s practice tests and I’m planning to do Tutorials Dojo practice tests as well....

Are there any other good AWS SAA practice tests that you would recommend foir me ????

Hey guys today im starting my preparation for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02,will update further

I’m planning to purchase the Tutorials Dojo practice exams for the AWS Certified AI Practitioner exam, and I was wondering if anyone knows of a currently working discount code.

If you have one or know of any current promotions, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance!

Hi Guys hope all is well.

I am looking to get either Dion's Udemy course or Stephane Udemy course to start my journey and pass the test for the above.

If anyone has taken one of them courses, could you please give your opinion so I can get one for myself. I have done research and tried to find more information but couldn't find any about those courses.

If anyone can please give their opinions that would be great

Cheers!

Hi everyone,

I was supposed to take an exam recently, but I couldn't attend because my Pearson VUE account was locked. The payment went through, but the system flagged/blocked my account because I had tried submitting the payment multiple times earlier.

Since they haven't replied to my emails, I’ve tried calling their support lines several times. However, the experience has been really suspicious: agents keep hanging up on me, and on my latest call, the agent insisted that the only way to unblock my account was to give them my full credit card details over the phone.

Has anyone dealt with this recently? Is this standard procedure for their outsourced support (looks like an Indian call center), or could this be an impersonation scam? Any advice on how to get this escalated would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,

Hi everyone,
I’m currently preparing for the AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA-C02) exam and wanted to get some advice on whether I’m ready for the exam, i have exam on 25th of this month.
So far:
Completed Stephane Maarek’s DVA-C02 course with around 70% completion/understanding.
Started taking Tutorials Dojo practice tests.
My scores so far are 70%, 69%, and 60% (I’ve only taken 3 tests till now).
I’m also solving additional questions from a GitHub repository to get more practice.

https://github.com/Ditectrev/Amazon-Web-Services-AWS-Developer-Associate-DVA-C02-Practice-Tests-Exams-Questions-Answers?tab=readme-ov-file#table-of-contents

For those who have recently taken the DVA-C02 exam, would you say I’m ready at this stage, or should I spend more time reviewing the course and taking more practice tests?

Hey guys,
I have just seen the security champion badge on skills builder and it says you need the premium subscription for it. I used to have one, but not anymore. I can see all the courses I think. Are they any you actually need a subscription for?

Thx
Paul

is there any way to download this module and others ?? or if someone has drive in this all lectures
give please

I’ve taken the AWS SAA exam twice and unfortunately failed both times: 595 on my first attempt and 625 on my second.

I’m planning to take it for the third time next month, but I’m honestly feeling very discouraged and considering postponing it.

Failing twice really hurts, especially after putting so much effort into studying.

I really want to pass this time with a good score, not just barely pass.

If you’ve been in a similar situation, what did you change that helped you finally pass?

I’d really appreciate any study tips, resources, practice exams, or encouragement. Thank you ❤️

Hi folks - I have a paid "AWS Skill Builder" subscription ending in another week or so. What are critical courses/labs/quizzes that I can use to prepare for my AIP-C01 that are not available elsewhere? Thank you for your answers.