I am cloud enthusiastic and an open-source lover. I took AWS certificated solution architect associate exam and passed it in January 2021. I want to share my experience, especially for Nepalese who are trying to learn AWS and also want to take the exam.
Before the exam, I have just launched ec2 and use s3. Apart from this, I didn't have any experience in AWS. I prepared for my exam from the Udemy course taught by Ryan Kroonenburg. He is a really cool instructor and will provide you best examples with hands-on labs. The provided exam tips and ways to tackle the question will help you a lot. For buying it you need to pay nearly 15 US dollars. But I was lucky as I didn't have to pay for buying the course. One of my friends gave me. I would like to thank her.
On the second hand, you need to do some hands-on lab which needs an AWS account. You can do it with 12 months of free AWS account. But be careful! You will be charged if you forget to delete the resource you created. Luckily I got an AWS account from my friend which I can use up to 100 $ without paying him. Once again thank you to my other friend who helped me. Thank you so much.
I left my office because I didn't get the time to read and prepare for the exam. Also, I had planned to take leave for a few months to be myself. Here, I am not telling you to leave your current work and prepare for the exam. If you have some experience particularly in AWS, you can continue your work go ahead. This depends totally on you.
As soon as I finished the video course, I practiced questions from examtopics. This is a really helpful website for practicing AWS examination. In total, I practiced 400 questions which took about 25 days. You can also browse the site and practice there. It's free and many people are involved in the discussion which helps you to find correct answers. I also read AWS FAQ and whitepaper published by AWS.
I get prepared all the way and booked the exam from AWS training and certification.
Till the date, you know, there is no international payment gateway in Nepal. So, you might have difficulties in booking the exam. I took help from a friend who has the master card. You can also take help from your friend or relative who is living in a foreign country. Hope, Nepal will also accept an international payment system soon.
You can take the exam from your own home also. However, You should have a reliable internet connection and backup if needed. First, I tried from my home but due to some technical issues, my exam was not launched. So, I had to reschedule my exam and planned to go to the nearest exam test center. My friend, I would like to suggest you go to the nearest test center and take the exam. The cost is the same either you take from your home or go to the exam center ($150 as of now). You can find the nearest test center while booking the exam from AWS training and certification. It will list all the available test centers.
There were 65 questions that come up in my exam. I finished five minutes before the exam time expires and the result immediately displayed "Passed". What I remember is questions were too long that consume more time. You need to be prepared for it.
If you are planning to take the exam, or have any queries please let me know in the comment section below. I am ready to help you.