I took the AWS Certified AI Business Strategist (AIB-C01) beta exam last night around 9 PM and received my results with a passing score of 884 the next morning around 7 AM.

This certification is very business-oriented, and the target audience is business leaders, managers, and consultants. It’s quite different from other AWS certifications, but it wasn't too difficult. The closest Azure equivalent is Microsoft Certified: AI Transformation Leader (AB-731), which felt more technical when I took it back in February.

To prepare for AIB-C01, I followed the Exam Prep Plan: AWS Certified AI Business Strategist (AIB-C01 - English), which is available with my paid AWS Skill Builder subscription. I went through the review and practice material for each domain, extracting the flashcards into a spreadsheet for later review. I also used Claude to summarize the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework for AI (CAF-AI) and the Well-Architected Framework’s Generative AI and Machine Learning Lenses to get the essence of each. I then completed the official practice question set (20 questions) and the official pretest (45 questions) to validate my readiness, scoring 95% and 91% respectively on my first attempt. 2 hours before the exam, I reviewed the flashcards and the practice questions in review mode. In total, I spent about 10 hours over 3 days studying.

The exam was 180 minutes with 85 questions. The questions were of similar difficulty to the Skill Builder practice exams. Some AWS services were mentioned, but mostly as context for the question; there weren’t any technical questions per se. I spent the first 2 hours on my first pass and flagged about 35 questions for review (I was being overly cautious). I then spent the next 20 minutes reviewing the flagged questions and ended the exam with time to spare. Not having taken an exam in 6 months, I’d forgotten how tiring they can be, especially when they’re 3 hours long. Towards the end of the exam, I was in dire need of a bathroom break!

Overall, this exam is quite achievable with 2-3 days of focused study.

Good luck with your AIB-C01 exam!

I recently passed the AWS SAA-C03 exam and wanted to share the resources I used during my preparation. I've 4 months of professional experience but exploring AWS since college days

Resources I used:

- Stephane Maarek: Udemy course

- Tutorials Dojo: Practice exams

- Aws SkillBuilder: Practice test

- RonitSachdev's SAA-C03 Guides: https://github.com/RonitSachdev/aws-saa-c03-guides

My practice test scores:

- Tutorials Dojo (6 tests): 80%, 76%, 78%, 78%, 75%, 76%

- Stephane Maarek practice test: 83%

- AWS Skill Builder practice test: 83%

Practice exams were useful, but understanding the reasoning behind each answer mattered the most to me.

Thanks to everyone who shares helpful resources with the community. Good luck to everyone preparing for the exam!

Just failed my second try, 686 after a 697. Passing is 720, so I’ve been 23 and 34 points short. I’m devastated.

I’ve been studying for months: Maarek’s course (Spanish version), 6+ Tutorials Dojo exams, GitHub repos, AI to explain things and re-explain them, and hands on practice in AWS. My report says needs improvement in High-Performing and Cost-Optimized both times. In the exam I only doubted about 4 questions and still failed. It always feels like one small detail makes an answer more correct than another, maybe I’m just reading them wrong.

Has anyone been this close twice? What actually worked for you? Any tips are welcome.

so iam from a tier 3 or idek if it comes under any tier but
the hod of my branch gave aws courses (i didn't do cuz i was in busy)
so as a 4th year student in btech
there will be a project so he is saying that if we don't complete that aws courses he won't accept projects and he locked those courses and he wants everyone to pay 500rs per course
idw to pay him tell me what to do anyone

tbh he has no sympathy he does the things which makes every student beg him

Hey All,

• I passed SAA-C03 (AWS solutions architect - associate) in June; I decided to take advantage of the momentum and plow through SAP-C02

• It was definitely a harder process than expected but after a grueling three months or so of study, the actual professional exam didn’t seem that bad

• I’ve taken a number of cloud certifications at this point, and I always use Whizlabs

• this is the first one where I felt like Whizlabs didn’t have the best content; I agree that TutorialsDojo is the best prep for this exam. I also used MeasureUp and SkillBuilder

• TutorialsDojo is great because it helps you build endurance for reading long scenarios and really drills you on the core architecture. Skill Builder is great and representative of the real test. Whizlabs and MeasureUp are good just because they inevitably have questions on topics the other vendors missed

• the biggest reason you will fail the real test is running out of time, so take full exams under timed conditions

• You will likely need to punt on a few questions and if you get good at quickly nuking the choices that can’t be right the math will work in your favor

• You will read this a lot, but I scored in the high 50’s to mid 60’s on most of the practice exams the first time so don’t get discouraged

• I passed with an 803

Hey everyone, I need desperate help. I’m studying for AWS-DEA exam and I’m on the ML section of this udemy course. It quizzes you on each section, yet, in this section the quiz is not at the end but in the middle. The quick is ALL SageMaker questions. After the quiz, there are still videos on AWS Bedrock, RAGS, etc. Are these still on the exam? I’m trying to research it but I have come across mixed things. Please help and advise.

I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) on my first attempt.

I had spent some time searching for answers to questions like:

• Is Stephane Maarek's course enough?
• How should I actually use Tutorials Dojo's different practice modes?
• Is Tutorials Dojo harder than the actual SAA-C03 exam?
• What practice exam score means you're ready?
• How long does it take to prepare for SAA-C03?

So I wanted to provide some insight based on my own preparation and exam experience.

/ My Background & Preparation

I’ve previously earned the AWS CCP, am currently enrolled in the AWS re/Start program, and have hands-on experience with AWS, though I don’t have professional/production engineering experience yet. I pursued the certification while simultaneously completing program work and building independent projects.

My goal was to earn the certification as fast as possible to continue developing practical skills.

My preparation took 20 calendar days (~40 hours): 13 active days from Oct 6-21 to finish the course. 4 days of practice testing and review, followed by sitting the exam (Oct 21-25).

I took zero notes and did not use flashcards.

/ Are Stephane Maarek and Tutorials Dojo Enough to Pass SAA-C03?

As the two primary resources, yes.

These are the 5 resources I'd use (and I think you only really need the first 3):

1. Stephane Maarek's ‘Ultimate AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate’
2. Jon Bonso’s ‘AWS SAA-C03 Practice Exams’ on Tutorials Dojo
3. An LLM (I currently use ChatGPT)
4. Ronit Sachdev's AWS SAA-C03 guide (particularly the ‘Exam Traps & Key Patterns’ document!)
5. AWS Skill Builder’s Official Practice Question Set for the SAA-C03

I used ChatGPT to clarify and review concepts consistently through the entire process, using voice dictation for a large majority of the interaction. I find that verbally expressing thoughts helps internalize concepts.

/ Is Tutorials Dojo Harder Than the Real AWS SAA-C03 Exam?

In my experience, yes. The rough measurement I've seen of TD being ~10% harder feels accurate. I think its calibrated difficulty is helpful in preparation for the real thing.

Question length and wording: The real exam had shorter, more direct questions.

Answer choices: TD's distractors are difficult to eliminate. The real exam's answers are less ambiguous. Even when I wasn't fully familiar with a particular service, eliminating incorrect choices felt easier.  

Topics that stood out on the SAA-C03: S3 (Lifecycle Policies really stood out), VPC, EC2, DynamoDB (and database migrations), Lambda, IAM, CloudFront, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect

/ What Tutorials Dojo Score Should You Aim for Before SAA-C03?

I saw a lot of discussions about whether you should be scoring 70%, 80%, or even 90% before attempting the real exam. My three full timed practice scores were 66.15%, 66.15%, and 76.92% — never scoring 80% on a full timed set.

Even on my 76.92% test, I encountered many questions I'd already seen and reviewed through previous timed or section-based sets. So that score wasn't entirely independent of earlier practice.

Based on my experience, I wouldn't treat 80%+ as a strict requirement.

I exclusively used TD's timed, section-based, and topic-based modes, using ChatGPT to review everything. 

---

Immediately after finishing the exam, I was fiending for the results and spamming refresh on Credly, wondering how long my AWS results and badge would take. I needed to take my mind off everything and catch a long-awaited break to watch a series without thinking about upskilling at all.

I finished the exam on Sunday at 1:55 PM. Both my AWS exam results and Credly badge notification arrived simultaneously at 11:07 PM—nine hours later.

---

I hope this helps someone preparing for SAA-C03. Happy to answer questions about my preparation, practice-testing approach, or anything else!

i intend to go the whole way stacking certs, but i just turned 42. is that worth it, as in employable?

EDIT: Apologies everyone, lemme give a bit of context. Continuing education student and legitimately have pure love for IT. Wanted to get certs and transferrable courses done with before going to WGU. Hence was about to begin with cloud practitioner, so far seems harmless to be honest. But then, just suddenly someone commented on a picture and said you dont look 42. Super. I forgot that detail. Female, btw. If that'll stand in the way I'd genuinely like to know.

Hey guys. I noticed a lot of people recommend Stephane Maareks courses. So I'm writing in two weeks and I have limited budget so which option is the best:

The full Stephane Maarek AWS AI Practioner course(I I think its the video course and I think it has one practice exam)

Or should I just go for the Aws Ai practioner Stephane Maarek practice exams only?

Which one is more valuable between the two?

My AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam is in few days. For those who recently took it, which topics should I focus on? Any topics or frequently tested concepts I shouldn't miss?

Would appreciate any last minute tips!!!

I'm planning to start prepping for SAP and trying to figure out the timing with C03 coming.

I did SAA-C03 with Cantrill's course and honestly it's one of the best courses I've ever taken, so he was my first pick for SAP too. His roadmap says "Course planning is happening for the new SAP-C03 version - Aiming to have this released very soon after the new exam is released."

I emailed twice (once directly, once through the contact form) to ask if it makes sense to start with the C02 course now and just cover the C03 changes once it's out, since the C02 course hasn't been updated in a while. No reply yet, so figured I'd ask here.

For those of you who did SAP-C02 or are planning to go for C03, would you start with C02 material now or just wait it out? If you used Cantrill for SAP I’d love to hear how it went. And if you went with something else, what was it and would you recommend it?

I've seen a few negative threads about the platform lately, but I’m not really interested in the drama.

Any suggestions, on new SAP-C03 exam guide. Recently I attempted but failed in SAP-C02 with 738. So I’m in a confusing state to go for C03 or try once C02. Your suggestions are appreciated.. If any expert on new additions in exam then suggest to way next..

Doing SAA now, are the questions for set 1 timed and set 1 review the same? i'm planning to do all the review mode before i try the timed but if they are the same i might just brush up on my weak points instead of doing the quiz again as i have a tendency to memorize answers then it won't be as helpful

Background: Level II desktop/bench IT at a hospital, CS degree, AWS Cloud Practitioner. I'm trying to move into cloud engineering, and my SAA-C03 is booked for a week away (already rescheduled it once because I didn’t feel ready enough)

What I've done: a ~25-hour video course, Tutorials Dojo practice exams (timed and review mode), topic-based quizzes, flashcards, and one-page sheets for the lookalike services and feeding my missed questions into AI to help me learn better and make flash cards

Scores (pass line is around 72%):
Full sets: 60% → 61% → 48%
Topic-based quizzes: about 77%

What I'm seeing:
I do fine when the topic is one I've reviewed, then a fresh mixed set drops hard.
Many misses are "which service does this job" questions on things I haven't met (CloudFormation CreationPolicy, Aurora Serverless v2 reader, File Gateway).
I keep mixing up lookalikes: GuardDuty vs Inspector, Kinesis Streams vs Firehose, security groups vs NACLs.
The video course didn't stick, and I remember almost none of it.
I have ADHD, and every study session now feels like a pass/fail verdict. I'm burned out and my anxiety is slowly turning into anger that I’m still not getting everything despite being on this road for a while.

Feel like even if I slow down and read the questions it doesn’t really help as everything seems jumbled together and similar and I feel like I’ve hit a wall and just want to give up completely and move out of IT and cloud all together out of anger and frustration with the amount of material to learn

Questions:
If you plateaued like this, what actually broke it?
What study method worked for the breadth, if videos didn't?
With about a week left, would you reschedule or sit it and use it as data?
How did you handle burnout in the final stretch?
Thanks, any advice helps.

Missed the mark by less than 3% 😞 for AIP-C01. Sad day.

If this is really true, then what path should I take to get there ?

Is there any cheat code for clearing the exam ??

​

Hey everyone

I’m a **3rd-year B.Tech Computer Science and Engineering student at Sri Aurobindo Institute of Technology, Indore**, and I’m currently preparing for a career as an **AWS Cloud Engineer**.

My goal is to build strong cloud computing skills, work on real-world AWS projects, and prepare for opportunities at **Amazon and other leading tech companies**.

I’m looking to connect with like-minded students who are also interested in AWS and Cloud Computing so we can:

✅ Learn AWS services together

✅ Practice hands-on labs and build real-world projects

✅ Share learning resources and interview preparation tips

✅ Stay consistent and motivate each other

✅ Prepare for internships and job opportunities

You don’t need to be an expert. Whether you’re a beginner or already learning AWS, you’re welcome! 🤝

📩 **Interested? Drop a comment or DM me, and let’s create a learning group to grow together!**

Let’s learn, build, and achieve our goals together. 💻☁️

#AWS #AmazonWebServices #CloudComputing #CloudEngineer #AWSCommunity #LearningTogether #ComputerScience #CareerGrowth

I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam with 776 on my first attempt last week!

I'm sharing my experience because candidate reviews and exam reports on Reddit helped me tremendously throughout my preparation. I frequently read other people's experiences, study plans, and practice-test scores to evaluate my own progress and understand what to expect. I hope this post can offer the same kind of help to someone currently preparing for the exam.

1. My preparation

I spent exactly 222 hours and 59 minutes preparing for the exam. Took the exam on day which was the 62nd day of my prep. efforts.

My primary study resource was Stephane Maarek's Udemy course. I completed the entire course and took extensive handwritten notes.

In total, I produced 317 pages of notes:

• Around 190 pages covering the course material.
• Around 130 pages documenting mistakes, misunderstood concepts, and explanations from practice exams.

I regularly reviewed these notes, including before going to sleep. Repeated revision became an important part of my preparation.

2. Practice exam results

I completed nine full-length practice exams using Stephane Maarek and Tutorial Dojo.

Here are my scores in chronological order:

Stephane Maarek:

• Test 1: 53%
• Test 2: 47%
• Test 3: 60%
• Test 4: 70%

Tutorial Dojo:

• Test 1: 68%
• Test 2: 66%
• Test 3: 73%
• Test 4: 70%
• Test 5: 66%

My overall average was approximately 64%.

As you can see, I wasn't consistently scoring 80% or higher. In fact, my first two practice exams averaged only 50%.

I gradually improved, but my scores remained around the upper 60s and low 70s.

3. The actual examination

One thing I'd like to mention is that, before taking the exam, I had read many Reddit reviews saying that the actual SAA-C03 exam was easier than both Stephane Maarek's and Tutorial Dojo's practice exams.

That wasn't my experience.

Personally, I found the actual examination slightly more difficult than both Maarek and Tutorial Dojo. I encountered several concepts that I hadn't come across during my preparation, and some questions were particularly challenging.

After finishing the exam, I estimated my chances of passing at around 50%. I genuinely wasn't sure whether I had passed.

However, I received my result and passed!

Of course, exam experiences vary, but I think it's worth being prepared for an actual exam that may feel more challenging than the practice tests.

4. What I would recommend

Based on my experience, here are a few things I'd recommend:

• Don't underestimate note-taking. Writing down concepts in your own words and documenting mistakes helped me consolidate the material.
• Review your incorrect answers thoroughly. Don't just memorize the correct option. Understand why the other options are incorrect.
• Don't panic over every low practice score. My first two scores were 53% and 47%, and I still passed the actual exam.
• Don't assume the real exam will be easier. Prepare for unfamiliar scenarios and questions that combine multiple AWS services.
• Revise consistently. I found repeatedly reviewing my notes particularly helpful.
• Take not of irrelevant stuff in the practice tests. In addition to, what is correct and what's not, if you see anything in the question that you feel that you don't know at all or are confused about. Take a note of that and after the exam make sure to add that in your notes, too.

5. Final thoughts

My preparation took exactly 222 hours and 59 minutes. It was a demanding process, but passing on my first attempt made it worthwhile.

If you're currently scoring somewhere between 55% and 70% on your practice exams, I hope my experience gives you some encouragement.

I'm not suggesting that these scores guarantee success. Everyone's preparation and exam experience are different.

But don't let a few disappointing mock results convince you that passing is impossible.

I'm already preparing for my next certification, and I'm currently considering the transition from AWS Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) to AWS Certified Generative AI Developer – Professional (AIG-C01). I'd love to hear from anyone who has made a similar transition and is willing to share their preparation experience, recommended resources, or thoughts on the difficulty of the new exam.

Good luck to everyone preparing for SAA-C03!

Hi everyone!

I have around 2 years of experience in software development, and I’m currently preparing for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA) certification. I don’t have any prior cloud experience, so I’ve been learning the concepts through YouTube and getting some hands-on practice with exercises.

One challenge I’m facing is that I tend to forget concepts I learned a few weeks ago, even after understanding them initially.

For those of you who have passed the SAA exam, I’d love to hear about your learning strategies!

Did you take handwritten or digital notes?

Did you build any projects to reinforce what you learned?

How did you revise topics and retain concepts in the long term?

Did you use the AWS Free Tier for hands-on practice? If so, what projects or services would you recommend for a beginner?

Any tips, resources, or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone, long time lurker here...

I took the AWS SAA-C03 exam yesterday at 1pm and received my results late that night. Thanks to u/stephanemaarek for his Udemy course and practice exams. I studied for a month, and spent the last three weeks of that month taking practice exams from Stephane, TutorialsDojo and I used ChatGPT for explaining the correct and incorrect answers.

My test featured questions on DB(heavily), ECS, Security (heavily), Monitoring, EC2, S3, VPC, IAM, Route53.

Materials used:

Stephane Maarek's Udemy Courses & Practice Exams

TutorialDojo Practice Exams

Ronit Sachdev GitHub Repository - https://github.com/RonitSachdev/aws-saa-c03-guides/blob/main/topic-guides/00-README.md

What I'm going to do next

I'm going to build, maintain, and document some projects using AWS resources with IaC (Terraform). I already have my Terraform Cert from two months ago. Update my resume and hopefully look forward to helping a company or business in the future out there that needs help with their cloud infrastructure.

I guess this question doesn't get asked a lot but I find it hard to believe that a test like the Security + would be harder than these test. I barely passed the SAA and the AZ104.