I Passed 5 AWS Certifications in 5 Days: 15 Essential Tips

The author says he passed five AWS certifications in five days and uses that experience to give practical advice for taking AWS exams, especially the professional-level ones. The tips focus on course selection, discounts, accommodations for nonnative English speakers, scheduling tactics, online exam logistics, and time management.

Reading notes

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• Stephane Maarek’s Udemy courses are presented as the best option, and the author says the practice exams are needed, especially for professional exams.
• Passing an exam gives a 50% discount on the next one, and AWS Community Builders get one free exam per year.
• Nonnative English speakers can apply for 30 extra minutes before registering.
• Online exams can be rescheduled or canceled up to 24 hours before the appointment, with a limit of two reschedules after the original booking.
• The author prefers taking the exam in person, but he took his online because of flexible timing.
• Online exams require a quiet room and a stable computer setup, and he reports problems caused by background software and noise.
• Some network errors during the online exam setup are caused by access code problems rather than a real network issue.
• If exam slots are full, repeated logins and retries can reveal newly opened dates and times.
• He advises against spreading study over many months because details fade, especially for professional exams.
• For professional exams, he recommends answering quickly by scanning keywords, reading the question, imagining the answer, and checking only if time remains.
• Long questions should be skipped at first, marked for review, and revisited later if time allows.
• The hardest questions can feel like they come first because of time pressure, so the author advises staying calm.
• He divides the professional exam into chunks of questions and leaves 30 minutes for review, noting that 10 minutes are removed for registration.
• Passing certain professional exams automatically renews related associate certificates if they have not expired.
• Results usually arrive within 24 hours, though the portal may show them within a few hours.
• The closing point is that certifications help you understand AWS and prove knowledge, but hands-on experience is still necessary.