I just sat for the AWS Certified Cloud Architect Exam. And I even passed!
Pivoting to the software development side of RockScience, Here are some lessons learned around taking AWS Certification exams.
You’ve spent weeks or months studying and taking practice exams, building your own practice infrastructure and it’s finally time to sit for the exam. The last thing you need right now is a logistical gotcha. Here are some tips to avoid those.
Call me Robert
When you sign up for certifications at https://aws.amazon.com/certification/, you will be asked to create a Builder ID. This is where you set up the account for your certifications. This account info is then propagated to Pearson who actually administers the proctored exams.
When I did this, as usual my browser auto filled me as “Bob” and I just went with it as usual. MISTAKE!!!! The key here is to enter your name exactly as it appears on the identification document you are going to use (drivers license, passport, etc).
When I took the Cloud Practitioner exam, the proctor didn’t catch the discrepancy between my account name and the name on my license (Robert). I took (and passed) that exam. When it was time to sit for the Solutions Architect exam, the proctor bounced me because of the name mismatch.
Here’s the problem – if I didn’t already have any exam history, I would have been able to self-serve the name change in my account. But because the first proctor let me slide, the name could no longer be changed without opening a ticket with AWS. What a pain. On the other hand, it gave me more time to study. The issue was sorted within two days (and lots of back and forth), but it was a real hassle. On top of that, not only could I not use the voucher from the first exam to get half off, I had to pay full price again for the exam. So instead of $75, it was $225! I probably could have fought that, but was too exhausted and stressed by then.
Running the system check
DO run the system check! You don’t want any surprise on exam day. I suggest setting up your testing area exactly as it will be (I suggest even doing this for the practice exams). Make sure you have power, good internet and your wireless mouse is well charged up. You can’t have multiple monitors. If you have them, take them away so there is only on on the desk. If you are not doing this on a laptop, make sure your webcam wire is long enough that you can walk around your testing area (they will ask you to do this at check in).
The system test is going to look for applications and services that shouldn’t be running. Things like Dropbox and other sharing apps will be tagged. You need to figure out how to stop them running.
On a windows 11 laptop, one annoying one is going to be “tabtip.exe”. What the heck is that? It’s the virtual keyboard that pops up when you are using your laptop as a tablet. If you stop that in the task manager, windows re-launches is immediately. Here’s how to stop it. In settings, set this to “Never”. I burned up a few hours figuring this one out.
Download the system check each time you want to run it!
An interesting thing about the system check app, is that you download an instance of it for each time you want to run it. If you go to your downloads folder and just rerun the same instance again, it will almost succeed but will mysteriously fail the network check. That wasted a few panic stricken hours the night before my first exam. The key is to just follow the link from your email and download a new instance if you want to run it again.
Check in Procedure
This is fairly straightforward. You can start the process 30 minutes before your scheduled exam and if you get through it quickly, you can start the exam early. Take off your watch (see below)
You are prompted to take photos of your test area, a photo of your ID document and confirm your system settings (again). When you are done with your mobile phone and your ID, you are told told that from then on, you are being recorded and must follow the exam rules – including that you can not leave the field of view of your webcam. Your phone and ID card have to be out of arms reach, but you also may need them again if there is an issue. So when you are done with the phone, put it out of arms reach but in a place where you can get it while staying on camera.
Follow all the other rules too. Make sure the space is quiet around you. If they hear any voices (yours or anyone else), they will revoke the test. Schedule your test accordingly.
The Queue and the Greeter
You will be shown your position in the queue. It’s not unusual to be 10th-ish in the queue but it goes by pretty quick. Soon you will be Up Next! and a popup message from the greeter will say they are going to call you through the computer. You say OK and a voice chat starts. Here is where they ask you to pick up your laptop (or other webcam) and show the whole testing area once again. Then they’ll be asking you to show on the webcam that you are not wearing a watch. I’m sure that soon, you’re going to have to prove that you’re not wearing any kind of “smart” glasses.
Within a couple minutes, you are in the test. Hopefully you are ready and pass with a great score.
Learning Tips
This post is mostly about avoiding logistical issues, but I have some thoughts on how to study for this too. First of all, I highly recommend the Udemy courses and in particular the ones by Stéphane Maarek. But it can’t hurt to buy one of the other instructors’ courses too. They are cheap! I bought two courses and I also bought the set of practice exams from Stéphane. In total, I had six practice exams. My suggestion is to take the first one without looking up anything (cheating) to get a baseline. If you do great, then great! If you’re like me, you barely passed. For the subsequent exams, I did them as “open book” and I looked up and learned details right then and there for any questions I had doubts about. I think this made a huge difference for me.
Are the practice exams realistic?
This is the big question. I passed every single one… until the very last one (the morning of exam day). That one was massively harder than any of the others and I failed it miserably. That gave me a psychological whammy to deal with. For me, the real exam was maybe just slightly easier than the average of the practice exams. But that’s just my impression and I wouldn’t count on it!
Good Luck! Build something cool! Hire me to help!