How to prepare for AWS CSA?

Nanduri Balajee
5 min readMay 13, 2020

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AWS certifications lead the IT field in terms of market value, qualifications, and salaries. AWS Accredited Software Architect Associate is one of the most sought and important certifications for professionals working with AWS.

This qualification contributes to the highest paying industry certifications according to the latest survey. An AWS CSA will receive an annual salary of more than $100,000 a year. It’s great you are about to take the first step to improve your career in the cloud.

Get practical knowledge on AWS from scratch through AWS Online Training

In this article, we are writing the step-by — step guide for AWS accredited solutions AWS CSA exam preparation.

Cerifications you need to clear before AWS CSA

The certifications are as follows.

AWS Certified Cloud Professional Certification

Yes, this article promises tips on how to receive your Software Architect-Associate Certificate, but if you don’t have previous AWS engineering experience or expertise, would highly suggest passing this first. This test is a 1,000-foot summary and if you prepare regularly, it can be passed in just two weeks.

Honestly, even if you have previous experience with AWS, it may still be good to take this as the AWS services cover certification exams that you may never have actually used.

Even the most difficult questions on the test are those practice tests. If you are struggling on the practice exams but still close to passing, then the actual test itself should do well. The examination itself is much simpler than those.

ACG’s AWS Accredited Solutions Architect-Associate

While this course alone isn’t enough for a total newbie to graduate, it’s still an excellent course and will be the basis for your exam preparation. It covers everything on the study, with some holes here and there in one way or another.

After clearing the above certifications you can move to next level.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Test : AWS CSA

AWS Certified Solutions — Architect AWS CSA Test is Amazon ‘s second level certification exam. If you plan to build a career in AWS technology, this certification is the best start to your career in the AWS cloud. You must have sufficient knowledge to work on the AWS services upon completing this certification examination.

Here is a summary of AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification exam details.

Total Exam Questions: 65 (may vary)

Exam Duration: 130 Minutes

Exam Fee: 150 USD

Exam Pattern:

The exam includes two types of questions.

  • Multiple Choice Questions:

Have one correct choice and three incorrect options called distracters.

  • Multiple Answer Questions:

Have more than one correct alternative out of four or more alternative given

Exam Language: English

Renewal: After every 2 years

Amazon asks each candidate to sign up for the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before writing the test. The test takers are not required to reveal any of the specifics of the review, such as number of questions, form of questions, passing score etc. Amazon is allowed to revoke the certification if they report it publicly.

Steps to proceed through your AWS CSA examination.

These are the steps to follow to proceed through AWS certification path i.eAWS CSA examination.

Understand the Test content of AWS CSA

Test content comprises the goals of the test. It specifies what the domains or subject areas included in the test are. The list below mentions the weightage of topics in the AWS CSA approved by AWS with their percentage in the test.

Exam content percentage

  • Designing Robust Architectures -34 percent
  • Specificating Stable Architectures and Applications -26 percent
  • Designing Performant Architectures- 24 percent
  • Designing Cost- Efficient Architectures -10 percent
  • Describing Operationally Excellent Architectures- 6 percent

Know the theory well

AWS provides plenty of preparatory testing and training opportunities and found it tempting to power through all the theory material and later return to the laboratories, but it was more successful to do the laboratories right after studying the relative theory. Although there are no laboratories available for the tests, using the laboratories to obtain first-hand experience applying the theory strengthened my mental model and made it easier to remember the content.

Don’t hurry to submit

Do not hit submit until you are confident that once you press Submit on a question, the reply zips off to the server when you actually take the exam and you can not change it. You can skip through questions and come back to answer them when you’re ready so long as you don’t submit them. Nevertheless, once you pick an answer for a question, you can not skip the choice to another question until you have cleared it.

Skip if you are not sure

If you need me to do a first pass through the test, skip around and send questions where I was sure the answer was correct. Instead, made a few more passes to see if any responses became obvious, and some did! Returning to more complicated questions after had answered those was sure of gave me a lot more confidence it’s a technique would suggest. had three or four questions left in the end that was just playing on, putting in my best guess.

Think about the choices

Have some patience, and make sure to read the query carefully and the choices. Multiple choice is the method for the Solutions Architect test, and have encountered some difficult questions in which the response choices were all quite close. In these situations, read the question attentively, picked up keywords and tried to remove the choices that thought were probably not the answer.

Official resources for AWS CSA examination

You can find additional resources through AWS official site which will help through your AWS CSA certification along with formal training.

Study Exam Questions of AWS CSA

You can find a collection of sample questions on the official website of AWS. Reviewing them is important for understanding the type of questions that are being asked in the exam. This would basically help you get a basic idea of the pattern for the exam. What’s more, it won’t help you much. But, before you continue training for the AWS architect certification test, it is worth reading once.

Go through FAQs

Every Amazon Web Service has its own section of FAQs. This segment would provide good clarity on the various AWS concepts. In addition these parts clarify each service’s do’s and don’ts. That’ll be very helpful in planning for the exam.

Try Practice Exams

The AWS Practice Test cost you $20 but only 20 questions are included. For just 20 questions, we ‘d say that there’s not much worth investing $20. A variety of simulators for industrial mock exams are on the market. To prepare for the AWS solutions architect associate certification exam you can buy any one of them.

Online Articles and Forum Discussions

There are a number of articles on the technical blogs about AWS certifications. If you are good at reading papers, it can be of great help to you. Simply use your research skills and find some good articles on each and every issue of accredited AWS solutions architect associates subject areas of certification. There are also several discussion forums, in which you may take part and ask your question. There, you’ll get answers from the experts to all your exam questions, exam purpose, exam details and exam topics.

Conclusion:

I hope you reach a conclusion about AWS CSA examination. i wish you all the best for your certification of AWS CSA. You can learn more about the topics extensively through industry trained experts at AWS Solution Architect Training.

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Nanduri Balajee
Nanduri Balajee

Written by Nanduri Balajee

Iam a Technical Content writer having 4years of Industry experience. Till now, I have written 300+ articles and 6 tutorials

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