Tag Archives: aws-developer

How I recommend studying for the AWS Associate Developer Exam

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Studying for the AWS Associate Developer Exam? Keep reading for what to expect as I share my tips for passing the exam on the first try *and* making the best use of your time. Also see:

Choosing the Right Associate Exam

There are three Associate level exams. The Architect and Developer exams have a lot of overlap. The Sys Ops one is very different. Which means those reading this page are probably deciding between the Architect and Developer exams!

If you look online, different people will say each of the associate exams is the “hardest”. The problem with “hard” is similar to the problem with “easy”.

In a nutshell, I’d say developers will probably find the developer one more interesting. Those with a networking or architecture background will probably find the architect one more interesting. Another tip is to look at the ACG (A Cloud Guru) outline for the architect and developer exams to see which you find more interesting. For example, Dynamo was one of my favorite topics and VPCs one of my least favorite so Developer was clearly the right choice!

Official Study Guide/Outline

Amazon’s main AWS Associate Developer exam page gives an overview of what is on the exam and links to the official exam guide pdf.

The exam prep page links to the two hour exam readiness video.

Jeanne’s Study Guide

My study guide is meant to supplement your other study resources – especially ACloudGuru!

Jeanne’s AWS Associate Study Guide

If you are reading this in Sept 2019 or later

There’s an official study guide book coming out

Edit: This book got mixed reviews. Especially in the space of accuracy. And without an errata list, be careful before choosing it

A Cloud Guru (ACG)

  • The A Cloud Guru developer course is excellent. It contains good videos, practice questions and a mock exam. It is free for 7 days and costs $30 for the next month. Just remember to cancel before the month is up so you don’t get billed for a second month.
  • See my blog on how ACG prepares you

Amazon’s free questions

  • The official Architect practice questions are relevant to the Developer as well.
  • The official exam readiness video has the official Developer practice questions.
  • If you’ve taken another AWS exam (like the Practitioner), you get to take a 20 question timed practice exam for free. Go into the cert dashboard using your login to get a coupon code for this.

More free practice questions