How to pass 13 AWS Certs in 11 weeks

Disclaimer: this article expresses my own opinions and experiences, not my employer's.

Back in November 2019, I embarked on a three-month learning immersion journey that required a great amount of hard work, commitment, and perseverance; culminating in the achievement of 13 AWS Certifications in a period of 11 weeks (between the first and the last exam). Before that, I had little-to-none relevant knowledge of AWS. So, here's my story.

Expectation Alignment

Before I start, let me set some expectations. My story is my own, as are my decisions about what sacrifices I decided to make to achieve this. That said, please set your own goals based on your family responsibilities, work commitments, body metabolism, and personal objectives and priorities. Given that, the title of this article could be rephrased as...

How not to fail on AWS Certification exams, given that you have studied and practised, and how not to burn out in the process.

Study Resources

For each exam, I followed a standard approach of watching all certification-prep video classes from two e-learning platforms (A Cloud Guru and Linux Academy), usually between 1.5x and 2x speed; then complementing my learnings with Hands-on Labs and Exam-Readiness courses from the AWS Training website; then taking all certification-related Whizlabs' tests in practice mode; then reading the available AWS Certification Sample Questions; and finally taking an official AWS Practice Exam.

Study Sprints

I also divided this study period into four sprints of up-to-four exams each (as we do with terms in school, and semesters in the university), with each sprint increasing the complexity level compared to the previous: Associate, DB/Security/Networking, Professional, ML/AI. For each sprint, I studied for several certifications at the same time, and I reserved the last week of each sprint to take all the sprint's exams (one exam every day or every two days).

This approach had three advantages. First, by alternating the contents, I was able to transfer my learnings from the short-term to the long-term memory; a method used in cognitive sciences. Second, each sprint was gradually building on top of the knowledge from the previous sprint. And third, the certifications complemented each other within each sprint.

Avoid Burning Out

If you're like me, studying for many hours a day over the course of many weeks has several consequences: head, back and neck pains, dried eyes, sleepiness, and lost of focus. My approach to avoid these symptoms was to relentlessly and methodically take small breaks between each video or set of 5 test questions, regardless of how short the video was.

I took 1-minute breaks for exercise (stretch, cardio, push-ups, abs, weight-lifting), 5-minute breaks for well-being (water, tea, food, call loved ones), and longer breaks for hygiene and house-keeping. I also followed my biological clock: sleep when tired, get up when rested.

The Exam

Some folks take the certification exams like a sprint, racing through the questions, answering the easy ones, and then leaving the hard questions for the remaining time.

It's not a Sprint. It's a Marathon!

The problem with that approach is that you lose control of the time you're spending, and the second part of your exam becomes a stressful frenzy of remaining hard questions, right when your brain is already tired of reading through countless questions for hours.

The Marathon Approach

Lucky for me, I did my share of marathons and learnt a few tricks from it. I applied these learnings to my AWS Certification exams in the following ways:

• Pace: I kept a steady 2-minutes-per-question pace, and I monitored my progress with a table of milestones (number of questions progressed for every ten minutes) drawn on the given paper sheet during the 5-to-10 minutes before clicking the start button.
• No going back: I flagged and wrote down the partial conclusions for questions I hadn't had time to finish within the 2-minute window (e.g. A is wrong, D not sure, E looks right) and I always selected an answer (sometimes at random) regardless.
• Prepare for a long run: a good night sleep, a balanced break-first, a banana or cereal bar, a glass of water, a tissue, and an early arrival to account for traffic jams.
• Have a reason why: I had my reasons to do this, and I convinced myself of its inevitability; that kept me going even when the questions were too long and the answers were even longer, because I knew I would pass that exam, sooner or later.
• Celebrate: share your achievements with your family, friends, and peers.

Take The Online Exam (yes, from home)

Once you feel ready, you can take any of the AWS Certification exams on your own computer, from home, using the OnVUE online proctored from Pearson VUE.

Non-native English speakers may request an extra 30 minutes per exam on the "special accommodations" options (only available if you don't have any exams scheduled). Also, every exam you pass will get you a 50% discount voucher to use on the next exam.

Last Tips

Take your time, do it your own way, and don't forget to be proud of yourself. Good luck!