What are the best practises to prepare for AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate 2017 pattern [closed]

Question

I have been going in details about all the major services of AWS like EC2, S3, VPC, Volumes, EIP, Subnets, Gateways, Route53, Auto Scaling, ELB, RDS, DynamoDb, Redshift, Kinesis, Video Transcoder etc . But going in details about each topic from the official documentation of AWS is tough and hard to remember.

What are the patterns, guidelines, practise tests which I can follow to clear the topics throughly.

Also do I need to purchase the Questions sets provided by many websites, or just go with the free available ones.

Answer 1

There is no replacement for experience. Sit at the AWS console and spend time practicing with all the major AWS services (the ones you listed). Then take the time to read the FAQs and White Papers. For added knowledge watch the AWS videos on YouTube. Amazon has good training videos on their training website. I also recommend A Cloud Guru for training videos. Another good resource is QwikLabs.

It is possible to memorize enough to pass the exam by taking practice tests, but then your certification will be worthless to an employer. If your goal is a job, then take the time to really understand how the AWS cloud works and the services offered.

I have seven AWS certifications so I do have a real solid understanding of AWS and their exams. I also have more than 10 years actually working with AWS as part of my job.

[Update]

Time and again I see people put emphasis on taking practice tests. Don't do it. Take a practice test when you know what you are ready to take the exam. I recommend taking all the QwikLabs AWS labs. Do all of them (sometimes several times) and the above suggestions and you won't need a practice test. You will fly thru the exam.