4 Answers
Thanks for your valuable feedback. I am planning to take my time with studying for this to ensure I pass and also understand the materials. You’ll definitely pass the next time you sit! Just practice speed reading in practice exams. As Brian mentioned, the Jon Bonso practice exams are highly reviewed as being similar difficulty to the actual exams. I stopped using Whizlabs after Sys Ops when I relied on their material and failed that exam my first time.
Good Luck!
Hi Alessandro,
Thank you for the open and honest feedback. The first time I sat for the CSAP exam way back in 2015, I failed it too–for the same reason you mention. Time management. I also underestimated the detail and intensity of the exam.
There are some topics that are showing up recently on the exam which aren’t fully covered to the level I’d like in the course and that’s what I’m working on now. Specifically, I’m creating new modules for SAM, Connect, the ML stack, updates in Storage Gateway, EFS, Dynamo and some of the new services like application auto-scaling, blockchain and such.
I expect these updates to be available towards the end of this month.
–Scott
thanks for your feekback, what is AWS CQ videos?
CQ=Certification Quiz Show
Time Management – Yes this is important, you must have a plan how to handle multiple choice questions. Through your career everyone has taken many.
Pick up key words in the Questions, and key words in Answers. Quickly reject choices (based on key words), narrow down and select appropriate choice- again based on key words. Even though the questions and answers are verbose- but most of it is total fluff, speed read and ignore. The entire exam is based on key words.
Question that you don’t know anything about – don’t waste any of your time, make quick guess and move on, don’t even bother marking it for review.
Mark for review only ones that you have genuine dilemma.
I have passed many/all AWS exams, never felt short of time in any – always had plenty of time to spare.
Do you have any tips for speed reading or selecting key elements from text? I sometimes fall into the pit of reading too much into a question.
Check out the Exam Readiness SA Pro course at AWS training (free). It gives a few practice questions and the presenter shows how to break down the questions and answers.
Thanks for the advice. The AWS CQ video is great. After watching, I’m changing my approach to the questions and taking time in the practice tests to work on parsing the questions. For the practice tests, I’ve been using the tutorialdojo tests on Udemy. They seem pretty good, but it’s an unqualified opinion. I haven’t tried the real test yet. Look for a coupon and those are about $10.
Can some explain what is AWS CQ Video?
The AWS Certification Quiz Show | Episode 1 – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZXnGtAqxYY