After a conversation with one of my colleagues who had just passed the AWS Solution Architect Professional exam, I tried to follow his example. Like me, George had grown tired of months of studying more than 200 AWS products and services. By the time you’ve learned about the last one, you’ve forgotten the first.
It’s like painting Forth Railway Bridge. Once you reach the end you are have to start again at the beginning. George eventually completed his studies and took the exam. He paid USD $300 and registered for the exam. He passed it brilliantly. Well done, George.
In early March, I paid USD $40 to take the official mock exam of AWS Solution Architect. The exam lasted 60 minutes, but I finished in about 40 minutes. My score was 80 percent which gave me the confidence to spend a further $300 on the real examination, which was set for Sunday, 7 March.
AWS Solution Architect Exam Rules
The exam lasts three hours and the rules were very strict. I did the exam remotely – in my home as opposed to attending an examination centre. The rules are very strict if you do the exam remotely as I did. You are not allowed to leave the room for the entire duration, not even to go to the toilet.
You have to look at the computer screen for the duration of the test, without blinking. OK, I may be exaggerating a little bit … There’s a supervisor watching you, via your webcam, and he issues warnings if he spots your eyes looking away from the screen.
Room Inspections
Before the start of the test, there’s a session with a supervisor where you are asked to live-stream a video of your room using your phone. In my case, I was working in a small home office, so it was a simple check of a small space of 4 square meters.
I had already removed my second screen and all the items of interest from the room, and so I presented an impeccably uncluttered desk. The inspection lasted only about 3 minutes. It was a very different experience from last July’s Google Cloud exam, where I took the exam in the living room on the ground floor of a ski chalet with a vaulted ceiling. The inspection took 2 attempts and 20 minutes.
These people are serious about not allowing loo-breaks. I spent the last 30 minutes of my Google Cloud exam with my legs crossed, as I checked my answers. This time for AWS, I needed a better bathroom strategy; something aligned with the principles of AWS’s well-designed framework. I needed a plan that offered security, reliability, performance efficiency, operational excellence, and cost optimisation.
I would keep an empty plastic bottle under the desk to use in an emergency. It offered security and peace of mind, a reliable screw cap, sufficient performance capacity, operational excellence and certainly low-cost; cheaper than fitting a catheter. I was ready for the examination in accordance with the AWS well-architected standards.
Seventy-Five AWS Questions
With 75 questions in 3 hours, if you plan answer each question within about 2 minutes this leaves you a margin of about 30 minutes to check your answers. It is important to remain attentive to the time throughout the exam and to stay on track. The countdown is at the top right of the screen and I regularly glanced at it to check my progress, especially during the last hour.
Webcam Positioning
But at some point, the supervisor interrupted me. He asked me to stop looking away from the screen. I was looking at the screen all the time, so why was he asking me that? This disturbed my concentration. I was distracted by the accusation of cheating rather than the examination. Time was passing.
Then I understood what had happened. The webcam was located under my screen not at the top of the screen which is the usual location. Whenever I looked at the timer in the upper right-hand corner, I looked well above the webcam, and wrote this explanation in the chat message to him. I didn’t want to be disqualified for a false infringement.
I went back to the exam and I was able to advance at a good pace to final question. I had only flagged six questions for review during my first reading, and I needed to go back and do them back again. In the end I changed only one answer. The exam was over, and thankfully I had not needed to use the emergency bottle under the desk. What a relief!
At the end, the screen displayed a message saying that I had passed the exam. I rushed out of the room to tell my wife Marilyn the good news, but she had gone out for a walk with Raffa our dog.
Then I heard my cell phone ring. It was the supervisor. He was infuriated and demanded to know why I left the room. I told him that I had passed the exam and didn’t see the need to stay. However, I had not clicked on the button to close the window and so had broken the rules. I apologised went back in, and closed the window, hoping not to be punished for this tiny indiscretion.
Two days later, I received the official notification of my success. I had earned my certification.
AWS Solution Architect Professional Certificate
