AWS DevOps Pro cert, check

With two and half hours of sitting and a bursting bladder, I clicked submit and was told that I had passed my 6th AWS cert exam. A few hours later I received my score report, 83.3%, not bad, slightly lower than my estimation - 85%, but I did a fist pump anyway.

Exam prep

Boredom was the biggest challenge during my exam preparation: I did Developer Associate and SysOps Associate not long ago, so I felt I was re-learning everything I had known. It explained why I procrastinated for about one and half months.

Materials I used:

• AWS exam guide and sample questions
• AWS Exam Readiness: AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
• Stephane Maarek's Udemy course
• Jon Bonso's practise exams

The exam

I was pretty relaxed yet focused for the first 50 questions, then it became harder and harder to stay in the game. I had to take more frequent short breaks to get my attention back.

After finishing all 75 questions, I still had 50 minutes left, so time wasn't a problem for me. Thanks to the practice exams I took, I've become quite proficient at skimming those long paragraphs and locating the keywords.

I only reviewed 16 questions that I had flagged earlier. Logical thinking was next to impossible by then, so I stick to elimination method most of the time.

Overall, I feel the questions aren't much harder than the associate ones. It's just a lot more reading, and more intertwined services. Given enough prep, plenty hands-on experience, and an empty bladder, any aspired contender can pass this exam.

What's the next one

Given it's my 6th AWS cert, naturally I should hunt for the Solution Architect Pro, but like I said, I find boredom is my biggest enemy. The joy of learning new things is diminishing fast. I might need to take a mental break to try something more practical, such as Building Microservices with Go. Or surprise surprise, a Kubernetes CKAD cert maybe.

Nevertheless, I'm hopeful that I can claim 2-3 more AWS certs by end of 2021, it's addictive after all!