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Verified 2026-09-25 against the pages cited in each lesson. AWS fact is quoted. Anything labelled Method is this course's technique, not AWS policy.
| Rule | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Question types | Multiple choice: 4 options, 1 correct · Multiple response: 5+ options, 2+ correct | exam guide |
| Scored | 50 | exam guide |
| Unscored | 15, "not identified on the exam" | exam guide |
| Total | 65, "either multiple choice or multiple response" | exam page |
| Duration | 130 minutes ⚠️ not in the HTML guide, only on the exam page | exam page |
| Guessing | "no penalty for guessing" · blank = wrong | exam guide, during-testing |
| Score | scaled 100–1,000, pass 720 (Associate) · Foundational 700 · Pro/Specialty 750 | exam guide, after-testing |
| Scoring model | compensatory, so you don't need to pass each section | exam guide |
| Weights | D1 30 · D2 26 · D3 24 · D4 20 (% of scored content) | exam guide |
| ESL | +30 min on request, once, before registering | before-testing |
| Timer | on screen, warning at 5 minutes remaining | during-testing |
| Navigation | next/previous allowed · Flag for Review · review screen: all / incomplete / flagged | during-testing |
| Comments | time spent comes off the clock. AWS recommends flagging, then commenting at the end | during-testing |
| Breaks | none scheduled · test centre: clock keeps running · online: none | during-testing |
| Results | usually not on screen · within 5 business days | FAQ |
| Retake | wait 14 calendar days · full fee each attempt | after-testing |
⚠️ Not stated on any page fetched: whether multiple-response stems say how many to pick, and whether they give partial credit. Check the AWS Exam Demo (via Pearson VUE). Assume all-or-nothing.
⚠️ 720 is not 72%. Forms are "statistically equated", so there's no fixed raw cut.
"Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) appears on the exam as Amazon SNS." Help (on every question) lists short ↔ full names.
On the list: CDK · CLI · DMS · DocumentDB · EBS · EC2 · ECR · ECS · EFS · EKS · IAM · Keyspaces · KMS · Managed Microsoft AD · Private CA · RDS · S3 · SAM · SCT · SES · SNS · SQS · STS · VPC.
⚠️ Never expanded: "Amazon API Gateway, Amazon EMR", and "other abbreviations that the target audience is expected to know".
CONTEXT scenery — skim
CONSTRAINTS must / cannot / without / a number → pass-fail
OPTIMISER MOST cost-effective / LEAST overhead → ranks survivors
ASK one answer, or "(Choose two.)"?
"Most cost-effective" = cheapest among options that meet every constraint. Not the cheapest on the list.
| Phrase | Pillar | Role |
|---|---|---|
| least operational overhead · fully managed | Operational excellence | optimiser |
| least privilege · encrypted · auditable | Security | constraint |
| highly available · fault tolerant · no SPOF · survive an AZ | Reliability | constraint |
| RTO / RPO number | Reliability (DR) | hard constraint, cuts both ways |
| lowest latency · highest throughput · must scale to | Performance efficiency | either |
| most cost-effective · lowest cost | Cost optimization | optimiser |
| reduce environmental impact | Sustainability | optimiser |
Guide phrases to know by sight: "when application changes are not possible" (2.2) · "most cost-effective storage service" (4.1) · "lowest cost method of transferring data" (4.1) · "required availability for different classes of workloads (… non-production workloads)" (4.2).
RTO = "maximum acceptable delay between the interruption of service and restoration of service". RPO = "maximum acceptable amount of time since the last data recovery point".
0 read the LAST sentence first
1 constraints + optimiser
A IMPOSSIBLE ✗
B FAILS A CONSTRAINT ✗
C LOSES ON OPTIMISER ✗
1 left → answer · 2 left → read only the difference · 0 left → re-read the stem
| Pair | The word that decides |
|---|---|
| Multi-AZ ↔ read replica | standby "cannot serve read requests" |
| synchronous ↔ asynchronous | Multi-AZ sync · replicas async |
| SQS standard ↔ FIFO | at-least-once ↔ exactly-once processing |
| SNS → endpoint ↔ SNS → SQS per consumer | only the queue buffers an offline consumer |
| Step Functions Standard ↔ Express | callback + 1 year ↔ Request Response only + 5 min |
| Object Lock governance ↔ compliance | compliance: "including the root user" |
| Route 53 failover ↔ weighted | active-passive ↔ active-active |
target type instance ↔ ip (Fargate) |
must be ip |
| Lambda ↔ Fargate | 15 min per invocation |
| pilot light ↔ warm standby | can it serve right now? |
| replication ↔ + point-in-time backup | replication copies deletions |
| rely on Auto Scaling ↔ full capacity | Auto Scaling is control plane |
130 min ÷ 65 = 2 min/question (arithmetic).
| Pass | Budget | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ~95 min | answer every question · over ~2.5 min → best guess + flag |
| 2 | ~25 min | flagged only · re-read the stem, not your reasoning |
| Buffer | ~10 min | at the 5-min warning: are all 65 answered? |
Change an answer only when you can point to a word in the stem you missed.