About This Study Plan
This 7-day study plan breaks the DVA-C02 (AWS Developer Associate) exam preparation into 7 focused study sessions with a total of 28 actionable tasks. The plan covers all 4 exam domains — Development with AWS Services, Security, Deployment, Troubleshooting and Optimization — ensuring complete coverage of the exam blueprint. An intensive one-week study plan for experienced developers who want a fast-track review of DVA-C02 topics.
7Study Sessions
28Total Tasks
4Domains Covered
Prerequisites
- Hands-on AWS developer experience (Lambda, DynamoDB, API Gateway)
- Familiarity with CI/CD concepts and at least one AWS deployment tool
- 4–5 hours of study time per day
Study Schedule
Day 1Lambda & Serverless Deep Dive
- Lambda functions, concurrency, layers, versions, aliases
- Event source mappings (SQS, Kinesis, DynamoDB Streams)
- Step Functions basics
- Practice: 40 development questions
Day 2DynamoDB & Data Stores
- DynamoDB keys, indexes (GSI/LSI), capacity modes
- DynamoDB Streams, transactions, DAX, TTL
- S3 access control, encryption, pre-signed URLs
- Practice: 40 development questions
Day 3API Gateway & Messaging
- REST vs HTTP APIs, authorizers, stages, caching
- SQS Standard vs FIFO, visibility timeout, DLQ
- SNS topics, fan-out, message filtering
- Practice: 40 mixed questions
Day 4Security Domain
- Cognito User Pools, Identity Pools, triggers
- IAM policies, roles, STS, permission boundaries
- KMS envelope encryption, Secrets Manager rotation
- Practice: 40 security questions
Day 5CI/CD & Deployment
- CodePipeline, CodeBuild (buildspec), CodeDeploy (appspec)
- CloudFormation, SAM, CDK constructs
- Elastic Beanstalk deployment policies
- Practice: 40 deployment questions
Day 6Troubleshooting & Optimization
- X-Ray: traces, segments, annotations, sampling
- CloudWatch metrics, alarms, Logs Insights
- Caching: ElastiCache, DAX, CloudFront, API GW cache
- Practice: 40 troubleshooting questions
Day 7Full Mock Exam & Review
- Take a full 65-question mock exam (130 min)
- Review all incorrect answers and explanations
- Revisit weak domains
- Review cheat sheets for all services
Study Tips
Focus on Lambda, DynamoDB, and API Gateway — they dominate the exam
Practice at least 40 questions per day to build exam stamina
Use the cheat sheets for quick service-level review
Ready to Practice?
Put your study plan into action with AWS Developer Associate practice questions.