About This Study Plan
This 7-day study plan breaks the SAA-C03 (AWS Solutions Architect Associate) exam preparation into 7 focused study sessions with a total of 33 actionable tasks. The plan covers all 4 exam domains — Design Secure Architectures, Design Resilient Architectures, Design High-Performing Architectures, Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — ensuring complete coverage of the exam blueprint. An intensive 7-day study plan for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam. Best for candidates who already have hands-on AWS experience and need a focused review.
Prerequisites
- Basic AWS knowledge (equivalent to Cloud Practitioner level)
- Hands-on experience with core AWS services
- 4–6 hours of study time per day
Study Schedule
- Review IAM users, groups, roles, and policies
- Study AWS Organizations, SCPs, and multi-account strategies
- Learn KMS encryption, key rotation, and envelope encryption
- Take a 20-question security quiz
- Master VPC subnets, route tables, IGW, NAT Gateway
- Study Security Groups vs NACLs in depth
- Learn VPC peering, Transit Gateway, VPC Endpoints
- Review Route 53 routing policies and CloudFront caching
- Take a 20-question networking quiz
- Review EC2 instance types, pricing, placement groups
- Study Lambda concurrency, triggers, and layers
- Learn ECS/EKS basics, Fargate vs EC2 launch type
- Master Auto Scaling policies and ELB types
- Take a 20-question compute quiz
- Deep-dive S3 storage classes, lifecycle, replication
- Compare EBS volume types (gp3, io2, st1, sc1)
- Study EFS performance/throughput modes
- Learn Storage Gateway types and FSx options
- Take a 20-question storage quiz
- Study RDS Multi-AZ vs Read Replicas
- Master Aurora features (Serverless, Global, Auto Scaling)
- Learn DynamoDB partition keys, GSIs, DAX
- Compare ElastiCache Redis vs Memcached
- Take a 20-question database quiz
- Review SQS, SNS, EventBridge, Step Functions
- Study Kinesis Data Streams vs Firehose
- Master cost optimization: Savings Plans, Spot, lifecycle policies
- Take a full 65-question practice exam (timed)
- Review all weak areas from practice exam results
- Re-read cheat sheets for all major services
- Take a second full 65-question practice exam
- Review explanations for all incorrect answers
- Get a good night's sleep before exam day!
Study Tips
Focus on understanding WHY an answer is correct, not just memorizing.
Pay special attention to questions about S3, VPC, IAM, and RDS — they appear frequently.
Know the difference between High Availability and Fault Tolerance.
Time management on exam day: ~2 min per question, flag and return.
Ready to Practice?
Put your study plan into action with AWS Solutions Architect Associate practice questions.