Why you should avoid AWS Exam Dumps
There are a few questions that I get asked repeatedly. Are your AWS practice exam questions from the exam? Where can I get AWS exam dumps? If I learn the answers to your questions will I pass the exam? In this article, I’m going to share my thoughts on “dumps” and why you should avoid them, and possibly even change your attitude towards learning and achievement.
What are “AWS Exam Dumps”
Let’s first explore what I mean by “dumps”. The context here is on AWS certifications but this applies to many other certifications as well. Originally, these were called “braindumps” and have been around for as long as IT certifications have been in existence. Basically, someone either finds a way to copy the AWS exam questions and answers from the real exam or simply memorizes them to the best of their knowledge. These questions and answers then get published on the internet usually with the “correct” answer identified and sometimes with an explanation as well.
There are many sites on the internet that provide exam question dumps and event quite a few companies selling them as PDFs or offering practice test software that reads “.vce” files. I’m not going to list any of those sources here as I don’t want to encourage anyone to use these resources for reasons I’m about to explain.
The problem with AWS Exam Dumps
So what’s wrong with using dumps? Surely this a great way to ensure your success in the exam, right? My first issue with dumps is that they are totally unnecessary. Many years ago (I’ve been doing IT certs for 20+ years) it was actually quite hard to find practice questions that were similar to the real exam questions. This meant that even if you used lots of study resources and worked hard to prepare yourself for the exam, you might be surprised on the day when you get into the exam and find the question style to be different from what you were expecting.
This has changed today and for many certifications, including AWS certifications, you can find practice questions that are extremely similar to the real exam at affordable prices without actually cheating. For instance, my AWS Cloud Practitioner exam questions are so similar to the real exam that my students often find the real AWS exam easy. The same goes for my AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam questions, and they are much more complex scenario-based questions so knowing the format, style, and difficulty before you take the real exam is a massive advantage. Why use AWS Solution Architect Associate dumps when you can find high-quality training materials at inexpensive prices and smash your exam legitimately?
Another problem with dumps is that they can really trip you up. Many exam dumps have not identified the correct answer and the explanations can often be misleading. On some sites, people get the chance to comment, and often lots of people just reaffirm whatever the first commenter chose even if it was wrong. Also, the exams change all the time. New questions are added constantly and slight variations of existing questions are made. So you absolutely need to know the subject matter if you want to pass your exam.
Lastly, the main reason to get a certification is to get a job or promotion. With AWS certification you’re going into an extremely competitive profession and you really need to be able to demonstrate a strong skill set to get hired or move within your company. AWS certifications are designed to test practical experience as well as knowledge, so if you don’t really earn your certification through hard work and experience, you’ll be at a disadvantage in the job market. Therefore, it is best to avoid AWS certification dumps.
Earn your AWS Certification
Another piece of feedback I sometimes get from students is that my practice exams are harder than the real thing. After passing their exam, students complain that they had put too much effort into preparing for their exam. I think this is the wrong way to look at it. Personally, the last thing I want is to just “scrape through” my exam. If I turn up and the exam is really hard and I only just make a pass, I don’t feel a sense of achievement. Instead, I feel I have not really earned the certification. On other occasions, I’ve turned up for an exam and found it easy, not because it actually was an easy exam, but because I worked super hard to make sure I could make it “feel” easy.
As I mentioned before, the AWS job market is extremely competitive. You’re going up against a lot of people who are prepared to work extremely hard and try and be the best they can be. To be successful, you too need to adopt this mindset if you’re going to have a chance of flourishing in your career. I intentionally design my AWS practice tests to be slightly harder than the actual exam to ensure my students turn up on exam day and pass the exam with a great score.
Let this be a reminder of the importance of your mindset and attitude towards training and your career that can make a huge difference in your outcomes.
How to Best Prepare for your AWS Exam
I’ve previously written articles with specific advice on how to prepare for specific exams such as the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate, the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, and the AWS Certified Developer Associate. The following training advice is applicable to all AWS certifications.
1. VIDEO COURSE
The best place to start is with a video course. If you don’t know which certification to take, check out this article. Once you’re ready, choose a video course and start learning AWS. I recommend ensuring your training should include hands-on practice labs. Make sure the course you choose includes both a discussion of the theory and a practical example for each service. Many courses have very little hands-on and lots of theory which is a poor teaching technique for memory retention.
Our courses include lots of hands-on as well as theory and each course is entirely standalone so you can take any course and you’ll have everything you need to pass the exam. Here are our current video training courses:
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner — this is a foundational level certification for those who are starting fresh with the AWS Cloud.
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate — this is the most popular certification and is a well-regarded Associate level certification. Recommended for everyone working with AWS.
- AWS Certified Developer Associate — mainly aimed at Developers but useful for anyone who works in a DevOps environment or works with serverless services such as AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon API Gateway.
2. PRACTICE TESTS
Next up, you should use practice tests to further develop your knowledge, assess your progress, and prepare for the real AWS exam questions. You need practice questions that are similar to the real exam in style and difficulty and that have solid explanations with reference links so you can understand the correct and incorrect choices. We back our practice tests with our training notes, which are exam-specific cheat sheets.
Check out our FREE sample practice questions here:
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner free practice questions — Compare the quality to AWS Cloud Practitioner exam dumps and you’ll know why our courses are the best way to study. Other free AWS training resources can be found here.
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate free practice questions — AWS Solution Architect Associate exam dump should be avoided at all costs. Complex scenarios are often poorly transcribed and the wrong answers are identified. Other free AWS training resources can be found here.
- AWS Certified Developer Associate free practice questions — Other free AWS training resources can be found here.
3. TRAINING NOTES
Reading is also a great way to learn and revise prior to the exam. As I mentioned before, we provide exam-specific cheat sheets on our website for free. These are a great way to get to the facts you need to know for the exam without trawling through superfluous information on the AWS website.
If you prefer to take your studies offline, we offer our training notes as downloadable PDFs — for the AWS Cloud Practitioner, AWS Solutions Architect Associate and AWS Developer Associate. We also offer them with our ultimate AWS exam training packages. These ebooks are a great way to study the detailed facts for the exam when you’re travelling or just offline.
The Wrap
There are lots of reasons why you should avoid AWS Cloud Practitioner exam questions or AWS Solutions Architect Associate exam questions that are available on suspicious sites — along with all other AWS exam dumps. If you want to get ahead in the competitive AWS job market you need to know the technology well enough to easily pass your exam. With so many amazing resources available at such inexpensive prices, it makes sense to do it properly and end up really deserving the AWS certification you achieve.
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