Validate your ability to design and implement distributed systems on AWS. This exam covers designing resilient architectures, high-performing architectures, secure applications, and cost-optimized architectures.
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Every key service, comparison table, and exam tip you need for the SAA-C03 — organised by architecture domain, not alphabetically
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) is the most popular AWS certification and the one most employers ask for. It validates your ability to design distributed systems on AWS that are resilient, high-performing, secure, and cost-optimized. The SAA-C03 version was updated in 2022 and remains the current exam.
This exam is for anyone in a solutions architect role, or aspiring to one. Cloud engineers, DevOps engineers, and backend developers also benefit from this certification. You should have at least one year of hands-on experience designing cloud architectures on AWS before attempting this exam.
Read the full AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification guide
The SAA-C03 exam has 65 questions (50 scored, 15 unscored) in multiple-choice and multiple-response format. You get 130 minutes, and the passing score is 720/1000 (approximately 72%). Available at Pearson VUE and online proctored. The cost is $150 USD.
Recommended experience: One year of hands-on experience designing available, cost-efficient, fault-tolerant, and scalable systems on AWS.
Written in the style of the real exam. Answer each one, then open the answer to check.
Question 1 · Design Secure Architectures
A company runs a customer-facing web application on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The company wants customers to sign in with their existing Google or Facebook accounts before they can reach the application. The company does not want to write or maintain authentication code. Which solution meets these requirements with the LEAST operational overhead?
Answer: C
Option C is correct because an ALB listener rule can authenticate users through an Amazon Cognito user pool, and the user pool can federate with social identity providers such as Google and Facebook, so the ALB handles sign-in without any authentication code in the application. Option A misuses IAM, which is meant for identities that access AWS, and it requires custom code. Option B is designed for workforce access to AWS accounts and business applications, and it connects to a single identity source rather than consumer social logins. Option D works but adds servers and software that the company must patch, scale, and secure.
Sources: AWS documentation 1, AWS documentation 2
Question 2 · Design Resilient Architectures
A company runs an application in the us-east-1 Region behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). For disaster recovery, the company has deployed a scaled-down copy of the application behind a second ALB in the us-west-2 Region. Users reach the application through a domain name that is hosted in Amazon Route 53. If the application in us-east-1 becomes unavailable, traffic must move to us-west-2 automatically. Which solution will meet this requirement?
Answer: D
Option D is correct because Route 53 failover routing sends traffic to the primary record while it is healthy and automatically answers with the secondary record when the health check or evaluated target health of the primary fails. Option A requires someone to change the record by hand, so failover is not automatic. Option B is not possible, because an Auto Scaling group can only span Availability Zones within one Region. Option C only alerts operators, who would still have to redirect traffic themselves.
Sources: AWS documentation
Question 3 · Design High-Performing Architectures
A media company lets users around the world upload video files of several gigabytes each, directly to a single Amazon S3 bucket in the eu-west-1 Region. Users far from Europe report slow uploads, and when a connection drops, the whole upload has to start again. Which combination of actions will improve upload performance for these users? (Select TWO.)
Answers: B, E
Options B and E are correct. S3 Transfer Acceleration routes uploads through the nearest Amazon CloudFront edge location and then over the AWS network to the bucket, which speeds up long-distance transfers. Multipart upload sends parts in parallel for higher throughput, and a failed part can be retransmitted without restarting the whole file. Option A changes storage cost and resilience, not upload speed. Option C keeps multiple versions of objects but cannot resume a partial upload, and Option D copies objects only after they have already arrived in eu-west-1.
Sources: AWS documentation 1, AWS documentation 2
These sample questions are not part of the SAA-C03 practice exam, so you won't meet them again when you take it.
This practice exam has 65 questions, and exam mode gives you 130 minutes to answer them. The real SAA-C03 exam has 65 questions (50 scored and 15 unscored) in 130 minutes, so a full attempt here is the same length. Practice mode has no timer.
In format, yes: questions are multiple choice (one correct answer) or multiple response (two or more), spread across the 4 exam domains in close to the weights the official exam guide gives them. Scoring differs: AWS reports a scaled score from 100 to 1,000 and you pass at 720, while this practice exam shows the raw percentage you got right. For how hard the exam is, whether it is worth it and how long to study, read our AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification guide.
Aim for 80% or more, consistently, on full-length attempts in exam mode, not just once. That leaves a margin over the 720 out of 1,000 you need on the real SAA-C03 exam, whose questions will all be new to you. Repeat attempts here show the same questions, so judge yourself by first attempts and by whether you can explain each answer. No practice score guarantees a pass.
No. The SAA-C03 practice exam is free and needs no account. Your progress and score history are saved in this browser, so they stay on this device and are lost if you clear your browser data.
Start in practice mode, which tells you after each question whether you were right and explains the answer. When you score well there, switch to exam mode: 130 minutes and no feedback until the end, like test day. Your results break the score down by domain, so you can see which domains to study before your next attempt.
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