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Associate · SAA-C03Prep available

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate (SAA-C03) practice exam and study path

A free, timed 65-question SAA-C03 practice exam — 130 minutes, the same length as the real exam, scored by domain, with every option explained after you submit. Also 135 practice questions you can check one at a time, a page for every task in the exam guide, and a study path. No sign-up.

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Solutions Architect - Associate exam pack:

$29once

The hub of the roadmap: designing secure, resilient, high-performing and cost-optimized systems on AWS, and choosing between services for a scenario.

The exam

Exam code
SAA-C03
Questions
65 questions (50 scored)
Time
130 minutes
Passing score
720 of 1,000 (scaled)
Exam fee
$150 (USD)
Question types
multiple choice, multiple response

From AWS's certification page and exam guide, checked Oct 4, 2026. The exam is scored as a whole (compensatory): there is no pass mark per domain.

Domains and weights

  • Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures

    30%

  • Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures

    26%

  • Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures

    24%

  • Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

    20%

On our roadmap this comes after Cloud Practitioner. See the whole roadmap.

Practice

135 original practice questions, every option explained with the AWS documentation page that proves it. Free, no sign-up; progress stays on this device.

Your results on this device →

More practice exams

The lessons, the sample questions on every task page and the first full practice exam are free and stay free. A pack adds the further timed SAA-C03 practice exams.

Solutions Architect - Associate exam pack

$29once

  • Every paid SAA-C03 practice exam, timed, with every option explained
  • The next version of this exam included when it changes
  • Lifetime access — one payment, no subscription
  • 14-day refund, no conditions
  • 14-day refund, no conditions: ask within 14 days of buying and you get the whole payment back.
  • No pass guarantee. These are practice exams written by us from the exam guide and the AWS documentation; a score here does not predict your result on the real exam.

Study path

One module per exam domain. Lessons that already exist on BytePatterns are linked; the rest are being written.

  1. Module 1: Design Secure Architectures

    1. 1IAM in depth: policies, roles, temporary credentials and cross-account accessTask 1.1

      Partly covered by: Shared Responsibility & IAM

    2. 2Many accounts: Organizations, SCPs, Control Tower and IAM Identity CenterTask 1.1

      Partly covered by: Organizations, SCPs & Control Tower

    3. 3Federation: when a corporate directory signs users in through IAM rolesTask 1.1

      Lesson coming

    4. 4Resource-based policies and S3 access: bucket policies, Block Public Access, presigned URLsTask 1.1, 1.3

      Lesson coming

    5. 5VPC security: public and private subnets, security groups, network ACLs, NAT and endpointsTask 1.2

      Partly covered by: VPC: Subnets, NAT & Firewalls

    6. 6Protecting the application: WAF, Shield, Cognito, Secrets Manager, GuardDuty and MacieTask 1.2

      Lesson coming

    7. 7Encryption and keys: KMS key policies, envelope encryption, rotation, ACM and TLSTask 1.3

      Partly covered by: KMS, Envelope Encryption & Private CA

    8. 8Data protection: backups, replication, retention and Object LockTask 1.3

      Lesson coming

  2. Module 2: Design Resilient Architectures

    1. 9Decoupling: SQS, SNS, EventBridge and Step FunctionsTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: SQS vs SNS vs EventBridge, Message Queues

    2. 10Serverless APIs: Lambda and API GatewayTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: Lambda & Event-Driven Design, Designing a REST API

    3. 11Containers: ECS, EKS and Fargate, and moving an application into containersTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: ECS vs EKS vs Fargate, Containers vs VMs

    4. 12Load balancers and Auto Scaling across Availability ZonesTask 2.1, 2.2

      Lesson: EC2, Auto Scaling & Load Balancers, Load Balancing, Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling

    5. 13Caching and edge delivery to take load off a tierTask 2.1

      Partly covered by: CloudFront & Caching Layers, Caching

    6. 14Database availability: Multi-AZ, read replicas and RDS ProxyTask 2.2

      Partly covered by: RDS vs DynamoDB, Database Replication

    7. 15Disaster recovery: backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-site; RPO and RTOTask 2.2

      Partly covered by: Disaster Recovery: RPO & RTO

    8. 16Route 53 routing policies, health checks and failoverTask 2.2

      Lesson coming

    9. 17Observability: CloudWatch alarms and X-Ray tracesTask 2.2

      Lesson: CloudWatch, Alarms & X-Ray, Observability Basics

    10. 18Putting it together: design a system on AWSTask 2.1, 2.2

      Partly covered by: Design a System on AWS

  3. Module 3: Design High-Performing Architectures

    1. 19Storage performance: EBS volume types, EFS, FSx and S3 at scaleTask 3.1

      Partly covered by: S3: Consistency, Classes, Lifecycle

    2. 20Hybrid storage: Storage Gateway and DataSyncTask 3.1, 3.5

      Lesson coming

    3. 21Compute choice: instance families, Lambda memory, Fargate, Batch and EMRTask 3.2

      Partly covered by: Lambda & Event-Driven Design, ECS vs EKS vs Fargate

    4. 22Scaling on the right signal: target tracking, step scaling and queue depthTask 3.2

      Partly covered by: EC2, Auto Scaling & Load Balancers

    5. 23Database performance: Aurora, DynamoDB capacity, read replicas and RDS ProxyTask 3.3

      Partly covered by: RDS vs DynamoDB, Database Replication, Database Sharding

    6. 24Caching data: ElastiCache and DynamoDB AcceleratorTask 3.3

      Partly covered by: Caching, Invalidation and Eviction

    7. 25Edge networking: CloudFront and Global AcceleratorTask 3.4

      Partly covered by: CloudFront & Caching Layers, Content Delivery Networks

    8. 26Network design: subnet tiers, routing, Transit Gateway, PrivateLink, VPN and Direct ConnectTask 3.4, 1.2

      Partly covered by: VPC: Subnets, NAT & Firewalls, Hybrid Networking & DNS

    9. 27Choosing a load balancer: Application, Network or Gateway Load BalancerTask 3.4, 4.2

      Partly covered by: EC2, Auto Scaling & Load Balancers, Load Balancing

    10. 28Streaming ingestion: Kinesis Data Streams, Amazon Data Firehose and Amazon MSKTask 3.5

      Lesson coming

    11. 29Data lakes: S3, Glue, Athena, Lake Formation, EMR and columnar formatsTask 3.5

      Lesson coming

  4. Module 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

    1. 30Storage cost: S3 classes and lifecycle, Requester Pays, EBS volume choice and archivalTask 4.1

      Partly covered by: S3: Consistency, Classes, Lifecycle

    2. 31Moving data in for less: DataSync, Transfer Family and Storage GatewayTask 4.1

      Lesson coming

    3. 32Compute purchase options: On-Demand, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances and SpotTask 4.2

      Lesson: AWS Cost Levers

    4. 33Right-sizing and scaling for cost: instance family and size, Compute Optimizer, hibernationTask 4.2

      Partly covered by: AWS Cost Levers

    5. 34Database cost: provisioned or serverless, DynamoDB capacity modes, snapshots and retentionTask 4.3

      Partly covered by: RDS vs DynamoDB

    6. 35Network cost: NAT gateways, VPC endpoints, transfer paths, Direct Connect or VPNTask 4.4

      Partly covered by: AWS Cost Levers, VPC: Subnets, NAT & Firewalls

    7. 36Edge caching and throttling to cut origin and transfer costTask 4.4

      Partly covered by: CloudFront & Caching Layers, Rate Limiting

    8. 37Cost visibility: Cost Explorer, Budgets, Cost and Usage Report and cost allocation tagsTask 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4

      Lesson coming

Every task in the exam guide

The exam guide splits each domain into task statements. Each one has a page with a short summary, the lessons that teach it and open sample questions.

Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures

Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures

Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures

Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures

How these questions are made

  • Written by us from the exam guide's task statements and the AWS documentation — never from real exam content.
  • Every option carries its own explanation and a link to the AWS page that proves it.
  • A question enters a timed exam only after an independent check; until then it is a practice question.
  • Results are a plain percentage, per domain too — not an imitation of AWS's scaled score.

Questions about the SAA-C03 practice exam

Is the SAA-C03 practice exam free?
Yes. The full practice exam (65 questions, 130 minutes) is free with no sign-up, and so are the 135 practice questions, the task pages and the study path. Your attempts are saved in this browser, on this device.
How many questions does it have, and is it timed?
65 questions in 130 minutes: the same number of questions and the same time as the real SAA-C03 exam. When the time runs out, the exam is submitted as it stands, and unanswered questions count as wrong.
Are the answers explained?
After you submit, not during: like the real exam, the timed exam gives no feedback until the end. Then you get your score overall and per exam domain, and every question with each option explained and a link to the AWS documentation page behind it. In practice mode an answer is explained as soon as you check it.
What does the Solutions Architect - Associate exam pack add?
3 more timed practice exams (Practice exam 1: 65 questions, 130 minutes; Practice exam 2: 65 questions, 130 minutes; Practice exam 3: 65 questions, 130 minutes), each scored and explained the same way, and the next version of this exam when it changes. One payment, lifetime access, no subscription. Everything above stays free. See the pack.
Can I get a refund?
Yes, with no conditions: ask within 14 days of buying and you get the whole payment back. The details are in the terms.
Is this an official AWS practice exam?
No. BytePatterns is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Amazon Web Services. Every question is written by us from the public exam guide and the AWS documentation, never from real exam content, and a score here does not predict your result on the real exam. AWS lists its own preparation resources on its certification page.