How I passed the AWS Solutions Architect in 2 weeks

2026-09-12
reddit

G’day, welcome to my corner of the internet. This blog post contains more pointers to resource materials that I have used / advertise as software that I manage. Shilling aside, this site is a more multi-modal presentation of my 15 day journey.

Here is the PDF that I wrote notes in:

TODO: Embed PDF

Why 15 days?

I am currently a graduate student in Statistics and had a 2 week break between terms. I have an undergraduate in Computer Science with no work experience. I figured an AWS cert may help authenticate my System Design and AWS skills.

The caveat to this is reflected in my Score:

TODO: Report

Preparation

Fundamentally, I’ve created this new Desktop Application called λambda which constructs a model of my Subject knowledge with Claude Code or any other sufficiently intelligent LLM.

I’ve attempted a number of difficult MCQ exams in my Undergraduate and education more generally.

Lambda Mind is a rabbit-hole of it’s own, and I’ll be publishing some YouTube videos explaining how it all works soon.

TutorialsDojo

I purchased the Online Video Lectures and also the Mock Exam pack.

I trained the course map of Lambda with a few million tokens and then worked through Topic Tests, Review Tests, Section Tests and Timed Tests both on my own and with LambdaMind too.

Anki

I’ve packaged the deck I built (with λμ) for sale on my bazaar, but I’ve also just thrown it up on AnkiWeb as a regular free shared deck. Lambda Mind is cool because it uses AnkiConnect to create your from within the Chat session.

LambdaMind

It’s largely a spoiled product for those still reading, but it has been engineered to have a look and feel of RStudio. The lambda-agent is open-source and has been built to ingrain Spaced Repetition, evidence-based learning pedagogy and anti-plagiarism rules – so it’s ready to be used immediately.

The Exam itself.

I did the exam online, invigilated and scheduled by Pearson OnVue. The process itself went smoothly. Some salient details that may not have been made obvious to anyone taking this exam are:

  1. you cannot do the exam in the bathroom
  2. you cannot wear gloves in the exam.
  3. clear water bottles are allowed.
  4. once the exam starts, you cannot leave the room.

This list is far from exhaustive, but the last point caught me with my pants down.

Oh, number 5:

  1. You cannot wear a watch during the exam.

4 + 5 = Chaos

An alarm went off on my watch as soon as the exam started, and I was not allowed to exit the room to turn it off. The Garmin device did not time out after 3 cycles of ring / auto-snooze.

This anecdote is amusing because we managed to pass, but it was perhaps one of the worst exam experiences of my life – including my Higher Analysis work!

Conclusion