[AWS GCP exam preparation] Utilize udemy and Google spreadsheets

I will share the method of studying for the AWS and GCP certification exams that I recently did. Many people have introduced what they have studied, but ** how they made it their own knowledge ** was not written much, so I will introduce my own method.

My status at the time of taking the exam is as follows, but I think the method introduced this time is useful regardless of the status.

2020/5: Passed AWS Solution Architect Professional 2020/7: Passed GCP Professional Data Engineer

--Your status at the time of the exam - AWS Solution Architect Professional --Passed Solution Architect Associate in July 2019 --Use AWS services at work via Terraform ――At the beginning of studying for the exam, about 50% of the content studied in the Associate exam is forgotten (I forget it if it is not the service I usually use ,,) - GCP --After passing AWS Solution Architect Professional ――GCP related services mentioned at work are BigQuery

AWS, GCP exam preparation using udemy and Google spreadsheets

Basically, I solved the udemy practice test, extracted the content with python, and reviewed it on the Google spread sheet.

• Reason --Understanding the appearance of the exam-> Solve the udemy mock exam and review + I thought that it was enough as a countermeasure to check the part of the official document that I was interested in (actually it was enough) --If you use python to automatically extract content from html, you can save the trouble of creating materials. ――By managing with a spreadsheet, you can have listability and searchability.

I made physical notes at the time of the AWS Solution Architect exam and summarized them with Markdown, but I took the above method because it took a long time to create, but it was difficult to review and use, and it was difficult to look back, so it was not very useful after the exam.

1. Work on the udemy practice test, display the "Review of Questions" page, and get the html of the page.

--In udemy, you can review the questions after answering the mock exam, and the following will be displayed.

• Problem statement --Choice (selection, answer) --Commentary --The html of the review page can be obtained from Chrome developer tools, etc.

Problem review page example

2. Parse the acquired html file and extract the necessary information

jupyter notebook implementation: https://github.com/kayamin/udemy_utils

--Create a csv file that extracts question sentences, answers, etc. from html using the python library BeautifulSoup, Pandas. --The implementation of jupyter notebook can be found in the above repository. --Implemented appropriately with reference to the acquired html. The structure of html may differ depending on the practice test, so please correct it as appropriate. --The AWS and GCP practice tests created by a completely different person could be processed with the same script.

3. Load the csv file into Google Sheets and review it

I read the created csv file with the import function of Google Spreadsheet and reviewed each problem by the following procedure.

1. Rewrite the question sentence in a bulleted format, and remove unnecessary information ――The problem statement is long, but only a part of it is necessary to derive the correct choice. ――By reading the question and rewriting it in a bulleted format with only the necessary information, you can understand the main points of the question sentence.
2. Classify (services being asked, etc.) ――I wrote my own classification of the service being asked and the technology stack so that I can review it later. --Example - DynamoDB --Authentication related
3. Read the commentary and write the knowledge and thinking process required to answer the question. --I wrote the explanation of the mock exam, focusing on the knowledge necessary to reach the answer. ――Even if you know it as knowledge. If it was not tied to the answer, I wrote down why it was not tied and where I misunderstood.
4. In addition to the remarks, write down the information you checked, what you need to know, etc. ――If necessary, I referred to the black belt, the official document, and the crappy qiita compiled by others. --Although it is not directly related to the problem, the contents of the investigation are summarized here.

Review example in Google Spreadsheet

AWS Solution Architect Professional Measures

I worked on the following with reference to the contents of the exam preparation written by various people

--Overview - Exam Readiness: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (Japanese) --AWS official test commentary video --There is volume and there are examples, so there is no loss if you look at it first. - AWS Certified Solution Architect – Professional (SAP-C01) Exam Learning Path --Read to get an overview of what is asked in the SAP exam ――It says that WhitePaper is also important, and I have read it a little, but while it takes time to read, it does not seem to be useful for the exam, so I do not have to read it just to pass the exam. think. You should read the black belt of each service for that time

• Practice exam -AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Practice Exam Questions (375 questions for 5 times) ――Mainly studying for exam preparation, I spent about 70% of the time for exam preparation to solve problems and review with Google spreadsheets. ――I think it is good to read the black belt etc. about related services and promote understanding based on the question asked. --Mock exam 1-> Review-> Mock exam 2 ... By reviewing and proceeding, the necessary body of knowledge will be gradually completed. ――After reading the above Jayendra's Blog, I worked on Mock Test 1, but at first the correct answer rate was about 50%, but I was able to pass by solving the Mock Test while reviewing.

-This is all you need! AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Exam Breakthrough Course (SAA-C02 Exam Compatible Version) ――Before taking the professional exam, I reviewed it again to remind you of the overview of AWS services. ――This was all I really needed to prepare for the Associate exam.

--Reference materials -Documents by AWS service --The black belt materials for each service are collected. ――I read the black belt of the service related to the content asked in the mock exam and deepened my knowledge. Blackbelt-> If necessary, please refer to the official document.

GCP Professional Data Engineer Measures

I worked on the following with reference to the contents of the exam preparation written by various people

--Overview - Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer Course [2019 Update] ――I took this course to understand the outline of the exam, and it was useful because I was able to understand the overview of the range that is actually asked in the mock exam. ――Since the contents are in slide format, I squeezed everything and reviewed the slides later. - Preparing for the Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer Exam - Pluralsight --Google official test range explanation video ――It was useful because I was able to understand the overview of the range actually asked in the mock test. ――Since the contents are in slide format, I squeezed everything and reviewed the slides later.

• Practice exam -GCP Official Practice Test --GCP official practice test ――Compared to udemy's practice test, it is a little more complicated and difficult.
  • Google Cloud Certified Professional Data Engineer: Pr. Tests --Main for studying for exam preparation. I spent about 70% of my exam preparation time solving problems and reviewing them on Google Sheets. ――I think it's a good idea to read the official documents about related services and advance your understanding, starting from the question you asked. --There are plenty of links to official documents in the explanation of the problem, so you should read from there. --Mock exam 1-> Review-> Mock exam 2 ... By reviewing and proceeding, the necessary body of knowledge will be gradually completed. --Recently on GCP? There are some changes in the service name, and the lack of documentation for the service being asked in the practice test is also a bit confusing as it still hits searches with past names. --StackDriver-> Cloud Operation - All together now: our operations products in one place --Cloud Machine Learning Engine-> AI Platform Training, Prediction ――It seems that the area around AI has changed significantly due to service integration and configuration changes.

--Reference materials --GCP official document --There aren't many documents in GCP that make it easier to read by narrowing down the points like the AWS black belt, so you will read official documents, articles compiled by others, etc. - Cloud OnAir ――There is something similar to the black belt, but the service is not covered so much yet. -Google Cloud for AWS Professionals --This page was very helpful in understanding the big picture of the service as I worked on GCP certification for AWS certification. --Two birds with one stone as a review of AWS - Engineer Data in Google Cloud - QWICKLABS ――You can actually move your hands to learn about the services in the test range. ――Actually, it is not so useful for solving the mock exam, but it was good to work on it as an opportunity to link knowledge to practice.

Articles that I referred to when taking the certification exam

It was very helpful in studying for the exam. Thank you very much for sharing your test experience together.

• AWS -AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Winning Method -Record of learning until passing "AWS Certified Solutions Architect-Professional SAP-C01" -[AWS Certification] Solution Architect Professional (AWS CSA-Pro) Passed [English Important]

• GCP -I passed the GCP Professional Data Engineer in 2 weeks, so I shared my study method

Personal impression

--About the method ――Thanks to the Google spreadsheet, I think I was able to pass the AWS SAP exam, which has a wide range of exams, with the expected listability and searchability. ――It's easy to forget the details after taking the exam, but it's convenient because you can find the knowledge you need or know where to go by looking back at the sheet you created. --About the exam ――Since both AWS and GCP ask questions based on actual use cases, you can now imagine what kind of technical element (service) should be used when you want to realize what kind of service. ――I'm glad I took the exam because I haven't been developing the Web since I was a student, and I'm not from an information system, so the perspective of the Web area has expanded.