AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Exam Guide

The exam contains 65 questions, delivered in either multiple choice or multiple response format, and you're given 130 minutes to complete it. That works out to exactly two minutes per question, so pacing matters — flag long scenario questions and come back to them rather than stalling. Also note that only 50 of the 65 questions affect your score; the other 15 are unscored questions that don't count, but you won't be told which ones they are, so treat every question as if it counts.

Results are reported as a scaled score from 100 to 1,000, and the minimum passing score is 720. Because the score is scaled rather than a raw percentage, there's no fixed number of questions you must answer correctly. Only the 50 scored questions determine your result — the 15 unscored questions have no effect on it — and since there's no way to identify which is which, the right strategy is simply to answer everything; leaving a question blank can never help you.

The exam costs 150 USD, and the certification is valid for 3 years. You can renew by passing the latest version of the exam, which grants 3 more years of validity — but your certification must still be active when you renew. One planning detail catches people out: the extension is calculated from the date you complete the recertification action, not from your current expiration date. That means recertifying very early effectively shortens your total certified time, so it's smarter to schedule your renewal in the months just before expiration rather than long in advance.

The exam has four content domains: Design Secure Architectures (30% of scored content), Design Resilient Architectures (26%), Design High-Performing Architectures (24%), and Design Cost-Optimized Architectures (20%). The exam validates your ability to design solutions based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework, so studying the framework's pillars maps directly onto exam content. Security is the single largest domain, so it deserves proportionally more of your preparation time than any other area. AWS also says the target candidate should have at least 1 year of hands-on experience designing cloud solutions that use AWS services — if you're short of that, budget extra time for hands-on practice rather than reading alone.

The official sources reviewed for this guide did not provide a verified current exam-wide rate. Check the date, population and source of any percentage quoted elsewhere.

Use unfamiliar practice questions, review the reasoning behind errors, and check pacing and coverage against the official outline. No practice score or historical group statistic guarantees a pass.

The exam contains 65 questions that are either multiple choice or multiple response. 50 questions affect your score. Confirm the applicable outline for your appointment.