How to prepare for AWS CDA(June 2018)?

AWS released new revamped version of AWS Certified Developer Associate (CDA) Exam during June. They have announced that previous version will not available after November, 19.

I recently passed the exam and I will be sharing what I did to pass the exam and how much time it took me to get exam ready.

Cost of Exam: $150

Let us divide the preparation in 4 phases:

Phase 1: Professional level Software Development

To pass this exam it is better to have at least 1 year of software development experience at professional level. Having 1 year experience in developing apps on AWS is added advantage.

Understand how Web Apps are designed, developed, tested, deployed etc.

Phase 2: Start with this online course(4 Weeks)

I bought the A Cloud Guru course on Udemy for AWS CDA for the preparation.

The course is designed specifically for this exam. The course includes only points which are important for the exam. It does not cover all the services of AWS.
Make Notes or Summary.
Cost of the Course – I bought for $10. The price is varies. So check out the latest price and buy the course.

Phase 3: Read White Papers(1 Week)

After completing the above course read AWS official white papers present in the exam guide in this link.

They are not much complex, the average length of each paper is 40 pages. So you can cover each in a day at least. They help with better understanding of the AWS best practices and AWS architecture.

Phase 4: Practice Papers(1 Week)

I would recommend Whizlabs practice tests.
Amazon’s $20 Practice test are optional. I noticed Whizlabs covering the Amazon Practice test questions also.
Whizlabs provides detailed analysis of questions. Don’t forget to go through the answers they provide to practice questions. Make notes.
Cost of Whizlabs Practice test: Rs 999 ($13 to $14)