My DVA-C02 AWS Developer Associate Exam Experience

Last updated on April 26, 2023

A few weeks ago, I took and passed the latest AWS Certified Developer Associate exam, DVA-C02. If you’ve already cleared DVA-C01 and intend to recertify, note that you can no longer book DVA-C01 exams. I suggest checking out this article I wrote a couple of months ago. This breaks down the changes you need to be aware of, and I’ve also shared my expectations for the DVA-C02 exam.

In this post, I’ll be sharing my experience on the exam, discussing my thoughts on it, and providing tips and tricks that can hopefully help you get through it.

Is DVA-C02 more difficult than DVA-C01?

First of all, when you sit for the exam, the system generates unique sets of questions from the Question Bank, which may vary in difficulty. This means that no two test takers will face the exact same set of questions. So, keep in mind that my insights (or anyone’s) might not exactly match what you’ll encounter during your test. The most reliable source of the exam’s coverage will always be the official study guide.

With that said, I find the difficulty of DVA-C02 on par with the old version but a tad more in-depth on concepts around serverless patterns, cross-account access management, application monitoring, handling common errors, and using some service-specific APIs. Surprisingly, I didn’t encounter any questions that required reading code snippets, even though I had anticipated them to be a part of the exam.

What to expect after taking the exam (Pearson Vue online)

I have taken all of my AWS exams online through Person Vue. Before, I would get a ‘You pass’ message on my screen just seconds after submitting my answers. This time around, I didn’t get the confirmation that I passed until two days later. Also, I didn’t receive my exam result and score breakdown together on the same day. It took a full week for the score breakdown to become available for viewing.

Tips N Tricks

Tackle the easy questions first. Typically, a set has a mix of questions you can quickly breeze through, which helps you save time for the tougher ones.
Don’t be alarmed when you encounter questions that seem beyond the exam’s scope. AWS includes 15 unscored questions for future evaluation purposes, which will not affect your score.
The flag feature is your ally. If you’re totally stumped on a question, just go with your gut, make a guess, and flag it. Then move on to the next one. Circle back to it later if you can. If worse comes to worst and you run out of time, at least you didn’t leave it blank, and there’s a chance you guessed it right.

Be mindful of your time. You’re given 140 minutes to answer 65 questions, which gives you about 2 minutes per question. So, pace yourself and make every minute count.

How to prepare for the AWS Developer Associate – Exam DVA-C02?

One way of preparing for the exam is to study the Task Statements listed in the official Exam Guide, as well as the AWS services in the Appendix section. Taking courses and practice exams can help you gauge your readiness, so you’ll know your strong points and areas that might need some extra work. Most importantly, it’s a great chance to acquaint yourself with the exam’s structure and refine your time management skills.

Pursuing an AWS Certification can be a considerable investment, but at Tutorials Dojo, we aim to provide exceptional reviewers at affordable prices. Our top-quality and up-to-date reviewers have already helped thousands of students and professionals alike achieve their Cloud certifications. Check out our resources designed specifically to help you ace the AWS Developer Associate DVA-C02 exam:

Our materials cover only the key concepts and services that are relevant for a particular exam. If you need an in-depth course, I recommend you to look no further than Adrian Cantrill’s course.

FREE Resources

Final Remarks

Overall, the questions were pretty much in line with my expectations. I believe that if you’ve done the DVA-C01 before, have working experience, and have kept up with AWS updates; there’s a great chance of you passing the DVA-C02. I didn’t see much of a knowledge gap between DVA-C02 and DVA-C01. Though this can change over time as AWS adds more questions to its question bank. We’ll be continually adding more updates to cover all topics related to the exam.

Thank you for reading this article. We hope you found it useful.

Wishing you all the best in your upcoming exam!

Written by: Carlo Acebedo

Carlo is a cloud engineer and a content creator at Tutorials Dojo. He's also a member of the AWS Community builder and holds 5 AWS Certifications. Carlo specializes in building and automating solutions in the Amazon Web Services Cloud.