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AWS · SAA-C03 · Solutions Architect Associate
Every option is a service that would work. One of them fits the constraint.
SAA-C03 asks you to design against the Well-Architected Framework, and AWS weights the four domains 30% secure, 26% resilient, 24% high-performing, 20% cost-optimized. 65 questions in 130 minutes, 720 out of 1,000 to pass. Fifteen of those 65 don't count toward your score, and nothing on screen tells you which.
- Questions weighted to the official domain split, so a mock matches the real mix
- Every item tagged to the domain and task statement it tests
- Readiness shown against 720, not as an invented percentage
Free practice across all four domains. No card required.
SAA-C03Design Secure ArchitecturesMedium
An application running on EC2 instances in Account A needs to read objects from an S3 bucket in Account B. The security team requires that no long-lived credentials exist anywhere in the application.
Which approach meets the requirement? Select one.
One choice only. Your earliest pick was dropped.
0 of 1 selected
An original item written against the AWS exam guide, last checked 15 September 2026. Not a real exam question.
How it's scored
You can fail a whole domain and still pass
AWS uses a compensatory model: you need to pass the exam overall, not each section. Your score is scaled 100–1,000 with 720 to pass, and the score report gives you a table of classifications by section rather than a raw mark. AWS explicitly cautions against over-reading that section-level feedback — it's directional, not diagnostic.
Unanswered questions are scored as incorrect and there's no guessing penalty, so there is never a reason to leave one blank.
Solutions Architect Associate100–1,000 scale
Pass mark for this exam720
pass 720
Accuracy by domain, weighted as the exam weights them
Design Secure Architectures30%81%
Design Resilient Architectures26%77%
Design High-Performing Architectures24%74%
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures20%Weakest52%
Overall 751, against a pass mark of 720Passed
One domain well under the rest, and still a pass. AWS scores compensatorily: only the overall result decides it.
720 isn't 72%. AWS's scaled score isn't a percentage, and a weak domain doesn't fail you on its own.
Question types
Two question types, and one of them is where exams are lost
Multiple choice
One correct answer, three distractors. The bulk of the exam.
Multiple response
Two or more correct out of five or more options. Select every correct response to get the mark.
Distractors here are designed to be plausible — AWS builds them from the options a candidate with incomplete knowledge would pick. On multiple response, that means the one option you're unsure about decides the whole mark.
The loop
Practice, sit, review, repeat
Step 1 is free. Steps 2 to 4 need a subscription.
certs.acedify.com/saa-c03
Practice · untimed
MediumAn application running on EC2 instances in Account A needs to read objects from an S3 bucket in Account B. The security team requires that no long-lived credentials exist anywhere in the application.
Which approach meets the requirement?
Create an IAM user in Account B and store its access key pair in the application's environment variables.
Store Account B's access key in AWS Secrets Manager and rotate it every 30 days.
Create an IAM role in Account B that the instance role in Account A assumes, and add a bucket policy trusting that role.
Add a bucket policy granting s3:GetObject to all principals, restricted by source IP address.
Role assumption issues temporary credentials per session. Nothing durable is stored in the application. An access key, even if rotated from Secrets Manager, is still a long-lived credential. Domain: Design Secure Architectures.
Click a step to see it.
What you get back
Not a prediction. A distance from the line.
Your readiness is a range, because it's an inference from the questions you've answered rather than a result you've earned. For a certification the outcome is binary, so the only question that matters is whether the whole range sits above 720.
While it straddles the line, you're a coin flip, and we'll say so.
SAA-C03 · 4 mocks completed
Where you stand
Borderline
577–748
Pass mark 720
Your range crosses the pass mark. On today's evidence it's a coin flip.
Three states
Try the three states. We won't show you a percentage chance of passing — nobody can calculate one honestly without years of real outcomes to calibrate against.
We won't show you a percentage chance of passing. Nobody can calculate one honestly without years of real outcomes behind it.
What it actually tests
Four domains, and the weights aren't even
| Domain | Weight | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Design Secure Architectures | 30% | The biggest block. IAM, network segmentation, encryption at rest and in transit, credential handling. |
| Design Resilient Architectures | 26% | Decoupling, multi-AZ and multi-region, fault tolerance, recovery objectives. |
| Design High-Performing Architectures | 24% | Storage, compute, database and network choices under a stated performance constraint. |
| Design Cost-Optimized Architectures | 20% | The smallest domain, and the one where the "obviously correct" architecture is usually wrong. |
AWS publishes these as exact figures rather than ranges, and they apply to scored content. Last checked against the exam guide on 15 September 2026.
Practising in proportion matters here. A bank that drifts toward compute and scaling leaves you short on the 30% that decides most of the exam.
Exam facts
Prices vary by region. Check AWS for yours.
- Exam
- SAA-C03
- Credential
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
- Level
- Associate
- Length
- 130 minutes
- Questions
- 65 total, 50 scored
- Unscored questions
- 15
- Question types
- Multiple choice, multiple response
- Score range
- 100–1,000
- Pass mark
- 720
- Scoring model
- Compensatory — overall score only
- Domains
- 4
- Assumed experience
- At least 1 year of hands-on AWS design experience
Pricing
Practice free. Pay when you want to know where you stand.
Pro
- Timed mocks at exam length, weighted 30 / 26 / 24 / 20
- A scaled score against the 720 pass mark
- Domain-weighted readiness, and your range over time
- Everything on every exam, one subscription
One subscription covers AIF-C01, CLF-C02, SAA-C03, the Microsoft certifications, the Claude certifications, TOEFL, IELTS and the SAT.
The exam fee is separate and goes to AWS. We're prep, not registration.
Start practising for freeFAQ
SAA-C03 questions
Find out which domain is keeping you under 720.
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