Exam SAA-C03
SAA-C03 MOCK EXAMS

AWS Solutions Architect
Full Practice Tests

6 full blueprint-weighted mocks + 2 special modes.
Scaled scoring 100–1000. Passing: 720. Same format as the real SAA-C03 exam.

Full Mock Exams 65 questions · 130 min · Scaled 100–1000

Mock 1 Full Exam
65 Questions 130 min 720/1000
Scenario-based questions weighted across all 4 architecture domains. Reflects real SAA-C03 format.
Start Mock 1
Mock 2 Full Exam
65 Questions 130 min 720/1000
Scenario-based questions weighted across all 4 architecture domains. Reflects real SAA-C03 format.
Start Mock 2
Mock 3 Full Exam
65 Questions 130 min 720/1000
Scenario-based questions weighted across all 4 architecture domains. Reflects real SAA-C03 format.
Start Mock 3
Mock 4 Full Exam
65 Questions 130 min 720/1000
Scenario-based questions weighted across all 4 architecture domains. Reflects real SAA-C03 format.
Start Mock 4
Mock 5 Full Exam
65 Questions 130 min 720/1000
Scenario-based questions weighted across all 4 architecture domains. Reflects real SAA-C03 format.
Start Mock 5
Mock 6 Full Exam
65 Questions 130 min 720/1000
Scenario-based questions weighted across all 4 architecture domains. Reflects real SAA-C03 format.
Start Mock 6

Special Practice Modes

Quick Drill 30 Questions
30 Questions 40 min All domains
30 scenario questions across all domains. Great warm-up or quick review session.
Quick Drill (30Q)
Speed Challenge Timed
65 Questions 65 min High Pressure
Full exam — half the normal time. Forces deliberate quick thinking.
Speed Challenge
Domain-Wise Practice Domain-Wise
Per Domain 25 min Focused
Practice one architecture domain at a time. Best for targeting weak areas.
Choose Domain

SAA-C03 Exam Strategy

Think in Architectures
Read every scenario carefully. Identify the requirement (HA? Scalable? Cost? Secure?) before looking at options.
IAM is Everywhere
Know IAM roles, policies, SCP, permission boundaries. Least privilege is almost always the right answer.
Know Multi-AZ vs Multi-Region
Multi-AZ = HA + failover. Multi-Region = DR. RDS Multi-AZ is synchronous. Read replicas are asynchronous.
Cost-Optimize with Context
Reserved Instances for steady-state. Spot for interruption-tolerant. S3 Intelligent-Tiering for unpredictable access.

Sample SAA-C03 questions with explanations

Use these examples to check how the topics are tested. Read the explanation for every option you were unsure about, then start a scored practice set above.

Question 1 Design Resilient Architectures Choose 2

A solutions architect is designing a fault-tolerant system for processing IoT device data. The system must ensure no data loss if a processing component fails and must be able to reprocess data from a specific point in time. Which TWO AWS services should be used as part of this design? (Select TWO)

  • ✓ Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
  • ✓ Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) Standard queue
  • ○ AWS Lambda with on-demand concurrency
  • ○ Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
  • ○ Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
Answer: A. Amazon Kinesis Data Streams | B. Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) Standard queue
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams (A) provides durable, ordered data streams with a retention period (24 hours by default, extendable to 365 days), allowing replay from a past point for reprocessing, which is key for fault tolerance. Amazon SQS (B) provides at-least-once delivery and message durability, preventing data loss if a processor fails. SNS (D) is a pub/sub service but lacks built-in retention for replay. Kinesis Data Firehose (E) is for loading to destinations, not for replayable processing. Lambda (C) is a compute option but doesn't provide the data durability layer.
Question 2 Domain 1: Design Secure Architectures

During a security audit, it was found that an Amazon S3 bucket containing sensitive logs is publicly accessible due to a misconfigured bucket policy. The bucket should only be accessible from specific EC2 instances in a VPC. What is the FASTEST way to remediate this and prevent future public access?

  • ○ Manually edit the S3 bucket policy to remove the `Principal: "*"` statement and add conditions for the VPC EC2 IPs.
  • ○ Use AWS Trusted Advisor to identify the public bucket and follow its recommendation to remove public access.
  • ✓ Enable S3 Block Public Access account-level settings for all buckets, then create a VPC endpoint for S3 and update the bucket policy to use it.
  • ○ Delete the bucket policy entirely and rely on IAM policies attached to the EC2 instances' roles to grant access.
Answer: C. Enable S3 Block Public Access account-level settings for all buckets, then create a VPC endpoint for S3 and update the bucket policy to use it.
Enabling S3 Block Public Access (at the account or bucket level) is an immediate, strong preventative control that overrides any permissive bucket policies, quickly removing public access. For ongoing access, a VPC endpoint for S3 allows private connectivity from the VPC, and the bucket policy can be updated to only allow access via that endpoint or from specific VPCs. This is the most secure and comprehensive fix. Option A is manual and could be error-prone. Option B (Trusted Advisor) only identifies the issue, it doesn't fix it. Option D removes all bucket-level controls, which is not a best practice.
Question 3 Domain 2: Design Resilient Architectures

A company's application runs on Amazon EC2 instances and uses an Amazon RDS database. The company wants to ensure that if the database fails, the application can continue to operate in a degraded mode by serving cached data. Which service can be used to cache database query results?

  • ✓ Amazon ElastiCache
  • ○ Amazon S3
  • ○ Amazon EBS
  • ○ AWS Storage Gateway
Answer: A. Amazon ElastiCache
Amazon ElastiCache is an in-memory caching service (supporting Redis or Memcached) that can be used to cache database query results. This allows the application to serve data from the cache if the primary database is unavailable, enabling graceful degradation. S3 is object storage, not suitable for low-latency caching of database results. EBS is block storage for EC2 instances. Storage Gateway is for hybrid cloud storage integration.
Question 4 Domain 3: Design High-Performing Architectures

A web application experiences variable traffic throughout the day. Which AWS service can automatically adjust the number of EC2 instances to maintain performance and minimize costs?

  • ✓ AWS Auto Scaling
  • ○ Amazon CloudWatch
  • ○ AWS Elastic Beanstalk
  • ○ AWS OpsWorks
Answer: A. AWS Auto Scaling
AWS Auto Scaling automatically adjusts EC2 capacity based on defined policies to ensure performance during traffic spikes and reduce costs during lulls. CloudWatch monitors metrics but doesn't scale instances, Elastic Beanstalk is a platform-as-a-service that includes scaling, but Auto Scaling is the core service for this purpose.
Question 5 Domain 4: Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Choose 2

A company uses Amazon EC2 instances for a web application. They have purchased Compute Savings Plans. Which TWO instance usage changes are covered by the Savings Plan and will still receive the discount? (Select TWO)

  • ✓ Changing the instance family from C5 to M5.
  • ○ Moving the instance from us-east-1 to us-west-2.
  • ○ Changing the operating system from Linux to Windows.
  • ✓ Changing the instance size from large to xlarge within the same family.
  • ○ Changing the tenancy from default to dedicated.
  • ○ Switching from On-Demand to Spot Instances.
Answer: A. Changing the instance family from C5 to M5. | D. Changing the instance size from large to xlarge within the same family.
Compute Savings Plans offer flexibility. They apply to EC2 instance usage regardless of instance family (e.g., C5 to M5, A), instance size (e.g., large to xlarge within the same family, D), AZ, region, OS, or tenancy, as long as it is within the same AWS account and region. Changing regions (B) is not covered; Savings Plans are region-specific. Changing OS (C) may affect the Savings Plan rate if it's a different platform (e.g., Linux to Windows has a different rate). Tenancy (E) and switching to Spot (F) are different pricing models and may not be covered.

Open the full SAA-C03 question-and-answer guide