I’ve been developing Alexa skills for almost two years, and my five skills include STEM Party, Word Party, and Wheel of Fun. I have also presented at several global voice conferences, including Project Voice, VOICE Global, etc. This summer, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the AWS team, and I have also hosted a couple of educational webinars on developing Alexa skills. I thought it would be a good idea to validate my Alexa development knowledge and decided to take the AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder – Specialty Exam. I’m excited to share that I passed the exam today!

It was fairly difficult, but I’m happy to say that I scored an 884/1000, and the minimum passing requirement is 750. I wanted to take this exam last year, but AWS policy states that you must be 13 years old to take any exam. When I turned 13 last month, I knew I still wanted to take the exam.

Thanks to my dad and my mom for teaching me programming and everything I know about Alexa.
Thanks to Kesha Williams for creating an excellent course on Alexa development and to Ryan Kroonenburg for the lifetime free access to the A Cloud Guru platform. Thanks to all the wonderful people like Dr. Teri Fisher, Bradley Metrock, Audrey Arbeeny, Julie Daniel Davis, and Pete Erickson who have always encouraged me and provided opportunities to grow.

Tips for Taking the Exam

• Most of the exam questions will be multiple choice. There are usually two answers that are clearly incorrect, one answer that is very close to the correct answer, and the correct answer. It’s important to know the details so you can choose between the two.

• Some questions will have a paragraph describing the situation, and then a question. In this case, you should read the question first, read the situation, and then read the question again. This way, when reading the situation, you will know what you are looking for.

• Take your time. You will have nearly three hours to complete the exam. During my exam, I answered all the questions first, flagging those that I wasn’t sure about. Then, I went through all of my flagged questions and decided on one choice. And finally, I went through all of the questions once more. Even after all of this, I still had over an hour left.

Helpful Links

A Cloud Guru
A Cloud Guru has a great course, explaining everything you will need to know for the exam, as well as a practice exam at the end.

Whizlabs
Whizlabs also has an awesome course, and it has three practice exams for you to test your skills on.

Udemy
This course was extremely helpful, especially for reviewing everything I had learned in the previous two courses.