How to pass AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate Certification

According to the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2023, demand for AI and Machine Learning Specialists is expected to grow by 40%. However, 70% of North American IT leaders say they have the greatest difficulty filling AI/ML specialist roles. AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate certification can position you for in-demand machine learning jobs in AWS Cloud. I am a Senior Data Scientist and 5x AWS Certified, working in the USA for the last 7 years. In 2024, I have passed the AWS certifications in the following order:
1. AWS Cloud Practitioner (May)
2. AWS Solution Architect Associate (June)
3. AWS AI Practitioner (August)
4. AWS Machine Learning Specialty (September)
5. AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate (October)

AWS ML Engineer Associate Certification Badge

Today I will discuss the preparation and materials you need to pass the AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate Certification (MLA-C01). First, let’s check these links:
1. Official AWS MLA-C01 exam website. You can schedule your exam in a test center or online.
2. Official AWS MLA-C01 Exam guide

Who should earn AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer — Associate?
The ideal candidate for this exam has at least 1 year of experience in machine learning engineering or a related field and 1 year of hands-on experience with AWS services. The target candidate should have at least 1 year of experience using Amazon SageMaker and other AWS services for ML engineering. The target candidate also should have at least 1 year of experience in a related role such as a backend software developer, DevOps developer, data engineer, or data scientist. I strongly recommend taking these two certifications before you take the AWS ML Engineer Associate Certification exam.
1. AWS Cloud Practitioner and 2. AWS AI Practitioner

The exam has the following content domains and weightings:
• Domain 1: Data Preparation for Machine Learning (ML) (28%)
• Domain 2: ML Model Development (26%)
• Domain 3: Deployment and Orchestration of ML Workflows (22%)
• Domain 4: ML Solution Monitoring, Maintenance, and Security (24%)

This exam validates a candidate’s ability to:
• Build, operationalize, deploy, and maintain machine learning solutions and pipelines using the AWS Cloud.
• Ingest, transform, validate, and prepare data for ML modeling.
• Select general modeling approaches, train models, tune hyperparameters, analyze model performance, and manage model versions.
• Choose deployment infrastructure and endpoints, provision compute resources, and configure auto-scaling based on requirements.
• Set up continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines to automate orchestration of ML workflows.
• Monitor models, data, and infrastructure to detect issues.
• Secure ML systems

The AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer — Associate (MLA-C01) exam has a pass or fail designation. Your results for the exam are reported as a scaled score of 100–1,000. The minimum passing score is 720. You do not need to achieve a passing score in each section (4 domains mentioned above). You need to pass only the overall exam.

Exam question types:
• Multiple choice: Has one correct response and three incorrect responses
(distractors).
• Multiple response: Has two or more correct responses out of five or more
response options. You must select all the correct responses to receive credit for the question.
• Ordering: Has a list of 3–5 responses to complete a specified task. You must select the correct responses and place the responses in the correct order to receive credit for the question.
• Matching: Has a list of responses to match with a list of 3–7 prompts. You
must match all the pairs correctly to receive credit for the question.
• Case study: Has one scenario with two or more questions about the scenario. The scenario is the same for each question in the case study. Each question in the case study will be evaluated separately. You will receive credit for each question that you answer correctly in the case study.

Unanswered questions on the exam are scored as incorrect. There is no penalty for guessing. The exam has a total of 65 questions which includes 50 questions that affect your score. The exam includes 15 unscored questions that don’t affect your score. AWS collects information about performance on these unscored questions to evaluate these questions for future use as scored questions. You won’t be able to identify those questions during the exam. You’ll have to consider all the questions equally important. According to the official exam guide, 88 AWS services are in scope for the exam.

Materials to follow: First of all, this is an associate-level exam. That means you’ll need real hands-on experience in the AWS ecosystem. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for you to pass the certification. This is a 3-hour test and it also tests your ability to take mental stress for such a long duration. These are the materials I followed to pass the certification.

1. AWS Skill Builder: Enhanced Exam Prep Plan: AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer — Associate (MLA-C01) which includes role-based training, hands-on labs, experiential learning, additional exam-style questions, a pretest, and flashcards. It will cost a $30/month subscription fee. It contains around 100 questions with explanations. Among them, 65 questions are part of the official pretest to evaluate your exam readiness.
2. Master MLA-C01 / ME1-C01 AWS Machine Learning Engineer Exam: SageMaker, Bedrock, and AI Skills: Instructed by two of the most popular AWS teachers Stéphane Maarek and Frank Kane. 23 hours of on-demand video on Data Ingestion and Storage, Data Transformation, Integrity, and Feature Engineering, AWS Managed AI Services, SageMaker Built-In Algorithms, Model Training, Tuning, and Evaluation, Generative AI Model Fundamentals, Building Generative AI Applications with Bedrock, MLOps, Security, Identity, and Compliance, Management and Governance, Machine Learning Best Practices. To revise your AWS and ML skills, this course is all you need.
3. Prepare for AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer Associate. 100 high-quality test questions and detailed explanations: Created by Stéphane Maarek and Abhishek Singh. It has 100 practice questions. These questions are the most top-quality materials available right now. I found the real exam questions equivalent to these questions.
4. AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer — Associate | Exams: Created by Youssef Ouqadir and it has 340 practice questions. The difficulty level of these questions is moderate.

If you feel confident, don’t hesitate to take the exam and showcase your skills to your current manager or future hiring managers. Good luck with your exam!

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