4-week AWS Developer study plan (DVA-C02)

Is 4 weeks enough for DVA-C02? Not comfortably. 4 weeks at 6 hours a week is 24 hours of study, and associate-level exams like DVA-C02 typically take 6-10 weeks. The plan below still works as a compressed schedule: Development with AWS Services and Security get dedicated weeks; Deployment and Troubleshooting & Optimization only ride along as secondary focus.

Total study
24 h
Drilling / week
3 h
AWS docs / week
2 h
Flashcards / week
1 h
Full mocks
1
Free practice Qs
20

Week by week

WeekFocus and tasks
1

Baseline week

  • Take the free 10-question diagnostic — your weak domains reorder everything after this week.
  • Skim the official DVA-C02 exam guide once so the domain names below mean something (2h).
  • Drill the free Developer practice set at /practice/dva-c02; read every explanation (3h).
  • Set up flashcards for the services you'd never used before (1h).
2

Development with AWS Services (+ Deployment)

  • Drill practice questions in this domain until misses repeat themselves (3h).
  • For every miss, read the linked AWS doc — not a summary of it (2h).
  • Flashcard review of previous weeks' misses — spaced repetition beats cramming (1h).
3

Security

  • Drill practice questions in this domain until misses repeat themselves (3h).
  • For every miss, read the linked AWS doc — not a summary of it (2h).
  • Flashcard review of previous weeks' misses — spaced repetition beats cramming (1h).
4

Mock week

  • Full-length timed mock (3h + same-day review of every miss).
  • Re-drill your two weakest domains from the mock (3h).
  • Second full mock late in the week if the first was below pass level.
  • Day before the exam: light flashcard review only — no new material.

Weeks are allocated by the official DVA-C02 domain weights, heaviest first. Different date or more hours a week? Generate a custom plan.

Email me this plan

This page won’t survive a tab close. Get the week-by-week plan in your inbox instead.

Common questions

Is 4 weeks enough for DVA-C02?

Not comfortably. 4 weeks at 6 hours a week is 24 hours of study, and associate-level exams like DVA-C02 typically take 6-10 weeks. The plan below still works as a compressed schedule: Development with AWS Services and Security get dedicated weeks; Deployment and Troubleshooting & Optimization only ride along as secondary focus.

What should the last week before the DVA-C02 exam look like?

Full-length timed mock (3h + same-day review of every miss). Re-drill your two weakest domains from the mock (3h). Second full mock late in the week if the first was below pass level. Day before the exam: light flashcard review only — no new material. The full-length DVA-C02 mock is 65 questions in 130 minutes, the same as the real exam.

Related DVA-C02 tools