A practical DVA-C02 study plan you can follow: 30-day intensive, 60-day balanced, and 90-day part-time schedules with weekly focus by domain, suggested hours/week, and tips for using the Mastery Cloud practice app.
This page answers the question most candidates actually have: “How do I structure my DVA‑C02 prep?”
Below are three realistic schedules (30/60/90 days) based on the official domain weights and the way DVA‑C02 questions are written (scenario + trade-offs + troubleshooting).
Use the plan that matches your available time, then follow the loop: Syllabus → drills → review misses → mixed sets → mocks.
There’s no single “right” number, but most candidates land in a range based on background:
| Your starting point | Typical total study time | Best-fit timeline |
|---|---|---|
| You build on AWS weekly (Lambda/IAM/DynamoDB) | 40–60 hours | 30–60 days |
| You’ve used AWS but not deeply | 60–90 hours | 60–90 days |
| You’re new to AWS developer tooling | 90–120 hours | 90 days |
Choose a plan based on hours per week:
| Time you can commit | Recommended plan | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 10–15 hrs/week | 30‑day intensive | Fast learning + lots of practice |
| 6–9 hrs/week | 60‑day balanced | Steady progress + room for review |
| 3–5 hrs/week | 90‑day part‑time | Slow-and-solid with repetition |
DVA‑C02 domain weights:
| Domain | Weight | What you should be good at |
|---|---|---|
| Domain 1: Development with AWS Services | 32% | Build with Lambda/eventing/data stores; choose best-fit integrations |
| Domain 2: Security | 26% | IAM/Cognito/KMS/secrets; least privilege; “AccessDenied” reasoning |
| Domain 3: Deployment | 24% | CI/CD, IaC, safe deployments, rollout/rollback thinking |
| Domain 4: Troubleshooting and Optimization | 18% | CloudWatch/X‑Ray, triage, throttling/timeouts, performance/cost tuning |
If you want a single rule: spend ~70% learning + 30% practice early, then invert it to ~30% learning + 70% practice in the final 1–2 weeks.
Target pace: ~10–15 hours/week (1.5–2.5 hrs/day).
Goal: finish the syllabus quickly, then rely on drills + mocks to harden instincts.
| Week | Focus (domains/tasks) | What to do | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Domain 1 fundamentals: decoupling + SDK use • Task 1.1 • Task 1.2 | Learn the patterns (retries, idempotency, backoff, SDK config). Do 2–3 focused drills and write a “miss log”. | Syllabus • Cheatsheet • Practice |
| 2 | Domain 1 eventing + Lambda + data stores • Task 1.3 • Task 1.4 • Task 1.5 • Task 1.6 | Do daily drills on SQS/SNS/EventBridge/Step Functions, Lambda retries/concurrency, DynamoDB access patterns. End the week with a 40‑question mixed set. | Syllabus • Cheatsheet • Practice |
| 3 | Domain 2 security • Task 2.1 • Task 2.2 • Task 2.3 • Task 2.4 • Task 2.5 | Drill “AccessDenied” scenarios: separate IAM policy vs resource policy vs KMS key policy. Practice Cognito user pool vs identity pool questions. | Syllabus • Cheatsheet • Practice |
| 4 | Domain 3 deployment + Domain 4 troubleshooting/optimization • Task 3.1 • Task 3.2 • Task 3.3 • Task 3.4 • Task 4.1 • Task 4.2 • Task 4.3 | Do 2 full mocks under time (65Q/130m). Review every miss; re-drill weak tasks. Focus on CloudWatch/X‑Ray triage, throttling/timeouts, and safe deployments (canary/rollback). | Syllabus • Practice |
Checkpoint to hit before exam day: you can explain why a solution is correct in one sentence (not just recognize it).
Target pace: ~6–9 hours/week.
Goal: learn each domain, then loop back for spaced repetition and mixed practice.
| Week | Focus (domains/tasks) | What to do | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Domain 1 (part 1): Task 1.1, Task 1.2 | Learn core resiliency + SDK defaults; 2 drills + miss log. | Syllabus • Practice |
| 2 | Domain 1 (part 2): Task 1.3–Task 1.6 | Messaging + Lambda + DynamoDB/Kinesis; end week with a 30–40 question mixed set. | Cheatsheet • Practice |
| 3 | Domain 2 (part 1): Task 2.1, Task 2.2 | Roles/policies + Cognito; practice authn/authz questions and trust-policy reasoning. | Syllabus |
| 4 | Domain 2 (part 2): Task 2.3–Task 2.5 | KMS + encryption + secrets; do “policy triage” drills (IAM vs resource vs key policy). | Cheatsheet • Practice |
| 5 | Domain 3 (part 1): Task 3.1, Task 3.2 | IaC/SAM basics + environment/config strategy + testing stages; 2 drills. | Syllabus |
| 6 | Domain 3 (part 2): Task 3.3, Task 3.4 | CI/CD + rollout/rollback patterns; do scenario drills (canary, alarms, blue/green). | Practice |
| 7 | Domain 4: Task 4.1–Task 4.3 | Observability + RCA + optimization; focus on throttles/timeouts/retries and cost/perf tuning. | Cheatsheet |
| 8 | Final review + mocks | 2 full mocks under time; re-drill weakest tasks until your misses repeat less. | Practice |
Target pace: ~3–5 hours/week.
Goal: slow repetition and “stickiness” while building consistent practice habits.
| Week | Focus (domains/tasks) | What to do | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Setup + Task 1.1 | Set a weekly cadence (2 study blocks + 1 drill). Start your miss log. | Overview • Practice |
| 2 | Task 1.2 | SDK defaults: retries/timeouts/pagination; do 1–2 drills. | Syllabus |
| 3 | Task 1.3 | Messaging service selection; write “when to use X” one-liners. | Cheatsheet |
| 4 | Task 1.4 + Task 1.5 | Lambda retries/concurrency + integrations; do drills on event sources. | Practice |
| 5 | Task 1.6 | DynamoDB + streams/Kinesis basics; end week with a 25–30Q mixed set. | Practice |
| 6 | Task 2.1 + Task 2.2 | IAM roles/policies + Cognito patterns; practice auth questions. | Syllabus |
| 7 | Task 2.3 | KMS basics and common failure modes; drill encryption scenarios. | Cheatsheet |
| 8 | Task 2.4 + Task 2.5 | Secrets Manager vs Parameter Store; authz patterns; do 2 drills. | Practice |
| 9 | Task 3.1 | SAM/IaC + env config; keep notes on deploy safety requirements. | Syllabus |
| 10 | Task 3.2 + Task 3.3 | Testing stages + CI/CD; do drill sets for deployment failures. | Practice |
| 11 | Task 3.4 | Rollout/rollback patterns; alarms and “stop the blast radius” thinking. | Cheatsheet |
| 12 | Task 4.1 + Task 4.2 | CloudWatch/X‑Ray triage; practice interpreting throttles/timeouts. | Practice |
| 13 | Task 4.3 + final review | 2 full mocks under time; re-drill weakest tasks; finalize your one-page notes. | Practice |
Use the app to turn the syllabus into a repeatable loop:
Direct practice link: /app/cloud/#/topic-selection/aws_dva-c02
Target before exam day: consistent ~75–80% on mixed sets, with stable performance across all domains (especially Security and Troubleshooting).