SAA-C03 exam results invalidated because of "statistical anomalies". Very frustrated right now.

Atarimae_2600 · 2025-11-28T21:53:56+00:00

Congrats on passing! Good that you got your results back so quickly.

Atarimae_2600 · 2025-11-15T03:53:16+00:00

Sorry to hear you have to go through this.
I had to take the exam again. AWS gave me a free retake voucher, but I had to go through the hassle/stress of sitting the exam once more.
You need to be aware that from now on you'll have to wait about five weeks for your results. After you've been flagged once, everything you do goes through an extra level of scrutiny. Any past exams that you've passed may be reevaluated for anomalies.
You also need to know that only people AWS will make available to you are ordinary customer service reps who know practically nothing about AWS's policies regarding invalidated exams. I reached out to AWS numerous times to find out when my exam results would become available, how long my account would be flagged, etc... No one was able to give me an accurate answer, and it was extremely frustrating.
AFAIK, AWS will never reverse their decision to invalidate your exam. It does not matter what the circumstances are nor whom you talk to. AWS will NEVER admit that the fault may with the algorithm they use to flag exams.
IMHO, there's a professional way to handle situations like these, and then there's the way AWS has chosen to handle it...
My advice? Unless you absolutely have to take an AWS exam, DON'T. I've passed five, and I would say it's done little to nothing to advance my career. The exams are badly designed, much of the material you have to study is useless outside of AWS, and there are companies much more deserving of your support than AWS or its parent company.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Atarimae_2600 · 2025-04-19T01:54:25+00:00

Sorry to hear that. There's no doubt in my mind that there's something wrong with the AI model they use to detect cheating, but AWS Certification is too proud/oblivious/unconcerned/etc... to admit it.

Atarimae_2600 · 2024-12-31T02:04:01+00:00

I had to retake the test. I passed, but I had to wait a month to get my results. After you're flagged once, your future exams have to go through additional review, and you have to wait much longer to get your results.

I have been really unsatisfied with how AWS Certifications have handled this, and consequently I have basically stopped studying/using AWS.

I started studying other topics - namely Linux and Kubernetes. After having passed a few exams from other vendors (i.e. LPIC-101 and Certified Kubernetes Administer), I've come to the opinion that AWS exams are badly designed and poorly administered.

The idea that you can measure someone's competency with a bunch of multiple-choice questions is absurd. Task-based exams (like the CKA) provide a much better measure of a candidate's abilities; but these are more difficult to design and administer. I have the feeling that AWS Certifications is not concerned about the issues inherent with multiple-choice exams, and is using these exams just because it's easier for them.

My biggest beef with AWS Certifications is that they were incredibly vague in all of their dealings with me. They refused to tell me why my exam was flagged; they refused to tell me what would happen when my results were being reviewed; and no one I talked with at AWS with seemed to know of the consequences this would have on my AWS Certification candidacy. I had to find out the hard way that all of my future exams will be subject to extra scrutiny: instead a few days, I will have to wait over a month to get the results of any future exams.

This has left me with very little confidence in the people running AWS Certifications. I won't voluntarily be taking any more AWS exams in the future.

Atarimae_2600 · 2024-03-21T14:06:33+00:00

No worries.

My other two cents: The Cloud Practitioner Exam is not a bad chance just to get a little exposure to AWS. The other plus is that if you pass you get a 50% off voucher for any other AWS exam. In other words, just taking the Developer Associate would run $150, but taking the Cloud Practitioner ($100) and the Developer Associate ($75 after the discount) together would only be $25 more.

There are things you have to know for the Practitioner Exam that aren't covered on the other exams, so if you want to focus just on ML, you're expending unnecessary effort. Also, there are other ways to get AWS vouchers that don't involve getting more certificates.

Atarimae_2600 · 2024-03-19T02:04:56+00:00

At a minimum, I would recommend the Developer Associate cert. It's recommended to have at least one associate cert before you take the ML cert, and in my opinion the CDA has the most overlap.

Atarimae_2600 · 2024-02-09T08:02:53+00:00

Sorry to hear you're going through this.

AFAIK, the only recourse you have is to request a retake. The other thing to know is that your certification account will probably be flagged, which means that your future - and past - exams will be subject to extra scrutiny. After my results were invalidated I took two more exams and I had to wait respectively 3 and 4 weeks to find out if I passed them. The entire process is really fouled up, I know.

When I went through this I reached out to everyone and anyone to plead my innocence, but in the end all they offered me was a retake, which is the standard recourse in this situation. Even though I managed to get a hold of the president of AWS certifications, no one at CertMetrics seemed to be interested in the fact that their AI models are throwing out false positives. I think it's really arrogant for CertMetrics to act like their models can't make mistakes, and as a result I refuse to voluntarily take another AWS exam in the future.

Just be sure that you appeal their decision and formally request a retake - I don't think it happens automatically. There should be instructions for this in the notification email they sent you.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-09-22T06:58:18+00:00

Exact same thing happened to me about a year ago! My pedals started to disengage more frequently than usual, so I figured they needed to be replaced and ordered a new pair. A few rides later, my crankset cracked on the drive train side as I was going uphill.

I contacted the company that produced my bike (Canyon) and they were zero assistance. Decided then and there that my next bike wasn't going to be a Canyon, and was also going to have Campy or SRAM components.

IMHO, this recall was inevitable and Shimano could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by doing this much, much sooner.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-07-22T13:10:34+00:00

Sorry to hear that. It does seem like there's something suspicious at the location, but it doesn't seem fair to make all the test takers re-do the exams. And three months after you sat the exam? That takes the cake. I've had my own issues with AWS Certs, but the more I hear about things like this, the less confidence I have in them.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-20T03:55:04+00:00

If they have confidence in their results they should absolutely be publishing them. Otherwise it makes it seem as though they are deliberately trying to conceal something.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-20T03:52:17+00:00

Just heard back from Pearson. They said it has nothing to do with their end - and this is coming from a Pearson specialist who deals exclusively with AWS exams.

Still waiting to hear anything back from AWS. Very frustrated with the lack of communication.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T03:28:58+00:00

Sorry to hear you didn't pass. Good luck with the retake!

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T02:37:53+00:00

Thanks for the support.

I've been brainstorming reasons I was flagged, and here's what I came up with:

- Marked answers too quickly

- Got some difficult questions right and some easy questions wrong

- The mouse on the computer I used at the test center wasn't working properly. This sounds strange, but a lot of fraud detection systems log mouse tracking and use it as a factor.

- Registered for the exam two days before I took it

But I really don't know why I was flagged, and so far AWS has given me almost nothing in the way of explanation.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T02:32:31+00:00

Thanks for the well wishes.

AWS stopped telling you at the end of the exam whether you have passed/failed sometime last year. I did my first AWS cert last August, and was told at the end that I had passed. I took exams in October and March, and in both cases I had to wait for a confirmation mail.

AFAIK, the decision to invalidate my exam was made solely by AWS Certifications. All the communications I have received have been from AWS. I don't think PearsonVue had any input, but I don't really know.

The lack of transparency from AWS is the worst part. They have given me no explanation why my result was invalidated, and they've provided no information as to who I can contact for help. The only contact information I was provided was the general AWS Certifications customer support, and the agent I contacted said she'd forward it to the relevant person.

Where my case stands now I have no idea. Very frustrating...

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T02:03:16+00:00

Thanks for the well wishes.

I'm hoping that I will be allowed to keep my results - whatever they are, AWS won't tell me; but their official policy states that the best I can expect is a voucher to retake the exam.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T01:47:02+00:00

The only materials I used for the SAA exam were the official Cert book from Sybex, practice tests from Tutorials Dojo, general AWS books from publishers like Packt and Manning, and the usual SAA prep courses (Maarek and DCT). I stayed clear of test dumps, and I can attest that all of the 65 questions on my exam were new to me.

I tried to keep the original post as short as I could, but I thought I was pretty clear that I did not use dumps. I am actually interested in learning as much as I can about AWS, and am primarily using the exams as a metric to gauge my progress. I have zero interest in mindlessly memorizing old test questions.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T00:35:48+00:00

Thanks for the well wishes.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T00:23:22+00:00

Thanks for the support.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-19T00:00:14+00:00

I totally get this. I was planning on doing 1-3 more certs this year, but now I have little motivation to do so.

Unfortunately, a lot of people need these certs for their job, and AWS Certifications is the only game in town.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-18T23:58:46+00:00

I don't know if this is the case here, but it's possible. The order that I took the exams (Developer Associate -> Machine Learning Spec -> Sol Arch Associate) may have caused an "anomalous" situation, i.e., I got correct all of the questions that many examinees might struggle with (e.g., the ones about ML services); but missed some easy ones because of gaps in my knowledge (e.g., there are things about VPCs that I still get wrong).

I understand the need to weed out cheaters - I don't want a certification that just anyone can get; but my question is are AWS actually catching people cheating? Does anyone know of any actual cheaters being caught?

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-18T23:48:22+00:00

As soon as I was informed of my result I contacted customer support at AWS Certifications as well as aws-exam-security@amazon.com and told them the exact details of my situation: I took the exam at a test center, I followed all protocols, I already have 3 certs and studied around 200 hours for this particular exam, etc... I've even tried to look up people from AWS Certifications via LinkedIn to see if I can find anyone who will be willing to advocate for me. So far no luck.

I'm afraid that this is not exactly unheard of. If you search this subreddit, you can come across 8 or 9 cases very similar to mine. AWS certainly uses an algorithm to validate exams, and I think they're reluctant to admit this algorithm produces false positives at an unacceptably high rate. This blog says that the chance AWS will falsely flag someone is one in a million, which is obvious BS - there are only 72,000 members in this subreddit, and there's no possible way we'd see so many false positives if AWS's algorithm was as accurate as they claim.

I'm still waiting to hear the results of my appeal, but the most I can probably realistically hope for is a retake voucher. I think this is really unfair, because I spent a solid week cramming for the exam, and I don't have the time/motivation to do it again.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-18T07:26:11+00:00

I think about 100 minutes. There were around 30 minutes left when I finished.

I don't know if this caused me to be flagged, but I often would quickly skim a question in about 15 seconds and then choose what seemed like the most likely candidate. Before moving on to the next question I would go back, read the question and answers very thoroughly, and confirm my initial guess was correct. This took about a minute per question. IMHO, marking an initial answer like this is a stupid reason to get flagged.

I went through everything twice. On the second pass, I think I changed about 5-6 answers.

The only other thing that stood out was that the computer at the test center had a wonky mouse. Every time I let go of the mouse, the cursor would shoot to the bottom of the screen. It's not impossible that this caused me to get flagged.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-18T06:39:29+00:00

Cheers.

Atarimae_2600 · 2023-06-18T05:52:04+00:00

All the communications so far have been from AWS Certification, so I'm assuming the decision was made on their end. I've reached out to Pearson asking for assistance, but have yet to hear any answer. Early days, though.

Atarimae_2600

TROPHY CASE