AWS and PMP at Once: A 7-Day Study Plan That Splits the Load

Arjun Patel

Arjun Patel writes about tech certification prep methods from a self-study perspective. Bangalore-based · cert…

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Quick answer: Pick a main exam based on which date comes first, give it about 2 hours a day, and give the other exam about 1 hour. Study the harder subject in your sharpest hours and spend the end of the week on practice questions and a mistake log.↗ Share on X

You can balance AWS and PMP study in one week by giving each subject its own fixed time block every day, putting the harder subject in your sharpest hours, and spending the last two days on practice questions instead of new reading. A realistic split is about 2 hours a day on your main exam and 1 hour on the second one, for roughly 20 hours total. One week will not take you from zero to passing either exam. It is enough to make real progress on both without letting one stall while you chase the other.

Below is a day-by-day plan, how to decide which exam gets priority, and the mistakes that waste a study week.

First, which exam gets the bigger share of the week?

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Before you plan hours, answer one question: which exam date comes first? That exam is your main track. The other is your maintenance track, which means you study it just enough to keep it fresh.

Use this quick guide:

Why not split 50/50? Because both exams cover a lot of ground. Splitting evenly usually means neither gets deep enough. A 2-to-1 split keeps one moving fast and stops the other from going cold.

Why do AWS and PMP study well together?

They use your brain in different ways, and that helps.

• AWS study is technical. You learn services, what each one does, and when to choose one over another. A lot of it is matching a need to a service, such as "store files cheaply" or "run code without managing a server."
• PMP study is about judgment. Many questions describe a project situation and ask what a project manager should do next. The "right" answer follows the way PMI, the group that runs the exam, expects you to think.

Switching between them can feel like a break. After an hour of AWS services, a block of PMP situations uses different mental muscles. The trick is to switch at planned times, not every 15 minutes.

What does the one-week plan look like?

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This plan assumes PMP is the main track and the AWS exam is Cloud Practitioner or an associate-level exam. Swap the two if AWS is your main track. Times assume a working schedule: study before work and in the evening.

Saturday can go longer if you have the time. Sunday is light on purpose. You need one easier day to sort what you learned.

How do you split each day so the subjects do not blur together?

Here is a simple daily structure that works for many people with a full-time job:

1. Morning block (60 to 90 minutes): main track. Do your hardest reading or new material here, before work, when your head is clear.

2. Lunch break (15 to 20 minutes): flashcards. Use them for the maintenance track. AWS service names and PMP terms both fit well on cards.

3. Evening block (45 to 60 minutes): the other half. Practice questions for the main track, or new material for the maintenance track, following the table above.

Put a hard stop at the end of each block. Set a timer. When the timer ends, write one line about where you stopped, so you can restart fast the next day.

What should you actually study in each track?

Always start from the official exam outline. Both AWS and PMI publish one for free, and it lists every topic and how much it counts on the exam. Print it and check off topics as you cover them.

For PMP, focus your week on:

• People topics: leading a team, handling conflict, supporting team members. These show up a lot in situational questions.
• Process topics: managing scope, schedule, cost, risk, and changes.
• Agile and hybrid approaches. A large share of the exam involves agile or mixed ways of working, so do not study only traditional "waterfall" planning.
• The "what would a project manager do first" mindset. When you get a question wrong, write down why the right answer comes first.

For AWS, focus your week on:

• What the main services do: compute (for example, EC2 and Lambda), storage (S3), databases (RDS, DynamoDB), and networking (VPC).
• Security basics: who is responsible for what in the cloud, and how access control works through IAM, which stands for Identity and Access Management.
• Pricing basics: how you pay, and how to save money.
• For associate exams: designing systems that keep running when part of them fails, and choosing the cheapest design that still meets the need.

How do you use practice questions without burning through them?

Good practice questions are limited. Use them carefully.

1. Do not start with a full practice exam. You will see questions on topics you have not studied yet, and you waste them.

2. Do small sets first, 20 to 30 questions on topics you just covered.

3. Review every answer, including the ones you got right by guessing. Mark guesses with a "?" so you can tell them apart.

4. Keep a mistake log. One line per wrong answer: topic, why you got it wrong, what the right reasoning is.

5. Save at least one full timed exam for the end of your study plan, not week one.

Your mistake log is the most valuable thing you will build this week. On Sunday, read it from top to bottom. Patterns jump out fast, such as "I keep missing risk questions" or "I mix up storage classes."

What mistakes wreck a one-week study plan?

• Switching subjects every time you get bored. Stick to the block. Boredom often means you are close to understanding something.
• Only reading, never testing. Reading feels productive, but practice questions show what you actually remember.
• Skipping sleep to study more. Memory depends on sleep. Cutting it makes the next day's study worth less.
• Studying both exams from the same notebook. Keep separate notes, or separate sections, so topics do not mix.
• Ignoring PMP eligibility and AWS booking details. PMP requires approved education hours and project experience before you can sit the exam. Check the current rules on the PMI website. For AWS, check the exam guide and booking options on the AWS Training and Certification site.

How do you know if one week was enough?

At the end of the week, check three numbers:

1. Topics covered on each official outline. Mark how many you have studied at least once.

2. Practice score on your main track. Look at the trend, not one result. If your score on new questions is going up, the plan is working.

3. Size of your mistake log by topic. The topics with the most entries are next week's priority.

If your main-track practice scores are still low, give that exam more hours next week, even 3 to 1. If the maintenance track is slipping, do not panic. Ten minutes of flashcards a day keeps most of it alive.

Your next step

Open both official exam outlines tonight. Write your two exam dates at the top of a page, pick your main track using the table above, and block next week's study times in your calendar as if they were meetings. Then start a simple mistake log in a spreadsheet with three columns: topic, what I got wrong, and the right reasoning. Your first entry comes from tomorrow's practice questions.

FAQ

Can I pass AWS and PMP after one week of study?

For most people, no. One week is enough to make solid progress on both exams, but each one usually needs several weeks of study. Use the week to build a routine and find your weak topics.

Should I split study time 50/50 between AWS and PMP?

Usually not. A 2-to-1 split works better: the exam with the closer date gets more time, and the other gets a smaller daily block so you do not forget it.

What should I study first for each exam?

Start from the free official exam outline for each one. For PMP, focus on people topics, process topics and agile approaches. For AWS, focus on core services, security basics and pricing.