AWS Certification SME program helps AWS Certification team, develop the certification exams. It’s a complicated process which as many steps, but I won’t get into now. However, I have now done two workshops on two different steps, one an item writing workshop back in November and now a Standard setting workshop.
The most interesting aspect is fellow partitioners create the exams with certifications, there are people to facilitate, validate and review the information.
The questions are designed to have you apply AWS experience and knowledge of situations. Someone asked if labs would be a replacement, maybe running thru a hundred labs would be the equivalent of real-world experience.
Doing the course, reading all the FAQs and whitepapers and watching all the 400 reinvent videos would be the minimum.