Passing Goethe Institut's A1 Exam without Taking a Course

The A1 level is pretty much the lowest level of German exams you could take at Goethe Institut. There are: A1 and A2 (for beginners), B1 and B2 (intermediate), C1 and C2 (advanced).
You can learn more about the level structuring here.

If you're going to apply for a national visa for marriage or for au pair work, you're required to pass the A1 exam.
You can read more about the A1 level exam here.

It might be daunting to discover that you are required to pass an official exam, especially if you never took German lessons before. However, after passing the A1 exam, I can see why they require it - it's really helpful to have some basic German knowledge if you are going to move there. It will definitely make your life there much easier if you already have some basic knowledge of the language before you take the plunge.

I went straight to the Goethe website and discovered that the A1 course is divided into 3 terms (A1.1, A1.2, A1.3), each term lasts for 10 weeks. That means I'd have to attend the course for 30 weeks to complete the whole A1 level.

I don't have the time, budget nor the patience to wait that long. I decided that I'd just go for it. Instead of enrolling myself into the course, I set my mind to directly take the next available A1 exam.

It is not easy, but it's not impossible. Here are some tips that will certainly help you pass the A1 exam if you, like me, don't have the time or the budget to attend a course:

1. Do ALL of the practice materials they provide on their website [here]. The actual exam will be very similar to these practice materials; same format, same level of difficulty. So if you go over these practice materials well, you'll have a good chance to pass the actual exam.
2. Make use of Goethe's public library. They have a whole section of books on the A1 exam, with tips and model tests you can do independently. The model tests from these books are pretty spot on, just like the practice materials on their website. They even come with CDs containing all the listening practice materials. You are free to use these books. You'd only need a membership if you'd like to borrow some to take home, and the membership doesn't even cost that much. These are really helpful so please make use of them.
3. Use Duolingo regularly. It is a free language learning app which is more like a game, so you can easily 'play' it during your spare time - while commuting or waiting in line. They don't teach you much grammar, but I find it really helpful in building my vocabulary. Try to complete the German tree (meaning: you've done all the available German lessons) before taking the A1 exam. They teach most basic words you'll need to know to obtain an A1-level German knowledge.
4. Another free app that really helps me is Memrise. Just like Duolingo, they make it feel more like a game and you can do it anytime you have a little spare time. You can of course set your own goal and learn much more extensively; your learning pace is entirely up to you. Their official A1 German lesson is no longer available on the lesson list, but here is a direct link to it: A1 German. I was only about 75% done with the lesson when I took my A1 exam.
5. It would be ideal to have a native speaker to help you especially with the speaking part. Duolingo and Memrise do help you with listening, by getting you used to hearing German words being spoken - but a native speaker can help you interactively. They can listen to your speaking and correct you when you are wrong. My German (then) fiancé helped me construct sentences for the speaking part of the exam, and corrected my pronunciation tirelessly. He also helped me with the writing part, where you have to write a letter. He corrected the letters I wrote for practice and even gave me examples of basic letter formats. We spent hours practising for the question and answer section of the speaking part of the exam.

In the end, without taking any course, I managed to pass the test with 93/100 (sehr gut). If I can do it, you can do it too!