Summary: We show that the maximally supersymmetric \(pp\)-wave of IIB superstring and M-theories can be obtained as a Penrose limit of the supersymmetric \(\text{AdS} \times S\) solutions. In addition, we find that in a certain large tension limit, the geometry seen by a brane probe in an \(\text{AdS} \times S\) background is either Minkowski space or a maximally supersymmetric \(pp\)-wave.