Test Results

Well, halfway through the test, I was trying to figure out how I was going to retake it before Jan 31. I did not feel confident at all. The questions were very different from the Transcender practice test. That is nothing against Transcender, I didn't take time to prepare well for this, so I only went through 2 of the 5 practice tests.

I got to the end and clicked the End Test button and instead of the "You failed, loser!" message I expected, I got a "Congratulations! You passed." message. I scored a big 792. My other two tests, I scored above 800, so I didn't do as well as I would have wanted, but a Pass is a Pass. So I am now an official MCAD. My next goal: MCPD.

Final Test on Wednesday

I am taking my final test Wednesday to finish my MCAD. The company I work for needs me to finish this so we can keep our MSFT Gold Partnership. Nothing like a little pressure.

A cool thing I just found in my inbox. MSFT is offering free beta tests for their MCAD/MCSD upgrade tests to the new MCPD certification programs. So if I pass this test Wednesday, I can take another upgrade exam for free and have the new MCPD certification. I don't think the upgrade exam would be too difficult since I've been working with .Net 2.0 since Beta 1.

Time Stand Still

I love deadlines, I love the sound they make as they go whooshing by. There's no way I will be ready on Dec 9 for my Web Services test. I am going to try for Dec 16, but I've got a ton of work to do in the next two weeks.

What's Going On

Work has been busy, so I haven't studied at all. I'm going to study over the Thanksgiving holiday and, depending on how that goes, consider scheduling my test for next Friday. If not, then I will do it on the 9th as originally planned.

Nothing At All

It's exactly what I'm studying right now. I'm taking a few days off from certification studying. I have one more test to take by the end of the year (70-320 - Developing XML Web Services and Server Components). I'm not going to schedule it just yet, but I'm aiming at taking it Dec 9. That gives me 3 weeks to study. Based on my study habits for the last two, that's plenty of time.

Listening: As I Am - Dream Theater

For What It's Worth

Since I posted the scoring breakdown on my 70-315 exam, I thought I would go back and do the same for 70-229.

Developing a Logincal Data Model: 100%
Implementing the Physical Database: 75%
Retrieving and Modifying Data: 90%
Programming Business Logic: 90%
Tuning and Optimizing: 90%
Designing a Database Security Plan: 90%

And Fools Shine On

I just completed my Web Apps in C# test (70-315) and scored 829. 2 down, 1 to go (for MCAD).

My scoring breakdown by section is below.

Creating User Services: 80%
Creating and Managing Components and .NET Assemblies: 90%
Consuming and Manipulating Data: 80%
Testing and Debugging: 100% (it's no wonder I scored well on this, I do a LOT of debugging)
Deploying a Web Application: 100% (I studied this section pretty hard because it was a weak area when I started)
Maintaining and Supporting a Web Application: 40% (In other words, you don't want to hire me to maintain and support your web app)
Configuring and Securing a Web Application: 90%

My advice to those who are considering taking any of the MSFT certification exams. Buy practice test software! I'm using Transcender, but I've heard good things about Self Test Software also. For this test, I barely used the books (MSFT Self Paced Training and Exam Cram). I took practice tests and read the explanations for the ones I missed.

I've got the world on a string

I took a full blown practice run last night and scored 86%. 4 out of 7 topics I nailed with 100%. Deployment is my worst area w/ 50%. Tonight I'm studying Deployment and taking another practice run. Then tomorrow morning, I'll do that final practice test, review my Exam Cram cheat sheet and take the test at 9:00am.