Deja Vu, back in March I saw a Tweet about the beta Microsoft Certification Exam DP-300.
I work with Azure and Databases, so I thought to myself why not take an exam for a discounted price and see where my knowledge lies. Win Win, right!! The beta exam offers 80% discount on the exam fee. So I would be able to take a brand new exam and only pay $35 for a regularly priced $165 exam.
On April 9th, I logged in to the Pearson Vue website and scheduled my exam for May 28th. That gave me 50 days to study and review material for the exam.
My studies were not as focused for this exam as there was not a lot of online content for this exam. When I was preparing for the AZ-104, I found multiple study resources. Maybe since this was a more focused exam topic those same resources did not have material for the exam yet. So my plan for studying for the DP-300 exam was to just follow the objectives listed on the exam website by Microsoft.
The week of my exam was a hectic one. I contemplated rescheduling, but at that time the cutoff was May 31st for the beta exam window. Knowing this I buckled down and focused on my studies for the final days before the exam.
Exam day!! Just like my AZ-104 exam, I scheduled this exam for 10:00am on a Thursday morning. I setup for the online proctored exam. A couple weeks earlier I had gone through the preparation material sent by Pearson Vue to make sure my computer was compatible with the exam platform. Everything checked out and I felt I was good to go. My exam location was a chair in the middle of the room so the proctor could easily see I had no access to any outside material. I was upstairs in my office space and my wife and son were out of the house.
Logging in to the system 15 minutes early I noticed my laptop was acting sluggish. Just to be on the safe side I rebooted and then closed all extra applications as instructed. Following all the steps and verifying my identity and taking pictures of my testing space went smoothly. Once the proctor let me in to the exam, I read through all the initial instructions and proceeded to start the exam.
The first part of the exam was question based on case studies. These case studies give you a scenario that includes the current technical configuration, the desired configuration and any business or technical requirements that must be met. Once that section of the exam was completed it opened up in to the standard multiple choice section of the exam. This exam had a different type of question that I had seen before. It was a question that required multiple steps be followed. Then the answer section you were give a list of tasks and you had to choose how to accomplish the question and in what order the tasks must be completed. I thought that was a good type of question.
After 45 minutes I was done with all the questions and proceeded to submit the exam. Personally I am not much for reviewing questions as I tend to second guess myself, so I have always just stuck with my gut when taking exams. Due to this being a beta exam I was not going to get my results immediately as one normally would.
I was relieved to be done and think my study material was helpful and paid off in some lesser known areas for me.
Start the clock to wait for the results…
On August 11th, I received the e-mail from Pearson Vue. Only 75 days of waiting!!! 😒
And the anxiety sets in… I have been watching Twitter and asking people at Microsoft Learn about the status of the results and now they are here.
Logging in to the Microsoft Dashboard I found this information.
That is sooo crazy that I passed another exam. It feels good to get good news after focusing on something and accomplishing the end result you wanted. After only taking one certification exam in my 20 year career, here in 2020 I have taken and passed three. What a crazy year this has become on so many levels.
Bonus Content:
If you ever wanted to know the process Microsoft takes for building beta exams to going live to the public, take a look at this article from Microsoft. Creating High Quality Exams
If you found this blog handy, please use the Subscribe section at the top of the screen to join my newly created mailing list. I hope to start delivering content via the mailing list soon. 👆
