Best preparation for Microsoft Certifications — How I passed 4 exams without preparing.
The popularity of Microsoft Certifications is on the rise. Especially since the change of the exams format from Technology Based to Role Based exams.
I have always wondered what my first Medium Story would be. One time, i thought to write about being awarded by Microsoft as an MVP for Data Platform, but I could not bring my self to create any content on that.
But i am glad to write about something that can be beneficial to many. Microsoft Certifications! How exactly should you prepare for it?
First, i should tell you a little about the exams.
About Microsoft Certification Exams
Microsoft has several exams covering the different aspects of their technical service offerings. Anyone can schedule an exam from the certification page here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/.
The exams are usually scenario based, can be very simple and tricky, moderate difficulty and tricky, or difficult and tricky. Only one thing is certain, the exams are tricky.
What ever the case, one can not be absolutely sure of passing because of the scoring criteria and algorithms.
When you are faced with a simple exam type, you’ll be required to pass more of the questions. So you may feel good about yourself and still fail the exam.
Likewise, if you get a difficult exam type, you may not be required to pass so many of your questions. In this case, you may feel bad about yourself and still get a passing score.
Before the exams are released, there is an exam board, comprising subject matter experts, who review the questions and determine the difficulty levels for each question. This explains why at first, the exam is released as BETA (Testing) before it is generally available.
The exams is graded on a scale of 1,000 with a passing score of 700.
Preparation Options.
Many people use different approaches to prepare for the exams. There are legal means and illegal means: The legal means are: Going through the technical documentation of the product; enrolling for courses targeted at the certification (Could be on Edx.org or pluralsight.com or any other physical or online class); going through the certification learning path on Microsoft Learn(usually included on the exam details page); purchasing Microsoft Official Test Kits.
Then there is the illegal means where one can purchase what is termed “Exam Dumps” from various online sites. The dumps are usually prepared by bodies who have been able to, may be sit an exam many times to gather as many questions as possible from the different exam types they come across. They put all the questions together and provide suggested solutions.
Interestingly, even though these exam dumps are illegal because they violate Microsoft Exam Policies, there are still “fake dumps”. That is, dumps that are not real exam questions.
How I have passed 4 exams without (elaborate) preparation.
So far, I have written 4 Microsoft Exams without going through the legal or illegal means i listed above. I simply relied on a different legal approach. Practice Hours!!!.
I have gone into 4 exams with high confidence. Every time I had set out to write these exams, I checked out the skills measured on the exams page. I have been very lucky to have enough experience covering the skills measured in each of my 4 exams. And I had always scheduled my exam for the next available date. In fact, for 3 out of the 4, I scheduled for the next day and passed.
I feel passing this way is a loot better than rushing through some materials or buying exam dumps.
Certificates are meant to back up existing skills, but relying solely on learning content without actual practice hours is like backing up non existent skills.
If you are thinking of taking a Microsoft Exam, then you should think about:
- Checking the skills measured for your exam.
- Getting trained by any legal means to cover all areas of skills measured
- Practice till you are very comfortable with most of the skills areas.
If you do this, your chances of passing is a lot higher, and you’ll be proud and confident in the end.
In my next post, i’ll share further tips on ways to guarantee Microsoft exams success.
Until then, STAY MOTIVATED! Happy Learning.
