Can, and should, Microsoft demand recertification for existing credentials?

January 26, 2012 at 3:16 pm | Posted in Microsoft, Certification Paths | Leave a comment
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A recent article posted to our LinkedIn group has spurred a lot of healthy discussion around the water cooler lately. If you want to catch up on the discussion, click over to the Transcender IT Certification Prep Forum on LinkedIn. If you’re a LinkedIn member, you can check out the comments here:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=143538&goback=%2Egmp_143538%2Egde_143538_member_87995007

The premise of the discussion is centered around this language, which is found in a few Study Objectives pages for the Windows Azure certification exam on Microsoft Learning:

The legacy Microsoft certifications, such as Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA), currently do not expire, but some may no longer be awarded because all exams are retired or because Microsoft has ended extended support for the technology. In most cases, individuals who hold the certification on the previous version of the technology can earn the certification on the next version of the technology with one upgrade exam.

To maintain the relevance and value of our certifications and ensure that candidates possess up-to-date skills on technologies that are constantly changing, recertification may be necessary for some certifications. In these cases, the certification will remain valid as long as the candidate continues to recertify at appropriate intervals.

Regarding this, Ed Tittel kicked off the discussion with an article on TechTarget, in which he writes,

I’ve also heard that cloud-related credentials — not just MCPD, but also Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) and Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) — may fall under a similar regime in 2012. I didn’t completely understand what was involved in this recertification maneuver until I saw a Nov. 10, 2011, press release that features a Q&A session with Don Field, senior director of certification and learning at Microsoft’s learning division…

With some kind of cloud connection and capability planned for both the desktop and server versions of Windows 8, I believe it’s possible that the MCTS, MCITP and MCPD credentials may also acquire recertification periods.

Robin Abernathy (Transcender’s CompTIA and PMI developer) responds,

It’s interesting to see Microsoft make this move. CompTIA now requires A+-, Network+-, and Security+-certified individuals to earn continuing education units (CEUs) to maintain their certification with CompTIA. These three main certifications have a three-year expiration date if a candidate does not complete the required number of CEUs within that time.

Josh Hester rebutted with,

 I doubt this will happen to the degree of Cisco or CompTIA certification. Most Microsoft certifications have built-in technology specifications. Windows 2008 Server and Microsoft .NET 4.0 is only good as long as those technologies are in use. The exceptions would be R2 updates and PRO exams that do not specify a specific technology like Azure and Windows Phone development.

Interested in joining our discussion? Open your LinkedIn account (it’s free) and visit the Transcender IT Certification Prep Team forum. Or post your comments to our blog.

–blogmistress Ann

What’s new in Exchange 2010 with the latest Service Packs?

January 20, 2012 at 4:26 pm | Posted in Microsoft, Technical Tips | Leave a comment
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Although it hasn’t been too long since Exchange 2010 SP1 was rolled out, Exchange 2010 SP2 was recently released. When reviewing the changes between service packs, you need to remember that changes are cumulative, and features introduced in SP1 will be rolled into SP2. I’ve prepared an overview of the enhancements featured in both service packs that you might find the most helpful in your daily work or in preparing for an exam.

We live our lives under the microscope. As an Exchange administrator, you will need to track changes made for regulatory compliance. Exchange 2010 SP1 allowed enhanced auditing ability. Audit logs are accessed using the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) Auditing Reports page or the Search-AdminAuditLog or New-AdminAuditLogSearch cmdlets. The new audit abilities of the Exchange service packs allow you to discover who logged into a mailbox and what actions were taken there. You can now track mailbox access by mailbox owners, delegates, and administrators, check whether a message was moved or deleted, and discover whether, when, and how a mailbox folder or message was accessed.

If you had to place a litigation hold on a mailbox, you could not remove the mailbox or disable the mailbox while the mailbox has a litigation hold. However, SP2 now allows you to bypass this restriction by using the IgnoreLegalHold switch parameter when removing or disabling the mailbox with the Disable-Mailbox or Remove-Mailbox cmdlets.

There are several enhancements to your ability to track messages with the latest Exchange 2010 service pack. There are new event log entries, alerts, and performance monitor alerts that can be used to monitor and troubleshoot message tracking. You can get logs of every operation that was executed by a Client Access server processing a delivery report request to ensure detailed tracking.

You can use the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) to manage Exchange ActiveSync devices. You can use the ECP to allow or block a specific mobile phone or device for a specific user. You can set up alerts when a mobile device is quarantined.

With SP2, a mini version of Outlook Web App has been rolled into the interface. It was designed to work with a mobile operating system so that users can perform most e-mail actions from a mobile device, and relies on Basic authentication. To access the mini version of Outlook Web App, append /oma to your Outlook Web App URL. For example, if your Outlook Web App URL is https://mail.nutex.com, the URL for the mini version of Outlook Web App would be something like https://mail.nutex.com/owa/oma.

You now have wizards to help streamline the process of configuring a hybrid deployment between an on-premises organization and Office 365 Exchange organization. The new Hybrid Configuration Wizard creates the foundation for the hybrid deployment. The Manage Hybrid Configuration wizard configures your Exchange organization for the hybrid deployment.

You should review the permission enhancements rolled out with Exchange 2010 SP1. With the new enhancements, you can limit which databases certain administrators can manage and control via database scopes. Unfortunately, this feature is not backwards compatible to Exchange 2010 RTM. Database scopes cannot be viewed, modified or deleted from Exchange 2010 RTM servers.

Exchange administrators and Active Directory administrators have separate duties. Exchange administrators should not have permissions for Active Directory, and Active Directory administrators should not have permissions for Exchange. The default model of Exchange 2010 uses the shared permissions model, which does not separate the management of Exchange and Active Directory objects within the Exchange management tools. Starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 you can separate Exchange management and Active Directory management with the split permissions model. There are two ways to configure split permissions. You can have RBAC split permissions, which has the RBAC controlling who can create security principals in the Active Directory domain partition. You can also have Active Directory split permissions, which limits the creation of security principals in Active Directory (such as mailboxes and distribution groups) to Active Directory management tools; it cannot be performed using RBAC.

With Exchange SP1, Outlook 2007 and above clients could automatically map to any mailbox which the user had Full Access permissions. This was great, but if the user has Full Access permissions to a lot of mailboxes, performance issues could occur. Oops! With Exchange SP2, you can turn of the auto-mapping feature with the Automapping=False parameter of the Add-MailboxPermission cmdlet

If you had a damaged file on a virtual directory that caused an issue, you can now use the Reset Client Access Virtual Directory wizard in SP1 to reset the Client Access server virtual directory.

Several features added in SP1 and above address troubleshooting of mailbox issues. One of these is the New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet, which  detects and repairs mailbox and database corruption issues.

SP1 added some new scripts that can help you monitor and manage your Exchange environment. The Troubleshoot-DatabaseSpace.ps1 script is used to monitor mailbox database log size, and head off performance issues due to excessive growth. The StartDagServerMaintenance.ps1 script is used to take a DAG member out of service for maintenance. This script moves active databases off of the server and block databases from moving to that server. It moves all critical DAG support functionality on the DAG member that is out of service to another server and blocks the critical DAG support functionality from moving back to the server. The StopDagServerMaintenance.ps1 script reverses this action and restores DAG support functionality. CheckDatabaseRedundancy.ps1 checks the redundancy of replicated databases, and generate events if database resiliency is found to be in a compromised state.

For one-stop shopping on the Exchange 2010 Service Packs and other issues with Exchange, here are top-level resources:

The Exchange Team Blog’s: You had me at EHLO

What’s New in Exchange 2010 SP1

What’s New in Exchange 2010 SP2

Discontinued Features

Until next time,

—George Monsalvatge, who is not auditing your mailbox… yet

Transcender debuts our CompTIA A+ flash card app for tablets and smartphones

January 17, 2012 at 4:49 pm | Posted in CompTIA, Transcender news | Leave a comment
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We’ve released our first mobile app into the wild! The TranscenderFlash CompTIA A+ flash card app is now available through Amazon and the Android Market. (To download directly from your phone, type “transcender” in the Market search bar.)

Amazon: http://amzn.to/Af9KDB

Android Marketplace : http://bit.ly/z2KA46

You get the following features with our FREE app:

- Over twelve hundred questions covering all exam objectives
- Simple and intuitive flash card interface
- Easy self-grading
- Answer history tracking
- Post your success to Facebook

Once you open a flash card and test yourself on the answer, click to reveal the correct answer, then click to grade how accurately you responded. A correctly answered flash card is removed from your session so you can focus on trouble areas the next time you go through the question base. You can stop the review midway and resume where you left off, or begin a new study session to reset the question pool.

For now the app is only available through the Android Market, but we’ll be rolling out soon to Amazon and the Apple App Market as well. The app will be available for Web OS, Blackberry, and iPhone as well as Android tablets and smartphones.

Become an Oracle SQL Certified Expert

December 30, 2011 at 2:32 pm | Posted in Certification Paths, Oracle, Study hints | Leave a comment
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Have you taken a look at the Expert series of certifications that Oracle offers? Normally, the path to an  Expert certification is shorter than the path to OCA or OCP certification, sometimes as little as a single exam, but Expert certification requires a very in-depth knowledge of a particular area of Oracle technology.

If you are an Application Developer or a DBA who uses SQL extensively, you may want to consider the Oracle Database: SQL Certified Expert certification. The only requirement is to receive a passing grade (66% or higher) on Oracle’s certification exam 1Z0-047. However, before you jump to sign up, you need to be warned. This exam is not for your casual user of SQL. It requires an in-depth knowledge of SQL, including all of the enhancements made over recent years. Furthermore, this is one exam where Oracle University does not offer a course which maps almost perfectly to the exam.

The course “Oracle Database 11g: Introduction to SQL” or the equivalent knowledge would be a helpful resource, but you need to look closely at the topics covered. Here are my observations:

  • Be prepared to write joins using the new ANSI standards. You’ll also need to write single row, multiple row, and correlated subqueries.
  • All of the set operators are covered, as well as the new MERGE command and the multi-table INSERT command.
  • You should be well versed in index creation, and the various type of indexes, and more importantly when it’s appropriate to use each kind of index.
  • Understanding privileges, both object and system, as well as roles (both default and non-default) should be in your repetoire. You should also be prepared to answer questions dealing with transaction control, external tables, and the use of the Data Dictionary.
  • Constraints are hit hard, and the multidimensional report writing commands of ROLLUP, CUBE, and GROUPING are covered on the exam.
  • You should be able to deal with all the date and time functions, and provide global support to clients in different time zones.
  • The Oracle propietary commands to produce hierarchical tree-structured reports are definitely covered in the exam objectives.
  • And finally, be prepared to deal with regular expressions and pattern matching using the various REGEXP functions. Perl programming experience would come in handy here.

If you decide to take on this challenge, we have just finished upgrading the Transcender 1z0-047 exam prep practice test to 11g Release 2. This practice test will give you a good idea of what you are in for when you go to take the Oracle exam. Just like the live exam, the questions on the practice exam are challenging and really do require you to be a “SQL Expert”.

Good luck to all!

The Oracle Guy

What happened to my information super highway?

December 27, 2011 at 9:18 am | Posted in Transcender news | Leave a comment
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When I was a kid, the interstate that traveled through downtown Atlanta called the “connector” had only three lanes in each direction. The Department of Transportation (DOT) spent years expanding it. When I graduated college it had so many lanes that traffic was not going to be a problem. I moved away to Charlotte and came back a few years later. All the lanes that were added to the downtown connector did not matter. There were too many cars and not enough lanes. The same problem is happening with our wireless networks.

The Internet was called the informational super highway. This new highway could educate millions all you needed was modem. The modem went by the way side a long time ago because we needed more bandwidth for downloading and watching video. Now we can  surf the Internet with our wireless networks and those airwaves are getting very crowded. If you thought that the problem was caused by people looking a Piano cat videos on YouTube, think again. Now with the surge in smart phones and other mobile devices the crunch on Internet bandwidth is greater than ever before. Those cool iPhones consume 24 times as much data as traditional cell phones. Tablets like the iPad consume 122 times more data than a traditional cell phone. As more people use smart phones and tablets, there will be a 35 fold increase in mobile traffic. The experts say that we will run out of bandwidth in a few years. Can anything be done to stop this catastrophe?

The spectrum is getting thin. Spectrum is used to refer to public airwaves that radios, broadcast television and mobile phones use. These airwaves are overseen by the federal government. Since the public airwaves are getting thin, the Obama administration wants to double the space that serves broadcasters and cell phones in the next decade. Federal government use 18% of all bandwidth in the US exclusively and shares 52% of the US bandwidth with the private sector. 6% of the all bandwidth in the US is for TV broadcasters. The government would like to take back some of the bandwidth spectrum and auction it off and give the current spectrum holders a cut of the profits. The General Accounting Office said that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) the agency that oversees the 60+ federal agencies does not know which agencies are fully using or under utilizing their allocated bandwidth spectrum. It could take the government years to reallocate their bandwidth spectrum. Each of the 60+ agencies is probably not going give up their bandwidth spectrum allocation without a fight, because they may feel that they want to use that bandwidth one day. Some private companies such as TV broadcasters may have some of the bandwidth spectrum but are not fully using it. However, private companies are not going to want to hand back precious bandwidth spectrum to the government. This is America, no one wants to hand back to the government something so the government can re-allocated it out.

Once there was a world with plentiful and low cost bandwidth, those days are coming to an end. Several providers are moving to bandwidth caps on their service. AT&T recently imposed a 250GB data cap for users of its DSL service. What does this do to my Netflix account? Well if you want to watch a lot of HD movies in 1080p, you will probably hit that cap. AT&T will sell you additional bandwidth at a nice premium. This will take a bigger bite out of your wallet. Seven years ago, people who were illegally downloading stuff might reach that 250 GB cap. Now you could probably reach that cap while watching a lot of movies on Netflix. Yikes!

The law of supply and demand has kicked in. Now that bandwidth has become a precious commodity, the provider can ration it and charge more for it. Will the bandwidth run out? No, but it is going to cost you. Will the bandwidth crisis affect the economy? More than likely because it will limit communication and therefore limit growth. I hope that we will not see government campaigns for rationing.


I so love to look at dancing cat videos on my phone.

Microsoft Office 2010 (MOS): practice products for Core and Expert certifications

December 13, 2011 at 9:20 am | Posted in Microsoft, Transcender news | Leave a comment
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Transcender has partnered with G*Metrix, a technology testing provider, to offer you the Microsoft Office 2010 practice test products! Those who are familiar with our Office 2003 and Office XP products will find the same ease of grading and remediation text in the G*Metrix products. The Microsoft Word and Excel practice tests will also include a third pool of Transcender’s practice questions and corresponding explanations.

Users can choose from testing mode or training mode. 

In either mode, the format and appearance of the test engine mirrors a live exam. The task(s) to be solved for each item appear(s) at the bottom of the screen below a fully enabled version of the Office 2010 product being tested. In training mode only, users can click the question mark at the lower right-hand corner of the screen and pull up a full tutorial that explains each step of the action to take to complete the task.

The practice test application is available as a download that installs on your computer.  Because this simulates a live-in-the-application test, you must also have your own copy of Office 2010 installed to run the exam.  

For more information on passing your Office 2010 exams, check out our earlier blog posts:

http://transcender.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/taking-the-office-2010-exams-the-rolling-stone-gathers-the-mos/

http://transcender.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/office-2010-mos-study-tips-tricks/

Nickle-and-dime PDUs: convenient, cost-effective ways to earn certification credits

November 29, 2011 at 5:07 pm | Posted in PMI, Study hints, Vendor news | Leave a comment
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Editor’s note: Our guest blogger, PMP certification holder Colleen Reed, project manager for a Washington, D.C.-area information technology firm, shares her budget-busting method of acquiring PDUs.

My most excellent Project Manager Professional (PMP) certification comes with a requirement to take 60 continuing education credits of the PMI-approved sort, called professional development units (PDUs). I have three years from the receipt of my PMP to earn those 60 PDUs. There are many, MANY ways to earn credits, which the PMI helpfully lists here (http://www.pmi.org/Pages/Ten_Ways_to_Earn_PDUs.aspx). Some of these credit methods have limits; some do not.

My favorite method for earning my PDUs are those very inexpensive ($5) or free Web-broadcast seminars that account for between a half and two credits each. So far, I’ve nickle-n-dimed myself up about 10 credits worth of those classes.

My favorite class so far has been a Web-broadcast lecture on project risk management for the widening of the Panama Canal. It was hosted through the Washington, DC PMI chapter, and cost me $5 to “attend” online. That was an interesting political science and management lecture rolled into one convenient package. And it earned me 1.5 PDUs towards recertification. I also took some online webinar courses on Earned Value Management from Global Knowledge, which earned me a single PDU each.

Admittedly, this earning rate pales in comparison to, say, the 22 credits that I could earn for attending a three-day class of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But as a working professional, I find there are many advantages to these small-fry webinars:

  • The first one is convenience. I can “attend” a webinar from any location that has a computer and a connection, and sometimes I don’t even need to attend the presentation in real time.
  • The second advantage is targeted content. I can pick a class that covers a topic that I need, and earn PDU credit while also advancing my knowledge base.
  • The third advantage is what I consider my brain-full level. An hour of class time contains just about as much material as I want to absorb during my work day.
  • And the fourth advantage is, of course, cost. While my own company has a very generous training policy, many of us in the consulting business must arm-wrestle our companies for the time off to take courses, the money to take the classes, or both. These webinars are low-to-no cost, so might not be worth anyone’s time when it comes to fighting about money.

So, in short, using webinars to earn PDUs is a great idea. I get my PDUs when and where I want them, in bite-sized pieces, on topics that interest me, and no one is complaining about my training budget. To quote Stephen Covey, that’s a “win-win.”

Colleen Reed, PMP, SNVC L.C.
Program Manager, National Guard Bureau

Related blog posts:

Keep Your PMP Fresh With PDUs

Additional Oracle Exam Tips to Prevent Common Mistakes

November 23, 2011 at 1:33 pm | Posted in Oracle, Study hints, Technical Tips | 2 Comments
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One component of my job as the Oracle Content Developer at Kaplan/Transcender is to review the trouble tickets that we receive from customers using our practice exams. This gives me invaluable insight into “why” students sometimes choose the wrong answer 0n our practice test (and by extension the live exam), even when their technical knowledge of that subject matter is quite good.

I’d like to share with you two of the common errors, as well as strategies which hopefully will serve you well when taking an exam, so you can hopefully avoid these types of mistakes.

Error #1: Dating Yourself

One very common error involves the use of dates, especially when sorting. Remember that if a column in a table or a variable in a PL/SQL block of code is defined as DATE, that value internally stores all the detail to point to an exact second anywhere between 4712BC and 9999AD. Also, you can subtract dates, which creates a difference that has a datatype of NUMBER. That number will represent the number of days (and fractional parts of a day) between the two dates. Suppose your SELECT statement looks like this:

SQL> SELECT id, name, (sysdate – hiredate) AS SENIORITY FROM emp ORDER BY SENIORITY;

If you want this report sorted by seniority, with the person working at the company for the longest period of time to be first, is this the correct way to sort, or should you sort in descending order? Well, the difference between sysdate and hiredate will be the largest number when hiredate is the earliest date possible (since SYSDATE stays constant if you perform this operation for all employees at the same time). Since you want the person where that difference is the greatest to be first, you need to sort descending (DESC) on SENIORITY. Some people find this counter-intuitive, so be sure to think this through carefully on the exam.

Error #2: Evaluating NULL

The use of NULL can sometimes throw off a student who is well prepared for the exam. NULL can be assigned to a variable, in which case it means you don’t know the value of that variable. NULL can also be assigned to the truth value of an expression, in which case it means you don’t know whether the statement is TRUE or FALSE. If you remember NULL like this, things will make sense. Let’s try a few examples.

Evaluate the following:

a. x + 5 where x is 4.

The answer is 9.

b. X + 5, where x is NULL

Since I don’t know what x is, I can’t figure out x+5. Thus the answer for x + 5 is NULL (I don’t know)

c. 6 (x+2) / x * 7 – 3, where x is NULL.

If you don’t know x, you can’t figure this out. Thus the answer for this expression is I don’t know (NULL).

d. WHERE X + 2 > 10, where X is 5.

This is an expression which has a truth value. The choices are either TRUE, FALSE, or NULL. In this case, since x is 5, the expression becomes WHERE 5 + 2 > 10, which is false. The expression’s TRUTH VALUE is FALSE. If that WHERE clause was part of a SELECT statement, when Oracle was searching through the table and got to the row where x is 5, that row would not be displayed since only rows that evaluate to TRUE are displayed.

e. WHERE X + 2 > 10, where x is NULL.

This is also an expression which has a truth value. Since x is NULL, I can’t compute x + 2. Therefore, I can’t determine whether the statement x + 2 > 10 is TRUE or FALSE. Consequently, the TRUTH VALUE of this expression is NULL. If that WHERE clause was part of a SELECT statement, when Oracle was searching through the table and got to the row where x is NULL, that row would not be displayed since only rows that evaluate to TRUE are displayed.

f. WHERE x + 2 > 10 OR y + 3 = 10, where x is NULL (unknown) and y is 7.

This is an expression and consequently has a truth value. It is a compound expression separated by an OR. Since x is unknown, the value of x + 2 is also unknown. Since x + 2 is not known, we can’t tell whether the statement x + 2 > 10 is true or false. Therefore, it is NULL. For the second condition in the WHERE clause, since y is 7, then 7+ 3 is 10, and hence the second condition is TRUE. Therefore, the truth value is now NULL OR TRUE. Since the separator is OR, only one of the two conditions needs to be true to make the entire expression true.

To put this another way, if the first condition was TRUE, the overall expression would be TRUE. However, if the first condition was FALSE, the overall expression would still be TRUE. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what the truth value of the first part of the expression is, the result will still always be TRUE. So if the first part is NULL, the overall result will still be TRUE.

Just for fun, Evaluate these expressions to either TRUE, FALSE, or NULL. The answers are located at the bottom.
1. Condition A OR Condition B where Condition A is True and Condition B is False
2. Condition A OR Condition B where Condition A is False and Condition B is NULL
3. Condition A AND Condition B where Condition A is NULL and Condition B is TRUE
4. Condition A AND Condition B where Condition A is False and Condition B is NULL
5. NOT Condition A where Condition A is False
6. NOT Condition B where Condition B is NULL
7. Condition A OR Condition B where both Conditions are NULL
8. Condition A AND Condition B where both Conditions are NULL

Until next time,
Bob Bungenstock aka Orcltestguy

Answers 1. TRUE 2. FALSE 3. NULL 4. FALSE 5. TRUE 6. NULL 7. NULL 8. NULL

New from Sybex: Cisco Networking Essentials by Troy McMillan

November 22, 2011 at 5:08 pm | Posted in Cisco, Vendor news | Leave a comment
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Hot off the presses!

Sybex, the computer reference imprint of Wiley and Sons Publishing, has just released a new Cisco reference written by Troy McMillan, our primary Cisco practice test developer here at Transcender.

Although this guide could certainly be used by someone working toward their CCENT, CCNA, or even their Network+ certification,  Cisco Networking Essentials is not your typical “exam cram” book. In 400 pages, Troy presents a thorough overview of networking concepts in general, and their implementation with Cisco hardware in particular.  It’s designed to prepare the reader for certification-level classes and books. The target audience is career changers, self-study students, and students who need more in-depth explanations than are provided by boot camps and exam-cram courses.

 Because boot camps and short courses must present a huge amount of material in a short period of time, students may not have time to absorb fundamental concepts in depth. This book fills in those gaps and is an invaluable reference for people currently working the field or trying to change over into networking.

They’re back: the return of the developer exam case study

November 16, 2011 at 5:19 pm | Posted in Microsoft, Study hints | Leave a comment
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As I first noted in a blog post early last year,  70-519 (Pro: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using .NET Framework 4) heralded the case study’s triumphant return to developer exams. Before you open our practice test and lapse into drop-jaw silence, or (worse still) enter a catatonic fugue state during the live exam, I thought it worthwhile to prepare you once again:

THEY’RE BACK!

Although the case study has been the mainstay of many Microsoft administrator exams, the last developer exam with case studies was from the retired MCSD track: 70-300: Analyzing Requirements and Defining Microsoft .NET Solution Architectures. Developers seeking certification have been spared the case study for almost eight years (which is a century in technology years). So it’s understandable that we’re all a bit rusty, and those more nervous test-takers are forgiven for their premature hyperventilation.

But it’s really not that bad. As a matter of fact, this format will drastically reduce the length of many questions. Rather than having to parse a detailed scenario for each question, you will be presented one slightly longer scenario with a series of 6 to 12 brief questions based on it. At first a case study may seem intimidating, but because it is divided into sections and is referenced by multiple questions, the mental swap-space is greatly reduced.

The Transcender blog already has posts on case studies (here and  here), so I won’t repeat those details here. But I will add my own two test-taking tips:

  • Skim Only.  That’s right. Reading a case study is lot like gorging on eggnog and then wondering why you feel so bloated. Case studies are not intended to be read; they are meant to be referenced to as you answer a question. Just as you don’t read the dictionary from beginning to end, but rather flip straight to the section you need, you should read the case study’s overview, skim over each section, and jot down any details that stick out. You should  come back to read a sub-section fully after you read the associated question(s). Many case studies contain lines or even paragraphs of extraneous detail that you don’t need to know to answer the question. If you skim, you’ll have a better chance of answering every question in the case study rather than running out of time before you get to the last two.
  • Need for Speed. Each case study is a separate testlet with its own time limit. Once that time expires, you will be forced to move onto the next portion of the test. Thus, answer all questions first with your knee-jerk responses, and then go back through them again more carefully. Sometimes, after skimming the case study, I just answer all questions based upon my memory (no more than a minute per question), then go back to each question and re-read the pertinent section of the case study to confirm I selected the best answer.

On some older Microsoft exams, I felt the case study itself was just window dressing; I found I could often answer the case study’s questions on their own merits.  These days, there are so many Web technologies that the best approach to a given problem depends heavily on  the specific requirements of a scenario.  Those manifold details about existing infrastructure, business requirements, technical requirements, and the size of the user base become key to selecting the best approach.  After all, real-life development never occurs in a vacuum, but within specific business processes and structures. The case study serves to focus on specific best practices and available technologies. As such, I actually welcome its return to Microsoft developer tests.

–Josh Hester

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