Exam Order

I have been interrogating Google about this, but I cannot seem to find an answer. I have seen posts indicating that you can take the MCSA exams out of order (i.e., 412 before 411), but is the same true of MCSE-level exams? Of course, you do not get the title of either MCSA or MCSE until you have passed all of the required exams, but can you take the exams out of order?

For example, say I wanted to (eventually) achieve MCSE: Messaging. Could I take the exams in this order?

* 70-410
* 70-412
* 70-341
* 70-411
* 70-342

I have passed 410 and have been studying for 411 (focusing on AD, GP, DNS, and core network protocols), but several of the topics covered are not particularly relevant to the projects we are working on at the moment (i.e., failover clustering, DHCP failover, etc.). I am fairly comfortable with at least half of the topics, but I have no reason (other than the backward exam objective) to study the deprecated NAP, and we simply do not use WDS (customers never get more than one or two computers at a time), WSUS (useful, but we deploy an alternative), MS VPN (firewall is preferred), etc.

My employer is more concerned with us having the knowledge and the skills to perform billable work than anything else. So, that being said, I am pursuing Microsoft certification, but I would like to direct my training efforts (and limited time!) towards what will most immediately benefit my on-the-job performance.

Is anyone here taking the exams out of order?

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Comments

lsud00d

To answer your direct question--

Yes, you can take the exams out of order.

I understand what you're saying about relevancy but the exams are formatted for coherency/progression and are scoped to be a stepping-stone path.

Koroviev

lsud00d wrote: »

To answer your direct question--

Yes, you can take the exams out of order.

I understand what you're saying about relevancy but the exams are formatted for coherency/progression and are scoped to be a stepping-stone path.

Like I said, I have studied many of the 411 objectives (DNS, AD, DNS, GP, DNS, etc.), but I do not know if I am at the point where I have covered enough to pass the corresponding exam. I was fine covering just about everything for 410, but I am finding it considerably more difficult to focus my attention on technology that I will not use in production for the foreseeable future. I did not realize that it was possible to take the exams out of order, but it would be beneficial for me to focus time and attention on the technologies that we are implementing, and then just take the certification exam.