This week I became officially MCSA Windows Server 2012 certified after passing the certification test. It certainly wasn’t easy. Back in March I started going through an uCertify MCSA course and the current CBT Nuggets course and then in October, I read through Microsoft's exam reference guide once. uCertify labs really helped me to prepare thoroughly for the exam.
My opinions about the exam:
As you know, when you take an exam you are under a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) so I won't talk or answer questions about the questions in the exam, however, I can say this:
- The exam is in 3 parts (one for every exam that you usually need for your MCSA 2012) and you have 20-20-21 questions. You do them one section at a time, and once you finish a section, you cannot go back to review or change the answers.
- In a question on the exam, they refer to “Windows Server 8” instead of “Windows Server 2012” (I actually made a comment about that at the exam review at the end )
- Your final score is the lowest score of the 3 sections, so if you score 900-900-680, you fail the exam at 680.
- The exam software doesn’t warn you that you didn’t read the full question anymore. Before, when you made an answer, and lets say you didn’t read the last 1-2 lines of the question, you had a popup warning you.
- Lately, Microsoft has been pushing a lot towards PowerShell, and in ALL the new products certifications you need to know about PowerShell. I don’t know how many PowerShell questions you will have in your exam, but if you don’t know PowerShell, you won’t pass for sure!.
- The graphics on the new exam are a lot better!
