Any of you take 2 MS exams in one day?

bas13

Hey I was wondering if any of you have taken two Microsoft exams in one day? I know they usually tell you to just take one at a time. I would think that you would get confused with some of the material if you mixed them together but I do have abou 8-10 hours of study time so I'm wondering if I should overload myself in one certification or try taking on two concurrently.

sprkymrk

I would do that with any of the CompTIA exams, as they are pretty straight forward in the Q&A format - they ask a question, present you with 4 or 5 choices, you pick the right one and move on to the next question.

Microsoft exams give me a headache from viewing a cheap testing center monitor for so long. Microsoft likes to present you with 5 paragraphs of information, some of it useless, then make you toggle back and forth between the question, the little picture/diagram, and the answers, none of which can easily be seen at a time without scrolling. By the time I am done with one of those exams, I need an hour to unwind before I can go back to work. Personally I wouldn't take 2 of these back-to-back, maybe others would.

bighornsheep

My question is...why would you want to write more than 1 exam a day?

jasonboche

I did 70-240. That was like 4 MS exams in one day.

Sitting more than 1 MS exam per day was a lot more common back in the NT4 MCSE days. Those exams were easier on the brain compared to today's standards. In addition, there were some exams that overlapped quite a bit in content. NT Server 4.0 and NT Server 4.0 in the Enterprise was a good example. Quite a few people sat both these exams on the same day. I chose not to but I did pass them within a week of each other.

Back in the 1998'ish timeframe, when I was very active on the Saluki MCSE mail list server, I remember at least one person who sat all 6 MS exams in one day start to finish to earn his MCSE certification. I wouldn't recommend that.

sthomas

bighornsheep wrote:

My question is...why would you want to write more than 1 exam a day?

The only reason I can think of is if the person has to travel a long distance to get to the test center. Or they are impatient and can't wait to finish the exams so they can be certified. I personally wouldn't take 2 MS exams in one day for the reasons sprkymrk mentioned.

sprkymrk

Come to think of it, I do recall hearing some people taking 70-271 and 70-272 back to back. I could understand that one I guess.

bighornsheep

sthomas wrote:

The only reason I can think of is if the person has to travel a long distance to get to the test center.

Good point......I live on a major street in the urban centre, and I work downtown, it's hard for me to imagine a far away testing center...there are so many in Toronto it's becoming like a net cafe trend.

kyrikaze

I am one of them !!
I took the last year, the 271 and 272 to get my MCDST certification.
I won't do the same mystake, but I had no choice, because my test center was only opened during the week and my boss don't accepted me to give 2 day off, so, I had to take 2 exam in one day off.

At the end of the day, I was out!! Not that the test was hard, but be sitting during one day, reading questions, answering them, be anxious, ......no thanks, not for me again.

sthomas

sprkymrk wrote:

Come to think of it, I do recall hearing some people taking 70-271 and 70-272 back to back. I could understand that one I guess.

I think someone on TechExams recently took 3 MS exams in 1 day if I am not mistaken. That person passed 2 of the 3 one was 290 unless I was dreaming that.....

jasonboche

sthomas wrote:

sprkymrk wrote:

Come to think of it, I do recall hearing some people taking 70-271 and 70-272 back to back. I could understand that one I guess.

I think someone on TechExams recently took 3 MS exams in 1 day if I am not mistaken. That person passed 2 of the 3 one was 290 unless I was dreaming that.....

290 is a pretty low score. He/she should have studied a little more. I think you can score over 300 just by getting your social security number right

blargoe

I took both A+ exams in a day but I don't recall doing that for any MS exams. I have considered it though.

Slowhand

blargoe wrote:

I took both A+ exams in a day but I don't recall doing that for any MS exams. I have considered it though.

Yup, I did the same thing. I got sent out by my employer at the time to take the exams, and they'd scheduled me to sit the hardware exam in the morning and the software exam in the afternoon. It wasn't too tough, a lot less stressful than being at work. However, for the same reasons mentioned before, I don't think I could sit through more than one Microsoft (or Cisco) exam in a single day. The questions can get long-winded, and sometimes it feels like one exam drags on forever. I remember almost giving five or six answers completely wrong on the 70-291 exam because I was burned out towards the end, and I started clicking on the wrong radio-buttons by mistake. Good thing they let me review my answers before submitting the test.

royal

Personally, I think it's okay to take 2 exams in one day under certain conditions. For example, if the exams are directly related and you are studying for both at the same time. For example, A+ and Network+. Another example is 70-284 and 70-285; which I wish I did. There are no books for 70-285, so the most you can do is read 70-284 books to prepare as well as read online guides/technet/Microsoft support/etc. As for taking multiple MCTS exams such as the MCTS for Exchange 2007 in one day, I'm not too sure about that. The reason being, is I'm unsure if they plan on releasing separate books for all 3 Exchange 2007 exams. I am also unaware of the differences between 3 exams and how close the material is related to each other. Another 2 exams I think that can be taken together is 70-298 and 70-299; another regret I have. My company required me to do 70-297 due to the fact that we do a lot of Active Directory designs. I've heard that people have used the 70-299 book to pass 70-298, which means I could have probably done both exams at the same time. It's ok though, I don't mind going over a book for 70-298 as it will help get concepts/details back into my mind that I might have forgotten.

SRTMCSE

I took 70-271 and 272 back to back (literally 5 minute wait) a week after MCDST came out. Was real easy b/c I worked in a testing center and I just had the proctor schedule me after I figured it was so easy. The test was easy b/c I had just finished my MCSE 2 weeks prior so a lot of info was so fresh.

famosbrown

royal wrote:

Personally, I think it's okay to take 2 exams in one day under certain conditions. For example, if the exams are directly related and you are studying for both at the same time. For example, A+ and Network+. Another example is 70-284 and 70-285; which I wish I did. There are no books for 70-285, so the most you can do is read 70-284 books to prepare as well as read online guides/technet/Microsoft support/etc. As for taking multiple MCTS exams such as the MCTS for Exchange 2007 in one day, I'm not too sure about that. The reason being, is I'm unsure if they plan on releasing separate books for all 3 Exchange 2007 exams. I am also unaware of the differences between 3 exams and how close the material is related to each other. Another 2 exams I think that can be taken together is 70-298 and 70-299; another regret I have. My company required me to do 70-297 due to the fact that we do a lot of Active Directory designs. I've heard that people have used the 70-299 book to pass 70-298, which means I could have probably done both exams at the same time. It's ok though, I don't mind going over a book for 70-298 as it will help get concepts/details back into my mind that I might have forgotten.

I have a 70-285 book from a class that I'm taking soon. It is MOC 2008A Designing and Planning a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Organization. If you could get your hands on that MOC book, it might help out.

emereb

Yes, i took 290, 622 and 291 on the same day

Only passed the first two...

TechJunky

I took the MCDST series the same day.

wedge1988

Its all well and good taking as many exams as you can but can you remember what you need to carry it out in the field? I did my MS office 2000 exams (All 6) in a month, that was hard for me (everybody learns differently) but ive been using office all the way back to the start of office 97. I wouldnt reccommend it to be honest, its a waste of money and effort!

Illusionking

I've done two exams in a week, I probably could have done them in the same day but it's hard for me to get that much time with net job and C++ courses.

I also had an 8 week training course for 70-270 and another 8 week course for 70-291 at my community college.

In addition to that I had done a bit of studying using the In a nutshell and MS Press books.

So if you have the time and are studied up on it, I don't see why you can't do it!

Just make sure to grab a white mocha chai latte with a quad shot espresso between tests and you're golden.

blargoe

I took both Exchange 2003 exams in the same day recently. I did pass, but I wouldn't normally recommend it. I just happened to be under a time constraint and was prepared for both so I took them.

wpj

funny I come accross this post, I guess i took a bit of a beak I have not wrote anything since 2001 when i did the beta of the mcsa managing exam on the first day it was out. to much going on in life i guess.

Well my wife kicked me in the ass so int he last little while I have done a few in the past few weeks

70-121, 70-123 - nov 7 2007
70-282, nov 21 2007 however just missed 70-292 and 70-296
70-296, nov 22
70-292, 70-237, 70-620 dec 11, 2007
70-238, 70-622, dec 17, just missed 70-236
70-284 (4th for the day), dev 18, also took beta of 71-640, 71-642, 71-643, 71-401
and 4 more on 27th, and 1 on 2nd jan

have to see when I can schedual a few more as well......

famosbrown

I've only done this for CompTIA exams...

Marphyre

Wow wpj, that's a lot of testing...I think I'd be mush by Christmas.

I did take 70-293 and 70-294 in the same day, they weren't quite as similar to each other as I expected, but I still passed both of them. I had considered doing 70-285 and 70-297 in the same day just to get them over with (testing center is an hour away since MS dropped Pearson ), but after taking 285 I'm glad I didn't.

wpj

well here it goes for more multi exam days

on the 24th, my wife gave me an early gift a few hours to go write.

70-236, 70-285 that completed my MCST:Exchange, MCTIP:Exchange, MCSE+M:2000/2003

and then today I had a few booked Dec 27th, but i re arranged them last ngiht.

Today Dec 27th I got 70-298, 70-299 and 70-350 yes that complete MCSE+S:2000/2003 and MCSA+S:2000/2003

I just missed 70-624 my 1 question, dang command line switches, argh!!!

wel thats it for this year, I will get crackign again in the new year!!!!

engoy evreyone!!

Claymoore

Back in '99 I took IIS 4 and Networking Essentials to complete my NT4 MCSE with just a smoke break in between. But Networking Essentials wasn't exactly a challenge - it was adaptive, so the entire test (including the survey at the beginning) took me 12 minutes.

I felt I was being aggressive with my 2003 schedule by taking a couple of exams a week apart. I went through all 6 exams in 2 months, which is about as fast as I could do it and still have some kind of life.

wpj

aww yes the days of adaptive exams, I miss those.....

wpj

just anohter update......

Today Jan 3rd, 2007

70-624 - BDD - Pass
70-649 - MCSE 2003 to 2008 - Pass
70-557 - ForeFtront - Pass
70-431 - SQL Config - Pass

in at 8 out by 2 thats 6 hours includes my lunch break.

eltoro

amazing!

94jedi

wpj wrote:

just anohter update......

Today Jan 3rd, 2007

70-624 - DBB - Pass
70-649 - MCSE 2003 to 2008 - Pass
70-557 - ForeFtront - Pass
70-431 - SQL Config - Pass

in at 8 out by 2 thats 6 hours includes my lunch break.

dude you're a monster. I wish I had that kind of fortitude. I too hadn't tested in years so my wife also kicked me in the arse. funny how that happens isn't it?

newbiext

wpj wrote:

just anohter update......

Today Jan 3rd, 2007

70-624 - DBB - Pass
70-649 - MCSE 2003 to 2008 - Pass
70-557 - ForeFtront - Pass
70-431 - SQL Config - Pass

in at 8 out by 2 thats 6 hours includes my lunch break.

sir i sit at your feet and take notes...watiing for scraps of your fortitude to fall

wpj

Guys, thanks for the pat on the back....you can do it as well, it just takes time, breaks, food and coffee/coke...smiles.


Just got back from the site ...

today Jan 10th,

70-443 - Design Database Server Infrastructure - PASS
70-443 - Optimizing and Maintaining Database Administration - PASS
71-625 - Vista:HomeTheater Tech - Beta
71-646 - PRO: Windows Server 2008: Server Administrator - Beta
71-647 - PRO: Windows Server 2008: Enterprise Administrator - Beta

I only have SharePoint, CMR and RMS to do and I'm done.

well at leaset until I do my Juniper, HP and Cisco in the summer.

enjoy!