70-536: Scoring?

tjcasser

Good morning. This might be a somewhat stupid question, but... I did search first to see if I couldn't find the answer before this point.

I'm scheduled to take the 70-536 exam a week from tomorrow, and have been preparing for this for a few months now. (I've been dragging my feet.) I'm more accustomed to the Sun Java exams, where passing is expressed as a percentage rather than some seemingly arbitrary score. I do understand that there are 45 questions on the exam, and that passing is "700"... but what I'm wondering is, how is the score calculated? Basically, how many of those 45 questions do I have to get right to pass?

And, as a side note... how hard, relatively, is this exam actually?

Thanks!

Webmaster

Hi and welcome on board

You need roughly 32 questions correct 'if' all questions are scored equally and 'if' you start with 0 points. Microsoft doesn't disclose such details.

I can't answer the second question but you may be able to get an idea if you'd go over some of the post of other members in this forum who passed.

Good luck!

rockrichard

Hi there,
I don't think you need to worry too much about it. Microsoft exams are relatively easy comparing with sun exams. the questions are mostly straight forward. sun exams are 10 times tricker.
but MS exams cover broader scope.
Cheers,
Richard

tjcasser

Well, I worry anyway. It's in my nature.

I appreciate the answers from both of you - I'll let y'all know how I do after I take it next Friday.

rockrichard

Good luck, mate.

tjcasser

To answer the second question I posed - not as hard at all as I had thought.

The funny thing is that I spent most of the last two days worrying about how poorly I was doing on the sample tests that came with the book. (I was averaging high sixties to low seventies.) So, I did admittedly concentrate the last few days on the portions that I was having trouble with.

I got an 876, today. Huzzah. The test actually seemed fairly easy after everything I've been doing to prepare.

I do wish that the practice tests and chapter questions did one thing that the real test does (but that they don't, in case that wasn't clearly implied): tell us how many answers there are. I had thought that would be a concern, though I also knew that the Sun/IBM tests do give you some idea of how many answers are required. Once that was cleared up during the exam, it seemed fairly easy.

Now, on to 70-528...