Passed 443!

For some dumb reason I scheduled my 443 exam 2 days after my 431 exam....Although I delivered several classes in 2008 that covered the material in this exam, and had read the MS-Press book, this time yesterday I was not feeling all that good about the exam. It was too late to cancel, so I stayed up all night last night reviewing courseware, looking at the MS-Press book, and just in general hoping that my $68.75 test fee wasn't going to be a donation.

I passed with an 850!

The exam was really tough. Most of my bars on the report are significantly above the halfway mark, but my "Designing a Physical Database" is pretty much right in the middle. I would have never thought that would be the area where I would show weakness. I felt like I had to apply a lot of knowledge from other areas to answer the questions. In some cases it felt like a logical exercise at times. I took almost the entire allotted time for the exam. Sorry I can't give more details than this.

I can say this...I understand the topic, and what really pushed me over the top was teaching the topic to others. However, from a practical standpoint, in about 100% of my experience when organizations reach the point where they need to do many of the things covered in this exam, they have usually already bit the bullet and moved to Oracle or DB2. Please tell me that others on here have different experience practically, because taking a test just so I can prove that I understand the theory of how something could be done that in reality is rarely done that way kind of makes me want my time back....

MS

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Comments

snadam

Im sorry to hear youre not "feeling the return" on the test taken, but congrats anyway eMeS!!!

dynamik

How much of that knowledge is applicable to other vendors? Is it really of no use, even if using another product?

Regardless, congrats again!

eMeS

dynamik wrote: »

How much of that knowledge is applicable to other vendors? Is it really of no use, even if using another product?

Regardless, congrats again!

That's why I think I'm feeling weird about it...some of it seemed like general rather than specific applicability.

I guess another way to look at it is M$ wants to ensure that you understand how to apply their product in light of what are general constraints, etc.. that would face anyone implementing or managing any other vendor product....then it's just their spin on it, like T-SQL is their spin on SQL....

Yet another way to look at it is that I'm fortunate enough to have had the exposure to different products enough to understand all of the aspects that they share in common...

There are no sims on this exam...it's all case study based, which I like. I felt like the MS Press book was really good for preparation.

Being careful to not violate anything there are some techniques/capabilities implemented differently by all vendors that might always applied in certain situations. Anyone who's worked with relational databases would be able to apply these techniques both practically as well as pick out the answer on an exam, whether it was Microsoft, Oracle, or IBM....

MS

jbrown414

I'm half way through the book and can understand what you are saying.

Are you planning on doing the 70-444 next?

brad-

awesome! thanks for the info

eMeS

jbrown414 wrote: »

I'm half way through the book and can understand what you are saying.

Are you planning on doing the 70-444 next?

Yes, but not sure when...hopefully soon.

I've been putting these off for a long time, but I also don't want to be in the situation again that I was in with 443 where I had to stay up the entire night before....

MS