Hard dose of reality...

snadam

Well I failed this one yesterday, pretty bad too. This is my first failed attempt ever, so my pride is definitely hurt. I am going to have to revisit the material in a way where I can understand what the exam is trying to ask me, no matter how convoluted it may seem. My experience was pretty much the same as most others. You MUST be familiar with the objectives well enough to give the "Microsoft-out-of-the-box" solution to the question.

One a side note, I wil NEVER go to that exam center again. I find this small building, the door was locked and the lights looked off. My first thought was 'crap, they're closed?'. Then some tall skinny kid (like 18 or so) with a huge fro unlocks the door. I walk in, and there is a 10'x10' room with a crate, and a laptop in the dark. I am assuming at this point this is the front office. I sign some stuff and ask him where the lockers are. "Uhh, we dont have any lockers". Fair enough, he escorts me 5 feet to the 'test room'. The test room was 4 pcs in a partial wall cubicle in a room that was about 8'x8'. I looked around and noticed there was no restroom (which sucked because I REALLY needed one). The cubes must have been acquired by a 'Little people furniture store' because I couldnt get my legs under the damn desk comfortably (I'm 6' 3") People were coming in and out of the building being extremely loud. Loud enough that if there was a door, I would have shut it. At one point, he interrupted my test to tell me he had to step outside for a few minutes, and didnt come back for like 45 or so. This is my 4th test center in 3 years (all the good ones close down), and by far this one was THE WORST. The only positive was they had relatively new Dell PC's and widescreen LCD monitors. No lockups, and I got my results quite quickly. If I passed, id be saying the same thing about this place. This was the only center in the area that had a Friday opening, and now I know why

Trying to give a positive spin to this, I know how it feels to fail, and that's out of the way now. Time to lick my wounds over the 3 day weekend, and revisit this thing in a week or two...

Psoasman

I am very sorry to hear about this. I hope you pass next time and I know you will.

At least you are not using brain ****..

KoolTrix

how close were you?

atleast you know what to expect next time.

I failed twice. I know the feeling.

goodluck on the retake..

kimanyd

I think the most important thing you need to focus on is getting through the long weekend without any alcohol poisoning.

I'm sure you'll get it next time, good luck!

shednik

kimanyd wrote: »

I think the most important thing you need to focus on is getting through the long weekend without any alcohol poisoning.

I'm sure you'll get it next time, good luck!

I think that right there is the most important thing

eMeS

Sorry to hear that, but personally I think people should start raising these test center complaints to Microsoft.

I'm sure you voiced your displeasure with the testing center via the survey. Assuming this was a Prometric center, I'm equally certain that they will promptly do nothing about it. When I investigated sometime ago offering Prometric exams, having lockers for personal possessions was a requirement.

There's a saying about squeaky wheels and grease...at the very least if you pursue this with Microsoft, you might get a voucher that you can use somewhere else.

MS

skrpune

Sorry to hear that snadam...but I hear you - I've been in good and bad test centers, and it can be very very frustrating to be in those bad ones. I've gone to three different test centers in Toronto & Chicago, and so far, I have yet to see one that actually had the required lockers. I've had to either leave things in my car or with the receptionist or in a common closet. Not very secure. My biggest beef is when things get loud & the folks who run the test center don't do anything about it. I guess they don't realize that it's distracting to hear two people very loudly talk about their weekend plans three feet away from you as you're trying to take an exam and calculate subnets or figure out backup plans, etc. Sigh. I found that if I want folks to quiet down, I need to ask them myself instead of waiting for the test center folks to say anything...because in my experience so far, they don't notice or don't care.

Go have yourself a great holiday weekend and then maybe do like eMeS said and be that squeaky wheel, perhaps you can save someone else the same bad experience and get yourself a discount on your next exam in the process.

drewkeg

However crappy it is, sometimes defeat is what's needed to really enter to the next level. To get back some of the 'umph'. Anyway, I have also had good and bad experiences with the testing centers. And until today, was unaware that they were supposed to have lockers. I have always had to leave my stuff in the car or with the testing admin. I have not had any experiences this bad though. That really stinks. I have used this one testing center that has some faults, but it is a nice big room, with two big windows, and only one tester at a time, so I have 'overlooked' the fact of (now I know) no lockers (but I trust them, and I've been there 4 times), and the printer never works, so I have to wait for Prometric to email, then mail the results print out.
Good Luck on your studies. You'll get it next time! Enjoy the rest of the w/e.

snadam

thanks guys for the well wishes. Unfortunately, I did NOT take the survey at the end of the test (most likely because of the whole restroom thing). However , I did complete a survey from microsoft sent to me via email; and I made them well aware about that place. I found a center thats open on saturdays (yay no more days off of work!), and its Undomiel's favorite place to go. My goal is to wrap this up before Halo 3: ODST comes out , but we will see...

murdatapes

Sorry to hear this attempt didn't go as planned.
Enough of that though.

lets go get it again! snadam

randsmountney

Tough break, I completely understand problems with testing sites. You'll kick it in the rear next time.

NetAdmin2436

Yeah, that sucks. I know the feeling of failing AND being at a crappy testing center at the same time. I know you'll get it next time. Good luck!

bertieb

Unlucky mate, but dont get disheartened. This is a tricky test but you will get through it And when you do I'll let you kick my butt at Halo - it's not difficult unlike the 294 hehe

Synthros

snadam,

Is this the testing center that's hidden away in the back of an all-but-closed-down 1 story business center just outside of Tempe? If so, I've been there too. In fact, I dealt with the same kid, and he did the same thing to me (disappeared for almost an hour). I would go into great detail, but my experience was almost the same as yours. It was a horrible layout, and I'm going to avoid going back there if at all possible.

I'm sorry to hear about the test result, but I'm sure you'll slay it next time!

snadam

Synthros wrote: »

snadam,

Is this the testing center that's hidden away in the back of an all-but-closed-down 1 story business center just outside of Tempe? If so, I've been there too. In fact, I dealt with the same kid, and he did the same thing to me (disappeared for almost an hour). I would go into great detail, but my experience was almost the same as yours. It was a horrible layout, and I'm going to avoid going back there if at all possible.

I'm sorry to hear about the test result, but I'm sure you'll slay it next time!

THE SAME!!! At least I am not alone!

Another Phoenix Member (undomiel) goes to Dr Geeks in Mesa. He loves it, and they have saturday openings. The downside is that its the farthest from my house (~45 minutes). I am going to try it out for my retake. At this point though, im fed up with crappy test centers, and willing to take the drive.