VCAP5-DCD scheduled

dave330i

Noticed that the nearest test center offering DCD exam was filling up quick (no time slot for May, 4 slots for June). Scheduled to take the exam on 6/27. This exam scares me a lot. At least the first try is paid by the company. Hopefully I won't need a 2nd try.

SteveLord

How much does the exam cost today?

QHalo

I believe this one is $400 and is like 4 hours long. I heard its a beast too. Good luck to you sir. Post back how it went.

gdwalker

Good luck on your test!!! when I took my VCAP4-DCD it took me two times to pass it and it also took me over 3 hours to complete both times. It is differently one of the hardest tests I have taken.

dave330i

Read/skimmed through most of the pdfs. Rereading vSphere Design, Clustering deepdive and rewatching brownbag videos.

blargoe

Best of luck to you. I'm interested to hear about your experiences.

ChooseLife

Good luck on the exam!

vCole

I was asked to relay this information to you Dave -

Study the VMware Hardening Guide: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMW-TWP-vSPHR-SECRTY-HRDNG-USLET-101-WEB-1.pdf

meadIT

Good luck!

dave330i

vCole wrote: »

I was asked to relay this information to you Dave -

Study the VMware Hardening Guide: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/VMW-TWP-vSPHR-SECRTY-HRDNG-USLET-101-WEB-1.pdf

Thanks. Version 5 is out now.

Crashed hard last night. Didn't get to study at all. Probably a good thing since I feel much better this morning.

vCole

Keep up the hard work, and good luck!

dave330i

Did not pass. Got a 279. Ran out of time. Didn't get to 2 design questions.

My impressions of the exam:

Multiple choice section - Questions weren't super hard, but most of them were long. Many of them could have been answered by reading the last sentence and the answers.

Drag & drop - Thought some of them were very vague. Questions weren't hard, but vagueness made them tough.

Design questions - Big time sink. Expect to spends lots of time reading the question and answering the question.

QHalo

Sorry to hear that especially with the cost of the test. Sounds like you were pretty close. Rally and come back to it.

blargoe

Sorry about data dave, you'll get it next time.

dave330i

Thanks guys.

Maybe I should have checked non-native English speaker (technically true), so I could have gotten an extra 25 min. Probably would have passed if I had gotten parts of 2 design questions done.

I'll spend some time re-reading some documents, read some new documents, do some design & capacity planning drills and try again. Second try will be out of pocket.

gkca

dave330i wrote: »

Maybe I should have checked non-native English speaker (technically true), so I could have gotten an extra 25 min.

Are you sure that you can get this additional time? I've thought this isn't an option if you take the exam in an English speaking country.

SteveLord

Will it say "Nice try yankee! Subtract 25 minutes for you!" ?

gkca

SteveLord wrote: »

Will it say "Nice try yankee! Subtract 25 minutes for you!" ?

Not really , but this option wasn't offered at all when I scheduled my exams in Canada, although I could select that option when I took my exams in Russia.

dave330i

gkca wrote: »

Are you sure that you can get this additional time? I've thought this isn't an option if you take the exam in an English speaking country.

No idea. I was joking. Honestly though I don't see how extra 25 minutes is enough for non-native speakers.

dave330i

Ugh... major sickness. I told myself I'm gonna take some time off from studying. Don't look at any DCD stuff until Monday.

Started studying & labbing the day after the exam.

N2IT

Stick to it Dave you'll get it banged out.

dave330i

Took it again this morning and failed again with almost the same score. This time I had plenty of time to complete the design questions (vs. only 3 first time). The fact that I was able to complete the exam and still end up with the same score has me stumped.

blargoe

Sorry to hear that Dave. I know this has to be frustrating.

Do they give you an idea of which areas will need more work on the score report?

dave330i

blargoe wrote: »

Sorry to hear that Dave. I know this has to be frustrating.

Do they give you an idea of which areas will need more work on the score report?

Report basically stated that I need to work on everything.

There's a design workshop near me in Sept. I'll attend it and try to learn as much as I can and try the exam again.

meadIT

If you haven't sat the Design Workshop, that will greatly help. You probably have all the technical parts of the exam down. The Design Workshop will help you with VMware's design methodology, which is a big part of the exam.

jibbajabba

I wasn't impressed about the Design Workshop to be honest. Was more like a massive sales pitch

meadIT

I guess it depends on how the instructor presents it. In the one I took, the majority of the class was spent in groups going through the design scenarios, then presenting our designs and defending them against the other group.

dave330i

meadIT wrote: »

I guess it depends on how the instructor presents it. In the one I took, the majority of the class was spent in groups going through the design scenarios, then presenting our designs and defending them against the other group.

That sounds like just the type of class I need to pass DCD.

jasonboche

Dave, Sorry you didn't make it the first two tries (I was really hoping you were going to make it on the 2nd attempt having gotten a good look at the questions on the first try). It's not an easy exam and my personal feeling is that there is some ambiguity in several questions/answers. I found that frustrating. I took a shot at the beta since it was discounted 50% but ended up spending too much time providing feedback on questions along with getting stuck in deep thought on other questions such that my beta exam ended with 30+ questions unanswered (ran out of time). I did pass the GA version of the exam but the experience was different. If you're interested in my experience/tips, my VCAP5-DCD BETA and GA exam experiences.

dave330i

Just got a notification that DCD classroom training class I signed up for got cancelled. They're offering online version the week before as an alternate. If I don't sign up for the online class, than the alternative is to sign up for an Oct classroom training class which may get cancelled.

dave330i

Passed it this morning. Got a 305 which is barely passing, but pass is a pass. 1 of my design disappeared on me when I went back to check. Had to redo another design which got f'd up when I was moving some elements around. Also had an adobe warning message pop up.