Glutton for punishment - 2 certs in one day ON VACATION
mrploddy
Member Posts: 38 ■■□□□□□□□□
Decided to go to Scotland for a couple of days but due to a variety of circumstances including an exam challenge because of 2 duplicate questions on 74-324 which was finally resolved after six weeks.
So I had a voucher to burn and I'd also been eyeying up the Zend Framework 1.5 cert because I'd just finished doing a project in it and it was fresh in my mind. Yes it's old but I'd emailed for an update and it's going to be at least the end of the year before the 2.0 exam hits general availability.
So my wife somewhat bemused went with me to the exam centre and away we went.
First up 74-324. This is the one that was given away for free at the beginning of the year. Administering Office for 365 for Small Business. I definitely agree with what people say - the Jump Start is not enough to pass the exam you need to do a bit of reading around online including the references provided in the slides to be able to pass this. It might not be as challenging as the MCTS but they do ask some relatively detailed questions on Powershell and Exchange. However I would say about 70% of the content does feature directly in the Jump Start.
So in any case I passed with a 723. Only just a pass but even so it will help with Competency requirements for my company and it served it's purpose of giving me some general knowledge about O365. I'm a web dev by trade but as it was free I saw it as an opportunity to get some experience of what is an Internet based service. So this morning another certificate is on my transcript. I just need 680 and 686 in the bag and then I can order 6 certificates in one go from Arvato.
So out I came for the break and they made me wait till half an hour before my scheduled appointment so I went to see my wife whilst I was waiting. I'd initially been sceptical about doing ZF1.5 cert but as it was going to be a while before 2.0 comes out I thought now was the perfect chance to get it in the bag as I'd just finished doing a project in ZF 1.12.
I can definitely agree there isn't a lot of material out there for it but I decided to go with Rob Alan's notes, the cert guide and the Zend Framework manual. Theres a reasonable amount of crossover between the three but it did give an overall good way of being able to pass the exam.
I can say for sure that the book isn't required. A general working knowledge of Zend Framework, it's workings and how they normally call classes will go a long way to helping you to pass.
My advice would be
1) Get a working knowledge of ZF through working with projects - don't try this if you've never used ZF
2) Read the study guide and match it up with the ZF 1.6 manual. Be careful not to confuse ZF1.12 and ZF1.6 as some names are different - get to know the special cases, methods, properties and special exceptions for all the classes - eg read the programers guide for each section in detail and take note of all the method names and special cases etc etc.
I all in all had about 3 days prep - I thought I'd done ok but not enough to pass so I was somewhat pleasantly surprised when I got a "Congratulations you have passed".
In any case - the holiday got off to a good start - 2 certs in 2.5 hours
On my way home now...just hope I'll be alive in work tomorrow LOL
-mrploddy
So I had a voucher to burn and I'd also been eyeying up the Zend Framework 1.5 cert because I'd just finished doing a project in it and it was fresh in my mind. Yes it's old but I'd emailed for an update and it's going to be at least the end of the year before the 2.0 exam hits general availability.
So my wife somewhat bemused went with me to the exam centre and away we went.
First up 74-324. This is the one that was given away for free at the beginning of the year. Administering Office for 365 for Small Business. I definitely agree with what people say - the Jump Start is not enough to pass the exam you need to do a bit of reading around online including the references provided in the slides to be able to pass this. It might not be as challenging as the MCTS but they do ask some relatively detailed questions on Powershell and Exchange. However I would say about 70% of the content does feature directly in the Jump Start.
So in any case I passed with a 723. Only just a pass but even so it will help with Competency requirements for my company and it served it's purpose of giving me some general knowledge about O365. I'm a web dev by trade but as it was free I saw it as an opportunity to get some experience of what is an Internet based service. So this morning another certificate is on my transcript. I just need 680 and 686 in the bag and then I can order 6 certificates in one go from Arvato.
So out I came for the break and they made me wait till half an hour before my scheduled appointment so I went to see my wife whilst I was waiting. I'd initially been sceptical about doing ZF1.5 cert but as it was going to be a while before 2.0 comes out I thought now was the perfect chance to get it in the bag as I'd just finished doing a project in ZF 1.12.
I can definitely agree there isn't a lot of material out there for it but I decided to go with Rob Alan's notes, the cert guide and the Zend Framework manual. Theres a reasonable amount of crossover between the three but it did give an overall good way of being able to pass the exam.
I can say for sure that the book isn't required. A general working knowledge of Zend Framework, it's workings and how they normally call classes will go a long way to helping you to pass.
My advice would be
1) Get a working knowledge of ZF through working with projects - don't try this if you've never used ZF
2) Read the study guide and match it up with the ZF 1.6 manual. Be careful not to confuse ZF1.12 and ZF1.6 as some names are different - get to know the special cases, methods, properties and special exceptions for all the classes - eg read the programers guide for each section in detail and take note of all the method names and special cases etc etc.
I all in all had about 3 days prep - I thought I'd done ok but not enough to pass so I was somewhat pleasantly surprised when I got a "Congratulations you have passed".
In any case - the holiday got off to a good start - 2 certs in 2.5 hours
On my way home now...just hope I'll be alive in work tomorrow LOL
-mrploddy