Microsoft Beta Exam Changes

As many of you know, seats for many of our beta exams fill rapidly, which, in theory, should be a good thing. Quick registration means high levels of interest, which should translate into having a sufficient enough of candidates taking our exams quickly enough that we can perform the required psychometric analysis to identify the good items and remove the bad items in a few weeks.

However, we are seeing an increasing number of no shows. Unfortunately, these seats are "lost," meaning that they took a seat from someone who [FONT=&amp]would[/FONT] have showed up but couldn't participate in the beta because all the seats were taken when s/he tried to register, often requiring us to extend betas. As a result, every no show delays our ability to gather the necessary data to move the exam out of beta and delays the scoring of the beta exam for those who DID show up—because we need several hundred completed exams before we can start scoring.

Because the no show rate is at historic highs, which creates a poor experience for those who do take it as they wait an increasingly long time to get their scores, we need to do something differently with beta exams. Starting with our next beta, Exam 537: Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack, we are introducing a model where the beta codes will be an 80% discount off the exam price rather than a 100% discount. If you take the beta exam, the 20% that you paid when registering for the beta exam will be applied to the next exam that you take within one year. It doesn’t matter if you pass or fail the beta exam. If you show up as you said you would for the beta exam, you will receive that 20% discount on a future exam—effectively making the beta free by discounting your next exam. Simply put:

[FONT=&amp]Get 80% off the 537 beta exam. If you take the beta exam, VUE will automatically apply a 20% discount to your next MCP exam registration.
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We're hoping this will ensure that only those who are serious about taking the beta exam register for it. This will be the practice going forward for all beta exams and will start with 537.