I finally pulled my finger out and took the last exam of the MCSE SQL Server 2012 – Data Platform certification last week and passed with a score of 876 which is pretty respectable in my opinion

The exam consisted of 3 sections:

So those of you who are clever enough to work out that’s a grand total of 45 questions. I’m pleased to say that once again the quality of the questioning was to Microsoft’s usual standard, not in terms of difficulty but more in terms of complete irrelevance!

I’m bound by NDA so can’t go into specifics but I’ll try and provide and example of this complete and utter irrelevance without giving the game away:

Q: What is your favourite holiday destination?

A (Select one of the following):

Hmmmm, bit of a tricky one here. From what I can tell, none of the answers bear any relevance whatsoever to the question…….hmmmmm……..suppose I’ll have to take a random guess and hope that the answer I select is the one they’ve set as being correct!!!

It was just a good job i wasn’t on the threshold of pass/fail as this could potentially have been the difference. From the actual question, it was to be a simple answer but I suppose I’ll never know whether or not my random guess worked out or not. I just hope the comments I left regarding this issue are taken up and fixed so others don’t have the same issue.

All in all I felt comfortable throughout the exam but do know for a fact that my knowledge of Assemblies / CLR’s has slipped significantly and I need a refresher.

So that’s it. SQL Server 2012 MCSE done and dusted and no more exams……well for the next 3 years at least. So whats next? Not sure, there is the MCSM exams but I have to be honest, I’ve got no formal certifications in SQL Server 2005/2008 but I know for a fact that I have far more knowledge and experience of its features than I do for SQL Server 2012 so I suppose I kind of backed up my original issue I have with these exams. Yes I studied and yes I did learn a lot from doing so but in no way shape or form would I class myself as an “Expert” in SQL Server 2012 – I don’t believe anyone could!

As per usual, any thoughts or comments are welcome.