January 11, 2008 at 6:03 am
Unfortunately, you can't just not use SQL Server every day. You have to make time. Schedule yourself during lunch or an hour before / after work and use it. Get yourself a Developer copy and put it on a laptop if you're not going to work on this at home. That way you can carry the laptop around with you and work / study during the day.
Speaking from personal experience, you won't pass the tests if you do the on-off studying thing. You have to force yourself to unplug the tv, the radio, and the internet connection (unless you're using it to research SQL stuff).
Here's what works for me. Find yourself a "goodie". Do you like to read books or play video games? If so, make this your prize. For every subject you learn & pass the practice exams at 90%, you get 2-3 hours of reading/watching tv/playing a video game. But until you've passed that subject & learned it, you can't do the fun stuff. And once you've used up your 2-3 hours of fun, you have to stop and go on to the next subject.
I do my "prizes" by subject because little steps are easier to accomplish than big steps. And if I tried to hold off on my fun reading until after I was done studying for the whole test, I'd go crazy. So for every subject / chapter I get done with successfully, I allow myself to buy one new manga or new fiction book. This gives me something to look forward to after I'm done driving myself insane. @=)
January 11, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I think jus by solving QotDs is a very good way to prepare urself. I have encountered lots of trick questions in it and of course u need to have a good knowledge base on 2k5 too.
January 12, 2008 at 6:50 am
This SQL exams, well they need to make them more harder then they are right now,
perhaps something like CISSP:
this is taken from wikipedia:
Candidates for the CISSP must meet several requirements.
They must have a minimum of five years of professional experience in information security. One year may be waived for having either a four-year college degree or a Master's degree in Information Security. Another year may be waived for possessing one of a number of other certifications from other organizations[6].
They must attest to the truth of their assertions regarding professional experience and accept the CISSP Code of Ethics.[7].
They must attest to lack of criminal history and related background.[7]
They must pass the CISSP exam with a scaled score of 700 points or greater. The exam consists of 250 questions to be answered over a period of six hours[8].
They must have their qualifications endorsed by another CISSP or other qualified professional. The endorser attests that the candidate's assertions regarding professional experience are true to the best of their knowledge, and that the candidate is in good standing within the information security industry
The CISSP credential is valid for only three years, after which it must be renewed
because I've a feeling that this certs don't worth much as CISSP and others, as it anyone can pass those certs which is not true.
we need to get more respect for passing those tests.
and on the other side I may be wrong on this, but thats my view 🙁
congratz Winston Smith on pasing the exam.
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January 12, 2008 at 10:36 am
I disagree about them needing to be more difficult than they currently are. I know the sql server 2000 exams were a joke. ive heard this from the mouths of many users or sql server 2000. however there was only one exam. there are now a total of 7 exams if you want to be an absolute expert in sql server, although 3 are required to be a DBA. thats a lot of exams.
I also say this because of sql server 2005 is such a huge beast of an app, so unless your touching on all areas of it on a daily basis, and there are many areas which you can specialize in, which most people are not, it is difficult to learn all areas.
I found that after the 431 exam i have forgotten much of the topics i dont use on a daily basis. granted i could pick them up again easily, but i would still have to take the time to relearn them.
So making it even more difficult, will make it even more difficult to study for and learn and there will be very few people getting certified. sure, thats great for you guys with many many years of expirience, but for the majority it would just plain suck , and also far fewer people would feel there was any point in trying to learn topics they dont use often, for an even more difficult exam. there are only 24 hours a day. 8+(and usually 10) are spent working, i then spend another 2 studying most evenings which means it takes me roughly 3+ months to study for an exam. if they get tougher, this means either more than 3 months to per exam, or spend a full 3 months in front of a pc ( 8+ hours for work and 3-4 after that again for study).
January 12, 2008 at 11:28 pm
it dosent matter how hard is it, i think its hard enough.
i just passed it last day for 806, but the problem was that microsoft had never said any thing about how they put the marks, there are no place in the world that peoble gose to a test with out knowing how much every question worth or at least every group of questions,
like sim=500 and the rest =500???
..>>..
MobashA
January 13, 2008 at 5:31 am
The exact allocation of marks is a secret. No one knows what the percentage is between sims and questions or between the questions themselves. I know (because there's a mention of it in the exams) that 441, 442 and 447 have unscored questions in them.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
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