microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcsd

Author

71-300 Info

Keith Harrison

2002-11-04, 10:23 am

Just completed the 71-300 exam.

Firstly the exam is actually 4 hours and 35 minutes in
length. I took my time and it took me about 4 hours to
complete.

There are 6 case studies each with 15 questions. For those
who've done the old Solutions Architecture exam you should
find the style and content of the questions very similar,
but if anything slightly simpler. The questions were the
usual mix of multiple choice and drag and drop, except all
muddled together rather that the multiple choice coming
first as before. The content was the same as before except
with the inclusion of questions on web services (no
surprise there).

There were a couple of bugs in the questions that
Microsoft still has to iron out, such as one question
where I had 5 boxes to connect together but could only
place 3 connections, but I guess that's why it's a beta
exam. Still, I would have thought basic testing would have
solved an obvious problem like that.

As for studying, anyone who has passed the other .NET beta
exams and has some basic DB design knowledge already knows
everything they need to pass this exam.

Hope this helps and good luck to everyone sitting the exam!

Keith

Luther Miller

2002-11-05, 6:23 pm

I just completed it, too. I spent a little under 3 hours, but I tend to be a
very fast test-taker. It was certainly grueling wading through the 6 case
studies, and it seemed like the longest case study to read and absorb was
the last one, at which point I was thinking more about lunch than the exam
questions. I seemed simpler in format than I remember 70-100 being, but with
some new diagrams that I was not familiar with. .NET debugging, logging,
tracing, and web services intriduced new questions.

I took the test at Prometric. No trouble downloading or running the test,
until the end! When I finished my comments, I had the screen that said I
would get my results in 8 weeks or so, then I clciked EXIT. At this point,
an error message popped up and the test crashed. The test-center-guy had had
a similar error message recently and called Prometric tech support. Also, I
did not get a printed confirmation that I took the test and that I should
receive my results in 8 weeks, which I have gotten with all of my previous
(VUE) beta exams. (My VUE test center closed, and this Prometric center is
now the most convenient for me, so I switched.) When the test attendant
logged back into my test PC, it showed that I failed the test. (Go figure -
there shouldn't be a result for 8 weeks, but maybe I just did THAT poorly
;-)!!

Prometric says they won't be able to confirm that my test was saved and sent
to them for at least 2 business days, so hopefully I didn't waste half of my
work day. At least I got to vote this morning.

==============================
=========================
Luther Miller, MCSD · luther.miller (at) softagon.com
Softagon Corporation · www.softagon.com
Pier 1, Bay 1 · San Francisco, CA 94111
==============================
=========================

"Keith Harrison" <keithharrisonuk@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2e6901c2841a$e6476550$39e
f2ecf@TKMSFTNGXA08...
> Just completed the 71-300 exam.
>
> Firstly the exam is actually 4 hours and 35 minutes in
> length. I took my time and it took me about 4 hours to
> complete.
>
> There are 6 case studies each with 15 questions. For those
> who've done the old Solutions Architecture exam you should
> find the style and content of the questions very similar,
> but if anything slightly simpler. The questions were the
> usual mix of multiple choice and drag and drop, except all
> muddled together rather that the multiple choice coming
> first as before. The content was the same as before except
> with the inclusion of questions on web services (no
> surprise there).
>
> There were a couple of bugs in the questions that
> Microsoft still has to iron out, such as one question
> where I had 5 boxes to connect together but could only
> place 3 connections, but I guess that's why it's a beta
> exam. Still, I would have thought basic testing would have
> solved an obvious problem like that.
>
> As for studying, anyone who has passed the other .NET beta
> exams and has some basic DB design knowledge already knows
> everything they need to pass this exam.
>
> Hope this helps and good luck to everyone sitting the exam!
>
> Keith
>

Jamie

2002-11-07, 7:23 am

I agree with my good friend Keith, the exam was a bit of a let-down
for various reasons:

- not much .Net content (if you know what a web-service is your
laughing)
- pathetically easy questions, without telling u what they are, i had
a question that was as easy as the following:
What planet do u live on?
a) Earth
b) fish
c) blue
d) Centrifugal Force
(the point being only one of those answers is a planet......)

my major gripe about the exam, was how bad the ORM diagrams were
displayed on screen. I don't know if the monitor i had was the
problem, but it looked like the diagrams had been drawn "freehand" in
MS Paint!!

whether i've passed it or not remains to be seen, these case-study
style questions can be quite tricky (especially if you havent used
braindumps ;-) which is another of Keith's points i agree with.

- Jamie.

Alan Davis

2002-11-07, 8:23 am

>- pathetically easy questions, without telling u what they are, i had
>a question that was as easy as the following:
>What planet do u live on?
>a) Earth
>b) fish
>c) blue
>d) Centrifugal Force
>(the point being only one of those answers is a planet......)

lol! I would have said 'Microsoft' but it's not there.

>my major gripe about the exam, was how bad the ORM diagrams were
>displayed on screen. I don't know if the monitor i had was the
>problem, but it looked like the diagrams had been drawn "freehand" in
>MS Paint!!

I'm still lol..

Luther Miller

2002-11-11, 2:23 pm

Good points...
I would say the greatest drawback about this exam (and 70-100) is that
in order to pass, you need to take practice exams to understand what
they are asking and what kind of answers they expect. It is not a
reflection of what necessarily happens in the real world. On the other
hand, I am not sure what types of questions would better measure the
these skills...
THe good news is I have verified that even though the exam software
crashed, I did "complete" the exam.

jamie.moffat@infographics.co.uk (Jamie) wrote in message news:<aa59b5b2.0211070457.73aa877@posting.google.com>...
> I agree with my good friend Keith, the exam was a bit of a let-down
> for various reasons:
>
> - not much .Net content (if you know what a web-service is your
> laughing)
> - pathetically easy questions, without telling u what they are, i had
> a question that was as easy as the following:
> What planet do u live on?
> a) Earth
> b) fish
> c) blue
> d) Centrifugal Force
> (the point being only one of those answers is a planet......)
>
> my major gripe about the exam, was how bad the ORM diagrams were
> displayed on screen. I don't know if the monitor i had was the
> problem, but it looked like the diagrams had been drawn "freehand" in
> MS Paint!!
>
> whether i've passed it or not remains to be seen, these case-study
> style questions can be quite tricky (especially if you havent used
> braindumps ;-) which is another of Keith's points i agree with.
>
> - Jamie.

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