How else can you fail a Certification Exam? It is time for reason number two. I think a big weakness that people run into is too much “book” knowledge and not enough “applied understanding” of the technologies involved.
I get plenty of students that have never run a network or never written their own programs in my classes. I am happy to try to get them to understand as much as possible about the subject at hand but only so much can be done in five days. I can teach someone how DNS works or how to write and read from a file in VB code but the theory isn’t enough. There has to be some practice work or you can be easily fooled by some of Microsoft’s questions.
Does this mean you have to get a job before you can get certified? Absolutely not! There are labs and practices in all of the Microsoft classes that give you some experience using the concepts that instructors try to teach you. For many people though, that isn’t quite enough. You should attempt to redo most of this work on your own as a part of your “studying” to pass the exams. I tend to tell people to do more than just repeat the steps. I suggest, trying to find alternate ways to do things. You could try to remember the steps rather than read them word for word. Another option is to try to “break” the labs rather than get them to work. A lot of my learning in the field came from troubleshooting problems, not setting up and managing systems that had no trouble.
This is just like when all of you tried to get a driver’s license. You studied the book to be able to pass the written exam but the only way that you could pass the road test was to get out and drive. Think of your certification tests as a combined written/road test of Microsoft technology.
Okay, but what do you do if you don’t have the systems you require? Most good training centers (like New Horizons…wink, wink) have some type of lab/mentored learning room where you should be able to get some kind of setup that would allow you to take this kind of practice. If they don’t, maybe they might let you use a machine or two in an unused classroom. I would talk to your Education Consultant/Sales Person to find out.
So is anyone worried that they might have too much experience? I will talk about that next time.
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