Top 5 Exam Prep Tips

Why I wrote this post

It’s been a loooong time since I last sat an exam, but as part of writing this blog and trying to build my YouTube channel, I wanted to get my MCSD again…

I originally attained my MSCD based round the VB6 / SQL Server 7 stack, (pre .Net days), so I’m pretty sure that’s expired!

And while I appreciate you absolutely don’t need to get a Microsoft, (or any other), certification to learn new stuff, for me exams provide a good framework in which I’m almost “forced” to learn. It’s also a really nice feeling when you pass the exam…

but not so great when you fail…

Anyway I sat my first exam last month and while I passed, there were definitely things I could have done better by way of preparation. So here they are – my top 5 tips for preparing for a IT certification exam!

Tip 1:

Understand what the exam is going to test.

A bit of an obvious one to begin with – but one that may catch you out! You may feel really confident in a certain area of expertise, but check what the exam is going to ask you….

For the 70-483 exam, (Programming c#), I just sat – I thought I knew it all…

But when I looked at the exam outline, there was stuff in there I’d never used, (and to be honest never will!). So just beware – check your hubris and don’t assume you know it all!

Microsoft, (I’m sure like all other exam providers), provide relatively detailed exam outline for each of there exams.

Tip 2:

Re-order the learning objectives (maybe!)

I bought the companion book for the 70-483 exam, (see tip 3 below), which was pretty decent and followed the learning objectives laid out for the exam. But one thing that struck me as I worked through the book, (in learning objective order), was that the topics seemed to be a bit “out of order”.

What do I mean? Check out the 1st 5 learning objectives for this exam below:

1. Implement multithreading and asynchronous processing
2. Manage multithreading
3. Implement program flow
4. Create and implement events and callbacks
5. Implement exception handling

For me personally, (even as a relatively seasoned c# developer), “Implementing multi threading and asynchronous processing” is not where I’d naturally choose to start my learning pathway…

You could argue that the exam is targeted as experienced professionals, and that it shouldn’t matter how the topics are ordered – I’d still disagree…

So my point? Look at the learning objectives and re-order them into a sequence that makes most sense to you, allowing you to build your knowledge from the ground up.

Tip 3:

Exam Prep & Studying are different!

This was probably my biggest fail.

These were the tasks, (in sequence), that I performed in preparing and studying for the 07-483 exam:

1. I booked the exam (based only on an aspirational date I had in my head!)
2. Realised I hadn’t done a study schedule / plan (see Tip 4 below), or gathered any materials, e.g. Books, prep exams, on-line study courses etc to allow me to study…
3. Panic
4. Gathered my learning materials & made a study plan (this took a surprising length of time)
5. Eventually started studying for the exam (having eaten into my schedule with step 4 above)

Now I could have re-scheduled my exam, but I did not want to do that – I’ve fallen into that trap previously, and before you know it, you’ve just re-scheduled indefinitely…

So my advice?

Before you schedule the exam, gather all the course materials you’ll need to need to take the exam. Do a bit of research in to the resources that would best support you in studying this includes but is not limited to:

• Any software you’ll need, e.g. :
  • “Office Type” apps
  • Mind mapping tools
  • Development tools
  • VM’s etc
• Books
• Online learning resources, e.g.
  • YouTube
  • Udemy
  • Lynda etc
• Practice Exams (official one’s of course!)

Tip 4:

Fail to Plan – Plan to Fail

This kind of follows on from Tips 1 & 3 above, but it’s really important that you plan, (or have an educated guess!), how you’re going to get through the learning objectives and likely be ready to take your exam.

If you’re in the unenviable position where you have a “hard exam date” i.e. you don’t have a choice when you take the exam, producing a plan is really more of a making it fit exercise… which is less desirable than the approach you’d take when you can determine when you’re ready…

Approach for Planning

I’ve leveraged from my background in agile software delivery and have applied a simple “velocity-based” approach to determining when I’ll burn though the exam objectives. Before your eyes glaze over it’s not that onerous, all I simply do is:

• Review the exam learning objectives
• Re-order them if necessary (see Tip 2 above)
• Select a subset of these, (say 20% of the overall objectives)
• Plan in when you are likely to complete (this is a TOTAL guess!)
• Revisit progress at the end of each week to determine your “velocity” – i.e. are you getting through your objectives:
  • Quicker than planned
  • In-line with your plan (you guessed well!)
  • Slower than planned
• Once you’ve worked through all of the subset, use your “velocity” to plan out the rest of your exam objectives to understand when you’ll finish

I think this is a useful approach as it should “average-out” how you’ll get through the exam material, (some objectives will be tougher / longer than others and vice versa).
It should give you a decent view of a likely burn down.

Tools for Planning

There are various tools, (software and otherwise), you can use to manage and produce your plan. For me the best two are the simplest:

1. Write your plan on a calendar, (there are some decent calendar templates in Excel)
2. My Favorite: Mapping out the objectives using “index cards” on a whiteboard

The example below shows my plan for the next exam I’m taking: 70-535 Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions – feel free to copy and use!

The full board

Tip 5:

Schedule the exam!

This is one more personal to me for sure, but once I have a plan of when I can realistically get through the learning objectives – I book the exam. This gives me a hard target that makes it more likely for me to keep studying, and not waste time on other things…

I also pledge not to re-schedule and move it out, for the reasons I outlined above.

Final Thoughts

I’d be interested to hear your own tips on preparing for exams or whether you think the ones I’ve listed are any good.

I’m applying these tips to my own study so I’m hoping they bear fruit for my next exam (70-535) that I’ve booked in for the end of October 2018!

Wish me luck!