Well I’ve now done the final SQL Server 2012 exam I managed to get a slot booked for. The Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 exam wasn’t going to be my strongest subject as I’m more of a DBA than Developer but i felt it went quite well.
The exam consisted of 55 questions, varying in structure from multiple guess to drag n drop. There were only about 5 or 6 questions i left comments about relating to the content not being clear, typo’s or in one instance an actual mistake in the question so all in all a better setup than the Administrator exam I took first off (70-462 / 71-462).

The biggest issue I found was down to my own fault. I didn’t revise on the syntax of the new 2012 T-SQL functionality. Don’t get me wrong, I know i’ve got a lot of them right but with some, although I knew the answer was down to 2 of the 4, I didn’t know it well enough to be 100% certain as there was only 1 word different in the syntax which I’m a bit disappointed with……..but no-one to blame but myself 🙂

I’m still not sure whether the pass mark is 70% or 80% and hoping I’ve answered enough of the non-2012 questions correctly to scrape through.

As always, I’d be interesting to hear other peoples thoughts on any of the 2012 exams they’ve taken so far…..

After sitting the Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases Beta exam (71-462) on Monday, I was still a little disappointed with Microsofts approach to questioning for these exams. So I went into this exam with pretty much the same mindset that the questions were going to be vague and in some cases completely wrong.

Much to my surprise, I found the questions in this exam far far better. The exam itself was split into sections. There were 44 in total, 26 the standard multiple choice and 5 further scenario based sections, each with either 3 or 4 questions. Section one was much the same as the 71-462 exam but I felt the questions were in the majority, more concise and in my opinion gave enough information to make a valid judgement when answering. I did leave a few comments as there were a few of the questions that could do with a bit more work and had a couple of typo’s.

The scenario sections again provided enough information to select the relevant answers, the only criticism of these sections were on question 2 of my second scenario, there was a major typo on the answers of question which didn’t pry me away from the answer but requires sorting.

Now, the main thing that really got me with this exam was the amount of SQL Azure questions in section one. Is was not mentioned as a skill measured so needs looking into in my opinion, either add it as a skill measured or remove it from the exam.

A much more enjoyable exam than the administrator, mainly due to the higher level of quality in the questioning resulting in far fewer comments being left and for me, I love the scenario based questions!!

As always, I’d be interesting to hear other peoples thoughts on any of the 2012 exams they’ve taken so far…..