I wrote the second of my 2008 exams yesterday, doing the beta of the MCTS (Database Developer) cert. While writing it I realised I don’t know half as much as I should about XML, CLR, Service Broker and a couple of the newer additions to T-SQL.
All in all, it didn’t seem hard, but that’s hard to judge from a beta exam. I do think there was perhaps too high a focus on XML. About 10% of the questions I had were on that, but that may have been the luck of the draw.
I did the beta of the MCITP (Database Admin) about a month ago. It was a tough exam. No case studies like the 2005 exams had, but many of the questions felt like mini-case studies themselves. I had one question that was a screen and a half long. That was just the question. The answer list was over a screen log as well. All I’m going to say about that one is that you really, really need to know backup strategies to write it.
Next up, the MCTS (Database Admin). If I do that and if I pass the two betas (will only find out when the exams are officilly released) then there’ll only be one left to do, the ITP for DB Dev.
Hello there, I also did the exact same exam today. I also found that the focus on XML was perhaps a bit too high, although if you look in the official preparation guide for 70-433 from Microsoft XML is worth 12%, so perhaps not too high at all. Overall I found it to be a pretty fair exam with a good range of questions. Now just have to wait out the 8 weeks…
Yeah. I probably noticed it so much because my XML is not up to scratch.