70-431 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 – Implementation and Maintenance

Last week i took exam 70-431, the SQL Server 2005 TS Exam. I had a few vouchers left that had to be used anyway, and i wanted to try taking an exam about a topic which don’t know much about (just to see whether i’d pass).

As my preparation was nonexistent, and i didn’t eve give a close look to the preparation guide, i expected to fail - in the end, i never did much with SQL Server 2005, just the usual stuff with the Express versions used with SPS, WSUS, et. al.

When i started the exam, i was greeted with around 40 multiple choice questions, and about an hours of time. There were no questions related to hardware design/sizing, and nothing to feature licensing by edition - lots of Transact SQL questions though. After i was through with the 40 questions, i thought i was damned lucky for not having to deal with a single simulation - even though i thought i was only able to around 50% of the questions without guessing.

Turns out i was wrong - after closing the first part, a second part with 12 simulations opened. I solved them by first clicking on any element visible and looking at which ones where working. That way, i thought to be able to solve every one of them.

In the end i passed - with just 735 points. The result sheet listed the achieved score on both the multiple choice questions and the simulations seperately - 90% of the simulations were correct, but only 60% of the multiple choice questions.

For me, this was an interesting lesson - the Microsoft exams really *are* that easy.