What Should You Pay Attention to When Taking the Microsoft Certified Examination?

Ⅰ Microsoft Certified examination fee:

Every certification examination of the series of MCP is adjusted to USD 35.16 per person. In the future, there will no longer be the difference between public expense and self-paying expense. Candidates can contact each examination center to register for the examination. The adjustment of the price is based on the adjustment of the examination fee by Sylvan company.

Ⅱ Registration:

  1. You need to pay before each examination.
  2. The examination fee is USD 35.16 per course, and you can get the examination voucher after paying the fee.
  3. All the examination vouchers are registered. The examination administrator will help you to remark your name, fee and payment date on your examination voucher.
  4. If you are a new candidate, you need to fill in the new candidate registration form. The new candidate registration form is in both Chinese and English. Please fill in the following contents with the regular script: name, company name, communication mode, telephone number, examination subject, time, etc.
  5. If you have already participated in the examination, you only need to fill in your ID number, examination subject and examination time.
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Ⅲ Examination schedule:

  1. After confirming the examination time, new candidates should go to the examination venues four days in advance to fill in the registration form and show the number of examination voucher.
  2. Candidates who have taken part in the examination can go to the examination venues two days in advance or make an appointment by telephone after confirming the examination time. At the same time, show the number of the examination voucher.
  3. If you need to cancel the examination you have confirmed, be sure to formally inform the examination center in the morning before the examination.
  4. If you fail to come for the examination at the time you confirm, your voucher will be deemed to have been used. The examination is useless.

Ⅳ Examination arrangement:

  1. On the day when you come to the examination, please be sure to bring your examination ticket, ID card, driver’s license and any other valid certificates with photos.
  2. The exam administrator will assist you to fill in the examination registration form and the candidate agreement. Before you enter the examination room, please put your belongings outside the examination room, and carry the blank draft paper and pen issued by the examination room. The examination administrator will guide you into the examination room.
  3. After the examination, you need to print three transcripts. Two of the transcripts are stamped with steel seal and bar stamp are kept by yourself, and the rest one is kept by the examination administrator. At the same time, you need to hand in the draft paper.
  4. If you fail to pass the same exam twice in a row, you have to take this exam after two weeks every time.
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Ⅴ After passing the corresponding Microsoft Certified examination, you will receive a certificate signed by Bill Gate within three weeks.

You may know the above information and the following things are the most important:

1. Choose the examination of XP system to replace the examination based 2000

MCSE2000 is based on five core examinations and two optional examinations. These five core examinations include four operating system (OS) examinations and one designing examination. You can choose the designing examination among the four alternative examinations. As for your optional examination, you can choose from a list of 25 choices. At first, the four operating system examinations were based on the Windows 2000 family (including Professional Edition, Server Edition, Network Infrastructure and Directory Service). However, with the examination of the Windows XP Professional Edition (70-270), you can completely replace your examination of the Windows 2000 Professional (70-210) in the examination of the client operating system.

2. Will NT and 2K be ineffective?

When the way of Windows 2000 MCSE examination was announced, Microsoft also announced the expiration date of Windows NT MCSE. Certificate holders only have a short time to upgrade their certificates; if they do not, they will lose their MCSE identity. When upgrading from NT to 2000, there are two choices: take a single examination (70-240) or take all seven required examinations.

Fortunately, Microsoft finally abolished the decision about the expiration of the Windows NT MCSE, but the single upgrade examination 70-240 was abolished after being used nearly a year. Although Windows NT MCSE is still a valid certificate today ,even in the opinion of Microsoft, all the necessary examinations for Windows NT MCSE have been abolished for a long time.

To complete the upgrade to Windows 2003 MCSE in a short time, you need to pass two upgrade examinations (70-292 and 70-296). Microsoft has officially announced the expiration date of Windows NT and windows 2000 MCSE.

In my opinion, it seems that Microsoft has finally found that most companies will continue to use the operating system that has been used for 2-6 years, so the speed of porting to new technology has slowed down. In the process of maintaining productivity, it is often more important to use the expert technology of the old system than to acquire the knowledge of the new operating system.

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3. Understanding of the revised certification approach

MCSE based on Windows Server 2003 requires six core examinations and one optional examination. The six core examinations include four for network operating system examination, one client operating system examination and one designing examination. (Notice: Not all exams are currently available, most should be available by the end of 2003. )The four network operating system examinations are:

  • Exam 70 – 290: Managing and maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 environment
  • Exam 70 – 291: implementing, managing and maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 network infrastructure
  • Exam 70-293: planning and maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network infrastructure
  • Exam 70-294: planning, implementing and maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 directory services infrastructure

The supported client operating system examinations are:

  • Exam 70 – 270: installing, configuring, and managing Microsoft Windows XP Professional
  • Exam 70-210: installing, configuring, and managing Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

Notice: The following examinations are also client operating system examinations supported by Windows 2000 MCSE.

  • Exam 70-297: designing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 active directory and network infrastructure
  • Exam 70-298: designing security for a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network

There are usually seven supported optional examinations:

  • Exam 70 – 086: implementing and supporting Microsoft Systems Management Server 2.0
  • Exam 70-227: installing, configuring and managing Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 Enterprise Edition
  • Exam 70-228: installing, configuring, and Managing Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition
  • Exam 70-229: using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition to design and implement database
  • Exam 70-232: using Microsoft Windows 2000 Server technology and Microsoft Application Center 2000 to realize and maintain high availability WEB Solutions
  • Exam 70-297: designing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 active directory and network infrastructure
  • Exam 70-298: designing security for a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network

If you have passed the 70-210 or 70-270 Windows 2000 MCSE, you can only take two upgrading exams. The two upgrading examinations are:

  • Exam 70-292: preparing, managing and maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 environment for 2000 based MCSA
  • Exam 70-296: planning, implementing and maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 environment for 2000 based MCSE

In fact, if you hold a Windows NT MCSE certification, you can still be given the right to upgrade to Windows 2003 MCSE. However, unless you already have the same ability as Windows 2000 MCSE, you’d better take these seven new exams. For details of Windows 2003 MCSE requirements, please refer to the Microsoft Training and Certification Web Site.

4. Preparation before upgrading

I personally think that I need to pass two upgrading examinations or take at least six new examinations based on Windows 2003. If your way of certification is limited by time and cost, like me, then taking two upgrading examinations is obviously more attractive. So how to prepare for the upgrading examination? The simplest part is the client operating system, design, and optional examinations. Of course, many of the optional examinations are the same for Windows 2000 MCSE and Windows 2003 MCSE. Therefore, you only need to take two upgrade examinations to meet the requirements of the core network operating system.

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5. Coping with exams (spoto it exam)

The most important part of passing any Microsoft exam is a thorough understanding of the operating system. Fortunately, there is no significant difference between Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server. In this way, you can use a lot of previous knowledge and expertise. I strongly recommend that you get a Windows Server 2003 operating system and install it on the system. If you can’t afford a full official version, get a trial version!

Focus on all the tools, dialog boxes and configurations. Pay attention to all the differences between Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server. A thorough understanding of the operation of the system can give you a reliable foundation so as to learn more profound certification knowledge, such as design, infrastructure and management.

In my long-term certification process, I have found two key points to pass the examination, they are thoroughly understanding the list of goals and skill requirements and doing a lot of mock exam questions.

Print out a list of skill requirements for each exam. Get training kits to keep pace with your own speed from Microsoft publisher or get a learning guide from a third-party publisher. Keep learning until you have mastered all the skills on this list.

Try your best and spend as much time as possible on the simulation exercise. Countless certification websites will send free examination questions in the form of email lists. Many websites even collect and mail exercises, which are free or charged. If you need help when looking for exam resources of the MCSE 2003 , type the following keywords in the search engine: MCSE, 2003, and certification.

Don’t forget that Microsoft also provides a lot of free information. To get it, you just need to do some smart search. Most of the Windows Server 2003 documents and technical details have been published on the Internet. You can find the information on the website of the Windows Server 2003 home page and TechNet page. It will take me a few days to get into the first site and read each readable document. Then, if you need more details, go to TechNet for more information.

6. The leading point is to master knowledge thoroughly

Yes, what I suggest here is a wide range of learning skills. I think your efforts in certification should focus on experiments in the actual product environment, not just to cope with the problems in the examination. Maybe you’ll never meet the situation in the exam. However, if you have a thorough understanding of the operating system, its architecture and its documentation, you will always be able to find and solve problems.