As you may have read elsewhere, Microsoft has
recently released a new format for their examinations. The old exams are rapidly being
phased out in favour of the new; the NT Workstation and Server examinations are already
being given in the new format, and others are sure to follow. The good news is that
you’ll face far fewer questions than before: expect a total of fifteen rather than
60-70. The bad news is that the questions have changed.
To be more precise, the way the questions are selected has changed. The examinations are
now adaptive - they change as you answer them. What this means is that, although you will
be asked fewer questions, with each question you answer the next question is made harder
or easier, depending upon whether you answered right or wrong. The exam starts off with a
question of moderate difficulty; in effect you find your level from that point on. One of
the side-effects of this system is that, because your answer to each question determines
the difficulty level of the next question, you cannot go back to questions that you have
answered earlier.
As you might expect, marking the exam is rather more complex than adding up the correct
answers out of fifteen! Marks are assigned on the basis of a complex, statistical analysis
of your answers, with correctly answered harder questions being weighted differently to
easier questions.
From the perspective of revision, the new exam format does not change everything: the
subject areas you will be tested on are the same as before, so courses or books that you
have used for your revision (and the valuable advice to be found in the pages of
NTexplorer!) will be just as relevant now as they were with the old exams. What you do
need to consider is which prep-test software to buy; almost all testing software available
at the moment emulates the old exams, not the new ones.
For more detailed information and to download a sample adaptive test, point your Web
browser to
http://www.microsoft.com/train_cert
Richard Adams is a freelance MCSE and MCT, specialising in
the design and project management of TCP/IP internetwork and Microsoft Exchange messaging
system implementations. His company, Computer Training and Consultancy Ltd, specialises in
one-day NT and BackOffice seminars. Email: richard@ctc-seminars.co.uk.
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