Passed MCTS 70-433!

終於考完我大學最後一張Midterm （如果沒有fail的話）。在繼續煩接下來的功課前，想寫一篇紀念帖。

Last Saturday, Ying Chen, Li Jin and I went to Info Trek center which is located at Amcorp Mall, PJ to take Exam 70-433: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – Database Development.

We took the course about half year ago, actually not thinking of going for certification exam because the course content is tough and from Google we can see lots of people failing the exam. It needs a minimum score of 700/1000 to be certified! This is ten times tougher than the Microsoft Technology Associate – Database Fundamental exam that we passed slightly above the minimum score last year.

就在上個月頭，突然間收到Ms Soon Lay Ki的email，叫我們去考。如果pass的話，可以跟MDEC申請reimbursement拿回考試費。Microsoft今年也提供免費的second attempt。“It is unlikely to fail the second time”。大家心動了，問題也來了。
一、Expiry date 是 15 December，也表示我們需要在那天之前及格。如果早有準備還沒什麼，但已經過了半年，很多我們學的都忘了。
二、考試費上千？walau這樣賭注很大，考試那麼難，如果我們兩次都fail豈不是rugi夠力？後來才知道是我誤會 = = 考試費其實只是三百多。

考慮到虧錢和課業繁忙不夠時間的風險。也考慮到數據庫本來就在我喜歡的IT類列表裡；學士成績不優秀、最好有專業文憑幫忙墊高一點。兩個朋友考，自己當然也考，比起先前三千塊的恐懼，三百多塊顯然能接受得多。挖了半年前上課時老師給的notes我們每個星期一兩天在圖書館一起研究，其他時間在家自己讀，最後幾天老師也叫我們去讀那些dump questions。我們三個預定12月8號去考，那整個星期都沒去動學校功課，讀著MCTS。

星期六早上穎晨從Kajang來Cyberjaya載我和麗君。我第一次進Amcorp Mall。雪隆真的是一大堆shopping mall。Info Trek中心在三樓，外面看起來普通，裡面就比較厲害了。考試前的廢事是穎晨手機放在車忘記拿出來。填表格，等10點考試前臨時抱佛腳拼命塞東西進腦…… 被安排進一間小考試房，麗君一號我二號穎晨三號。

之前看過模擬題和前考題，粗略估算只有2%勝算，即運氣和奇蹟。兇多吉少、九死一生、丟錢來買經驗的想法在發現2件事後頓時退卻！及格的信心暴增，腦裡響起有激勵作用的戰曲。
興啊！
The exam consisted of only 55 questions! We thought it is over hundred of questions like the dump questions we read. The other key that greatly raised our hope to pass was the first few questions we saw were almost exactly same with those we read from dump questions!! Not 100 percent, but at least 70 percent of my questions I read them before, just the arrangement and answer sequence different.

70-433 exam has seven sections.
– Implementing Tables and Views
– Implementing Programming Objects
– Working with Query Fundamentals
– Applying Additional Query Techniques
– Working with Additional SQL Server Components
– Working with XML Data
– Gathering Performance Information.

There are several type of question formats, such as drag query into order, A to J options choose the correct answer, choose two between four options, select the suitable menu to be click in SQL Server, etc

Yeah, three of us passed the exam, officially upgraded ourselves from Microsoft Technology Associate to Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist :X
This is obviously and definitely a stroke of good luck. We are not really familiar and expert in SQL Server, but we did pass the exam, because we studied.

Hereby I offer my greatest gratitude to Ying Chen, who is my cleverest friend that urged and taught us for taking MCTS. Grateful thanks also extended to Miss Lay Ki who taught and suggested us to read example questions from the internet.

考完MCTS感想：
1、Lecture Slide和Tutorial看多不一定有用，關鍵是去看那些模擬和舊考題。有些人考很多次都爆炸，有些人讀兩天都可以pass。多虧了Dump questions，我們貌似是MMU第一批pass掉這認證考試的學生。
2、可能性再怎麼低，運氣這種最後的希望有時還是會很廢地出現的。

大學最後一個學期的壓力，自找麻煩拿到預期之外的成績，仰望碧天，心情豁然開朗。考試後的廢事是之前我忘記跟負責人拿回餘款，多虧穎晨車開到半路突然想起，然後我花了一些時間找回那棟building去拿 ==
睡了很久的午覺。讀了很多天元氣大傷。過幾天的校內考試結果可想而知。

我的證書=D