Microsoft Certification: A true measure of knowledge?

I have changed my mind.
Based on my previous experience with the certification tests, it is either my particular circumstances, or Microsoft has considerably raised their standards.

A little background: In September 2004, I enrolled in the Masters of Systems Development program offered by ITMasters and Charles Sturt University. I found this program very attractive because it not only would upgrade my knowledge to Masters level, but also would supply me with industry certification in the form of the then sought after MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer)

It was after doing very well in one of the required exams Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET: that my confidence of the certifications as a measure of knowledge being of any value was lowered. Not because I did badly, the contrary is true as can be seen by my results:

With 700 being a pass, a score of 886 was something to be proud of. But the fact is, that at that stage I had nearly NO web developing experience, as my then professional work consisted exclusively of Windows Applications.
Later on, when I did move over to deploying web applications, my lack of knowledge became more apparent as I spent many hours just trying to figure out basic difficulties that were not covered by the exam, extensive as it was!

A year after starting studies, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2005, and the perception was that our curriculum was becoming outdated before being even close to completion. ITMasters, who are in charge of the industry subjects side of the Masters program, did their best to add value to the degree by including 2005 specific subjects as part of the electives, such as MCTS SQL 2005 and UPGRADE: MCAD Skills to MCPD Windows Developer by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework

At the time I was very involved with databases, and the SQL 2005 elective helped me get up to date on that side of things. Although I received warnings that the Upgrade to MCPD exam was difficult, I decided to go for it towards the end of 2007. By that time I had completed all of my other degree requirements, and after 2 years of intensive work with VS 2005, I thought it would be easy to ‘just pass one more silly exam’

Was I wrong! This particular exam is in fact extremely difficult! Because it is an upgrade from VS2003 related certification to VS2005 certification, it is a shortcut by which material from three exams are tested together.
My first shot in December 2007 ended up in a disaster. It was obvious that my until then proven formula to study through the preparation exams provided by Self Test Software was not enough. The questions in the real exam covered material I had never seen before, and although I did not appreciate it then, I agree now that I did not deserve to pass.

As a result of the failure, I bought the Microsoft Press book for the area of the exam that I fared the worst and attempted again. Once in February, and then again in March. This last attempt, just to try to complete in time to qualify for graduation in April 2008. Although improved, these two attempts also ended up in failure.

In desperation, I spent nearly every early morning, and most of my weekends trying to fill in all of the holes in my knowledge that prevented me from completing my degree. This is not an easy task at all, as the basic material covered in the three books comprises of over thousand pages each! And this material is just to give you a background, which has to be researched more on MSDN, and most importantly by practicing and incorporating them into your own programs.

The task is made more difficult by the deficiency of Microsoft in providing you enough feedback about the areas where you have weaknesses. If we compare with the image above, we can see that in that earlier exam there were 7 areas tested, and it is quite clear that there were two areas that require improvement, with possibly only 50% of the questions answered correctly. The feedback I was getting back now, only had three areas, one for each book. I believe Microsoft should change their score presentation and provide more information, subdividing each one of the areas thereby helping the failing candidate identify what exactly he/she needs to improve

Last week, I finally passed! Here is my result:

What is really surprising is the score: just 700?????? I barely passed? Can it be that if I had just one more question wrong I would have failed?

While completing the exam I made a count of the questions I suspected I had wrong. After all, when given 4 multiple choice answers, you can divide them into three categories:

1. The questions where you know the right answer AND can explain why the other three are wrong. The chances are that either you have it right, or you have fallen into a trap. From my experience with practice exams, 90% of the questions in this group are effectively correct
2. The questions where you know two alternatives are definitely wrong, but you have difficulty in choosing one of the other two. The chance of answering these ones correctly is 50%
3. The questions where you have no idea at all what they are talking about. The chance of answering these ones correctly is 25%

Hence, I had quite a good idea on how I was doing. Assuming that all of my type 2 and type 3 questions were wrong, I gathered that I had answered over 80% of the questions correctly. Also the black lines in the image above all fill up more than 80% of the area. I wonder what sinister method Microsoft uses to score these exams? I shudder to think how badly I would feel if the result would have been 699 or whatever the highest non-passing score is. It is scary!

In my opinion, either the scoring of this particular test is faulty, or Microsoft should do a better job on reporting the areas that need further study

In short: If you want to hire somebody based on their Microsoft Certification, check if they have passed this exam! Its value definitely is higher than the previous MCSD incarnations!!!

So, dear reader, do you agree? What is your opinion of Micro$oft’s certifications. Have you had similar experiences? Please leave a comment!

My current collection of Microsoft Certificates can be viewed here:

https://mcp.microsoft.com/authenticate/validatemcp.aspx
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