Final Considerations

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Finally, a number of changes in the MCP program affect how frequently you can repeat an exam and what you see when you do:

• Microsoft's policy on retaking exams is simple. You can attempt any exam twice with no restrictions on the time between attempts; your second try can follow the first on the very next day if you like. But after the second attempt, you must wait two weeks before you can attempt that exam again. After that, you are required to wait two weeks between subsequent attempts. Plan to pass the exam in two attempts or plan to increase your time horizon for receiving an MCP credential.

• New questions are being seeded into the MCP exams. After performance data is gathered on new questions, the examiners replace older questions on all exam forms. This means that the questions that appear on exams regularly change.

• Many of the current MCP exams will be republished in adaptive form in the coming months. Prepare yourself for this significant change in testing because it is entirely likely that this will become the preferred MCP exam format.

These changes mean that the brute-force strategies for passing MCP exams are much less viable than they once were. So if you don't pass an exam on the first or second attempt, it is entirely possible that the exam's form will change significantly before the next time you take it. It could be updated to adaptive form from fixed form, or it could have a different set of questions or question types.

The intention of Microsoft is clearly not to make the exams more difficult by introducing unwanted change, but to create and maintain valid measures of the technical skills and knowledge associated with the different MCP credentials. Preparing for an MCP exam has always involved not only studying the subject matter, but also planning for the testing experience itself. With the recent changes, this is now truer than ever.

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