Strategies for Different Testing Formats

Before you choose a test-taking strategy, you must determine what type of test it is ”fixed-length, short form, adaptive, or case study:

• Fixed-length tests consist of 50 to 70 questions with a check box for each question. You can mark these questions for review so that you can revisit one or more of the more challenging questions after you have completed the rest of the exam (provided that your exam time has not expired ).

• Short-form tests have 25 to 30 questions with a check box for each question. You can mark these questions for review so that you can revisit one or more of the more challenging questions after you have completed the rest of the exam (provided that your exam time has not expired).

• Adaptive tests are identified in the introductory material of the test. Questions have no check boxes and can be viewed and answered only once. You cannot mark these questions for review at the end of the exam.

• Case-study tests consist of a tabbed window that allows you to navigate easily through the sections of the case.

You'll be able to tell for sure whether you are taking an adaptive, fixed-length, or short-form test by the first question. Fixed-length and short-form tests include a check box that allows you to mark the question for later review. Adaptive test questions include no such check box and can be viewed and answered only once.

The Fixed-Length and Short-Form Exam Strategy

One tactic that has worked well for many test-takers is to answer each question as well as you can before time expires on the exam. You will undoubtedly feel better equipped to answer some questions correctly than others; however, you should still select an answer to each question as you proceed through the exam. You should click the Mark for Review check box for any question that you are unsure of. In this way, at least you have answered all the questions in case you run out of time. Unanswered questions are automatically scored as incorrect; answers that are guessed at have at least some chance of being scored as correct. If time permits , after you have answered all questions, you can revisit each question that you have marked for review. This strategy also gives you an opportunity to gain some insight to questions you are unsure of by picking up clues from other questions on the exam.

Some people prefer to read over the exam completely before answering the trickier questions ”sometimes, information supplied in later questions sheds more light on earlier questions. At other times, information you read in later questions might jog your memory about facts, figures, or behavior that helps you answer earlier questions. Either way, you could come out ahead if you answer only those questions on the first pass that you're absolutely confident about. However, be careful not to run out of time if you choose this strategy!

Fortunately, the Microsoft exam software for fixed-length and short-form tests makes the multiple-visit approach easy to implement. At the top-left corner of each question is a check box that permits you to mark that question for a later visit.

Here are some question-handling strategies that apply to fixed-length and short-form tests. Use them if you have the chance:

• When returning to a question after your initial read-through, read every word again; otherwise , your mind can miss important details. Sometimes, revisiting a question after turning your attention elsewhere lets you see something you missed, but the strong tendency is to see only what you've seen before. Avoid that tendency at all costs.

• If you return to a question more than twice, articulate to yourself what you don't understand about the question, why answers don't appear to make sense, or what appears to be missing. If you chew on the subject a while, your subconscious might provide the missing details, or you might notice a "trick" that points to the right answer.

As you work your way through the exam, another counter that Microsoft provides will come in handy ”the number of questions completed and the number of questions outstanding. For fixed-length and short-form tests, it's wise to budget your time by making sure you've completed one-quarter of the questions when you're one-quarter of the way through the exam period and three-quarters of the questions three- quarters of the way through.

If you're not finished when only five minutes remain , use that time to guess your way through any remaining questions. Remember, guessing is potentially more valuable than not answering. Blank answers are always wrong, but a guess might turn out to be right. If you don't have a clue about any of the remaining questions, pick answers at random or choose all As, Bs, and so on. Questions left unanswered are counted as answered incorrectly, so a guess is better than nothing at all.

At the very end of your exam period, you're better off guessing than leaving questions unanswered.

The Adaptive Exam Strategy

If there's one principle that applies to taking an adaptive test, it can be summed up as "Get it right the first time." You cannot elect to skip a question and move on to the next one when taking an adaptive test because the testing software uses your answer to the current question to select the question it presents next . Also, you cannot return to a question after you've moved on because the software gives you only one chance to answer the question. You can, however, take notes, and sometimes information supplied in earlier questions sheds more light on later questions.

Also, when you answer a question correctly, you are given a more difficult question next to help the software gauge your level of skill and ability. When you answer a question incorrectly, you are given a less difficult question, and the software lowers its current estimate of your skill and ability. This process continues until the program settles into a reasonably accurate estimate of what you know and can do, and it takes you, on average, somewhere between 15 and 30 questions to complete the test.

The good news is that if you know your stuff, you are likely to finish most adaptive tests in 30 minutes or so. The bad news is that you must really know your stuff to do your best on an adaptive test. That's because some questions are so convoluted, complex, or hard to follow that you're bound to miss one or two, at a minimum, even if you do know your stuff. So the more you know, the better you'll do, especially on an adaptive test, even accounting for the occasionally weird or unfathomable questions on these exams.

Because you can't always tell in advance if a test is a fixed-length, short-form, or adaptive exam, you should prepare for the exam as though it were adaptive. That way, you're prepared to pass no matter what kind of test you take. If you do take a fixed-length or short-form test, however, you need to remember the tips from the preceding sections. These tips should help you perform even better on a fixed-length or short-form exam than on an adaptive test.

If you encounter a question on an adaptive test that you can't answer, you must guess an answer immediately. Because of how the software works, however, you might suffer for your guess on the next question if you guess right because you get a more difficult question next!

Case-Study Exam Strategy

As mentioned, the case study approach appears in Microsoft's design exams. These exams consist of a set of case studies that you must analyze so that you can answer related questions. Design exams include one or more case studies (tabbed topic areas), each of which is followed by 4 to 10 questions. The question types for design exams and for the four core Windows 2003 exams are multiple-choice, build-list-and-reorder, create-a-tree, drag-and-connect, and select-and-place . Depending on the test topic, some exams are totally case based, and others are not.

Most test-takers find that the case-study type of test used for the design exams (including Exams 70-229, 70-297, and 70-298) is the most difficult to master. When it comes to studying for a case-study test, your best bet is to approach each case study as a standalone test. The biggest challenge you're likely to encounter with this type of test is that you might feel as though you won't have enough time to get through all the cases that are presented.

Each case study provides a lot of material that you need to read and study before you can effectively answer the questions that follow. The trick to taking a case-study exam is to first scan the case study to get the highlights. You should make sure you read the overview section of the case so that you understand the context of the problem at hand. Then you should quickly move on to scanning the questions.

As you are scanning the questions, you should make mental notes so that you'll remember which sections of the case study you should focus on. Some case studies might supply a fair amount of extra information that you don't really need to answer the questions. The goal with this scanning approach is to avoid having to study and analyze material that is not completely relevant.

When studying a case, read the tabbed information carefully . It is important to answer every question. You can toggle back and forth from case to questions and from question to question within a case testlet. However, after you leave the case and move on, you might not be able to return to it. Therefore, you should take notes while reading useful information to help you when you tackle the test questions. It's hard to go wrong with this strategy when taking any kind of Microsoft certification test.