What to Expect at the Testing Center

When you arrive at the testing center where you scheduled your exam, you need to sign in with an exam coordinator. The coordinator asks you to show two forms of identification, one of which must be a photo ID. After you sign in and your time slot arrives, you're asked to deposit any books, bags, and other items that you brought with you. Then you are escorted into a closed room.

All exams are completely closed book. In fact, you aren't permitted to take anything with you into the testing area. But you are furnished with a blank sheet of paper and a pen or, in some cases, an erasable plastic sheet and an erasable pen. Before the exam, be sure to carefully review this book's cram sheet, located in the very front of the book. You should memorize as much of the important material as you can so that you can write that information on the blank sheet as soon as you're seated in front of the computer. You can refer to that piece of paper anytime you like during the test, but you have to surrender the sheet when you leave the room.

You're given some time to compose yourself, to record important information, and to take a sample exam before you begin the real thing. We suggest that you take the sample test before taking your first exam, but because all exams are more or less identical in layout, behavior, and controls you probably won't need to do this more than once.

The testing room is typically furnished with anywhere from one to six computers, and each workstation is separated from the others by dividers designed to keep you from seeing what's happening on someone else's computer. Most testing rooms feature a wall with a large picture window. The window permits the exam coordinator to monitor the room, to prevent exam-takers from talking to one another, and to observe anything out of the ordinary that might go on. The exam coordinator will have preloaded the appropriate Microsoft certification exam for this book, that's Exam 70-297 "Designing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network Infrastructure" and you're permitted to start as soon as you're seated in front of the computer.

All Microsoft certification exams allow a certain maximum amount of testing time (this time is indicated on the exam by an onscreen timer clock, so you can check the time remaining whenever you like). All Microsoft certification exams are computer generated. In addition to multiple choice, most exams contain select-and-place (drag-and-drop), create-a-tree (categorization and prioritization), drag-and-connect, and build-list-and-reorder (list prioritization) types of questions. Although this might sound quite simple, the questions are constructed not only to check your mastery of basic facts and figures about a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and network infrastructure, but to also require you to evaluate one or more sets of circumstances or requirements. You are often asked to give more than one answer to a question. Likewise, you might be asked to select the best or most effective solution to a problem from a range of choices, all of which are technically correct. Taking the exam is quite an adventure, and it involves real thinking. This book shows you what to expect and how to deal with the potential problems, puzzles, and predicaments.