A Nugget of Certification Exam Wisdom
I took the Beta 70-340 exam this morning, like Mark and Darrel and some other WeProgram.Netters. I think I did fine on the test, but I'll have to live with the uncertainty until June or July (when the Beta results are made available). I wish I could've studied more for the exam, between Devscovery conference, teaching, and a full-time day job, I didn't have the time to dig into the subject like I would've liked. Oh well.
I will impart this nugget of general certification exam wisdom: find the testing center days before your test date. The pattern is like this:
- Grant registers for cert exam online, based on zip code
- Grant spends hour prior to exam frantically driving around searching for the testing center
Is it just me, or are many testing centers tucked away in corners of business parks and office centers that are difficult to find? I usually go to ESI (a WeProgram.Net sponsor, by the way), but they were closed for cert exams this week, so I did the zip code based search online (see point 1 above).
When I lived near Annapolis, MD, me and a buddy nearly missed our entire testing window because the test center was on the second floor of this obscure shopping center, with an entrance in the back alley. Seriously. I guess to keep their overhead low, they buy office space in these interesting places. My experience today wasn't all that bad, but I still showed up 20 minutes late because I didn't know the area and once I found the address I figured “there's no way a test center would be in that building” and drove past it.
This is why you should know where your testing location is before the day of your test. There's nothing worse than getting to your exam all stressed about traffic and worrying that you'll miss your test window.
Happy .Netting!