070-229

Hi. Would appreciate any opinions on Thomas Moore's SQL
Server 2000 Database Design & Implementation. I'm
currently using it to prepare. Also I've seen comments
floating around that 070-229 is the hardest exam of the
lot - anyone agree?

 

i heard that 70-300 is the hardest of them all.

 

The hardest test depends on your background. If you haven't used SQL
Server much, then it might be hard for you.

Most people think that the 229 is mostly a knowledge-level test, which
is generally easier than the .NET specific tests.

The .NET specific tests were made after Microsoft revamped it's testing
program, and many of the questions on those tests are considered
comprehension level.

"Knowledge level" tests your ability to memorize information.
"Comprehension level" tests your ability to use the information to
solve new problems you haven't seen before.

For example: a knowledge question is "what stored procedure is used to
add a new user to a database". A comprehension question would be "you
have just deployed this code to production and now you get this error -
what is the likely cause?".

Eric

 

Thanks Eric, I'm encouraged by your comments. I do have a
fair amount of commercial experience with SQL, but not at
Enterprise level and was getting a little twitchy at some
of the broader exam questions in the book. I recently
passed 305 so adjustment for 229 is necessary!

 

I just passed 70-229 this morning and my impression is a
little mixed on it. First off, I have already passed both
70-316 and 70-320 so those are all I really have to
compare this one to - also, I'm a c# developer by trade,
not a dba. I used three books to prepare for this exam,
the MS Study Guide for 70-229 (pretty good), SQL Server
Unleashed (huge, but very good), and exam cram for 70-229
(somewhat disappointing).

The one part this exam that I didn't score particularily
well on was the Tuning and Performance Monitoring section.
Some of that seemed somewhat subjective to me, and
apparently my subjective view was incorrect a lot of the
time.

The other sections I thought were fairly straightforward
and I ended up completing the exam in just over an hour.
If you've done a descent amount of work in SQL and study a
bit you should be okay (I should have studied the Tuning
aspect more). The real benefit of this exam was that I
learned quite a bit more about SQL server preparing for
the exam.

Good luck!

 

This is a little late, but congratulations!

You hit on the key point for all of this. While everyone debates the value
of certification, many forget the real value and the best reason for doing
it - to learn more about the product!

Good job!

Dale