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5/2/2011 -- Effective July 1, the price of many of the Microsoft certification exams is increasing. This is the first increase Microsoft has made to the program in nine years and the amount of change depends on what category candidate you happen to be. For example, a non-student U.S. resident will see prices change from $125 to $150 (a 20 percent increase), while student rates go from $60 to $83 (a 38 percent increase). The difference in percentage increases are all over the board -- in the United Kingdom, there is only a 12.5 percent increase, while exam candidates in Mexico face a 25 percent increase. The price change does not affect MTA, MCM, MCA or MOS exams.
All exam vouchers issued prior to July 1 will continue to remain valid until their expiration date, so it is possible to purchase vouchers up to June 30 at the current rates. All Microsoft exams are given through Prometric testing centers worldwide. A FAQ about the price change can be found here.
CompTIA CASP Hits Beta
CompTIA's newest certification exam, the CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP), is now in beta. The beta exam is available free of charge to qualified candidates by using a discount code available by writing to . To be a qualified candidate, you must be a security professional with 10 years experience in IT and five years of day-to-day enterprise-level security experience. The beta will only be available until 400 exams have been given, so you are strongly encouraged to contact CompTIA soon.
The exam, which is intended to build on Security + even though it is not a prerequisite, is divided into the following four domains and weights:
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Domain
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Weight
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Top Level Objectives
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| Enterprise Security |
40% |
Distinguish which cryptographic tools and techniques are appropriate for a given situation |
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Distinguish and select among different types of virtualized, distributed and shared computing |
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Explain the security implications of enterprise storage |
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Integrate hosts, networks, infrastructures, applications and storage into secure comprehensive solutions |
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Distinguish among security controls for hosts |
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Explain the importance of application security |
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Given a scenario, distinguish and select the method or tool that is appropriate to conduct an assessment |
| Risk Management, Policy / Procedure and Legal |
24% |
Analyze the security risk implications associated with business decisions |
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Execute and implement risk mitigation strategies and controls |
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Explain the importance of preparing for and supporting the incident response and recovery process |
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Implement security and privacy policies and procedures based on organizational requirements |
| Research and Analysis |
14% |
Analyze industry trends and outline potential impact to the enterprise |
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Carry out relevant analysis for the purpose of security the enterprise |
| Integration of Computing, Communications and Business Disciplines |
22% |
Integrate enterprise disciplines to achieve secure solutions |
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Explain the security impact of inter-organizational change |
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Select and distinguish the appropriate security controls with regard to communications and collaboration |
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Explain advanced authentication tools, techniques and concepts |
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Carry out security activities across the technology life cycle |
10 Oracle Exams End Beta in May
Ten exams from Oracle are currently open in the beta phase and scheduled to close in the month of May. Covering the gamut from database to application topics, the exams are:
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Beta Closing
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Exam Number
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Exam Name
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| May 7 |
1Z1-529 |
Oracle Enterprise Manager Application Quality Management 11g Essentials |
| May 7 |
1Z1-555 |
Oracle iStore 12 Essentials |
| May 7 |
1Z1-560 |
Oracle Unified Business Process Management Suite 11g Essentials |
| May 14 |
1Z1-058 |
Oracle Real Application Clusters 11g Release 2 and Grid Infrastructure Administration |
| May 14 |
1Z1-219 |
Siebel CRM 8 Business Analyst |
| May 14 |
1Z1-562 |
Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing 2 Certified Implementation Specialist |
| May 21 |
1Z1-552 |
Sun Flash Storage Essentials |
| May 21 |
1Z1-561 |
Oracle FLEXCUBE UBS 11 Basic Implementation Essentials |
| May 21 |
1Z1-563 |
Sun Storage 6000 Arrays Essentials |
| May 28 |
1Z1-557 |
Oracle Insurance Policy Administration Configuration Essentials |
All Oracle exams are available through VUE testing centers and run between three and 3.5 hours long. More information, including the objectives for each exam, can be found here.
Certification Exam Tip #6: Focus on Repetition
When an exam author is writing a question, quite often they will try to make the choices (the distracters and the answer) as similar to each other as possible. While it may seem as if they are trying to make them "tricky" or they personally are being deceitful and sly, the truth is that they are just trying to test the candidate and differentiate between those that really know the answer and those that are just guessing. As a candidate, however, this similarity in choices has the potential to work in your favor if it filters down to repetition in wording.
As a simplistic example, suppose an author is writing a question to see if the candidate knows the name of the utility that can be used to upgrade a particular version of Windows from one edition to another. The actual answer is Windows Anytime Upgrade. In order to make the question difficult, the author would try to create other choices that closely resembled this one, but were off ever so slightly. Possible detractors would likely resemble the following:
- Windows Anytime Update
- Windows Anywhere Upgrade
- Microsoft OS Upgrade
- OS Anytime Improvement
- Microsoft Windows Promotion
Or others similar. All of the detractors are close and contain elements of the right answer, but vary just enough to be wrong. If you had no idea of the correct answer -- if you had a brain lapse for a moment -- you could look for the repetition in the choices (both the answer and detractors), and you would end up with the following list:
- Anytime -- 3
- Anywhere -- 1
- Improvement -- 1
- Microsoft -- 2
- OS -- 2
- Promotion -- 1
- Update -- 1
- Upgrade -- 3
- Windows -- 4
Since every possible answer consist of a three-word choice, the right answer must have three words in it, so you now pick the three words that appear the most -- Anytime, Upgrade and Windows -- and find the one choice that has all of them: Windows Anytime Upgrade.
This strategy does not work all the time -- otherwise, psychometrics would not be a field of its own -- but it does work a surprising number of times. I encourage you to resort to it as one your fallbacks when you encounter that question that you don't know the answer to, but recognize that you should.
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