Now it's official... I've no luck with VMware beta exam...
For the beta of old VCDX3 Design exam, I was not selected... but this could happen...
For the beta of VCAP-DCA exam I've got no time to do it due to a work week and a holiday week... Then the exam period was extended, but I never got a notifice of it... so I miss this this opportunity...
The beta for VCP4 was taken on 14 Jul with a hot weater, without air-conditioner in the room, with the sun in back of me, and without water!!! But this was a fault of the testing center... I can only say that was hard to anwer at the huge amount of questions in those condictions.
But those issues are nothing compared on what has appen on VCAP-DCD beta exam day.
Also this time the beta period overlap a week with heavy working week, and this time the beta period duration was only one week... so the only way was to take the exam on Friday.
As all the VCAP/VCDX exams my country does not have any VUE center... so I have to travel by fly (all center are far more than 500km).
The only option with fly booking was Frankfurt am Main, but the available flights near me are on Hahn Airport (call from Ryanair Frankfurt-Hahn, but really far from Frankfurt)... I see the flights schedules, the bus schedules, and so I've booked the exam at 11:30 am. Obviously during the booking, my credit cards were not accepted so I had to book by phone 
Now the day of the exam... Flight was 8:35 -> 9:55 and on time... But I do not found the bus scheduled on 10:00... I found only a cold and rainy weater and a new bus schedule
With new schedules I lost more than 3 hours (including the return to the airport, to get the flight to home), and this was a disaster... not enough time to take the exam.
I've called the VUE center, to notify my delay and the problem... but there was no solution.
After 1.45 of bus travel I arrived at central station, and then quickly to the center at 12:30.
At this point, after registration and the short initial pool of the exam I finally start the exam!
Now the exam... The big penalty was that I've got less than 3 hours (because the bus will leave before 4:00 pm), instead of the near 4 hours + 30 min of extra time for not english native people.
It was a nightmare answer at the questions with a lot of hurry, without the time to review the answer and without the back button... For this reason on some questions I've accidentally push the next button without give an answer
The exam itself was quite better than the previous design exam (althought some questions seems similar).
About the positive aspects:
Most the questions are good... But can be improved (I expected some questions and arguments that weren't present)
Good balance on differenct aspects (But, and is strange, some aspects are covered - I'm under NDR so I cannot tell which
)Visio designs (yes... now are more design to do) are good and really better than before
About the negative aspects:
No back button and no way to do a final review... this is probably a fault only for the beta, but for me is very important (expecially the review, very useful for me, that I'm not a navitve english, when I'm find that I'm loosing too much time to read or translate a question).
Less time for 131 questions, and some of them are very time expensive (like the visio diagram). But this is probably a problem only for the beta exam.
More design (and this is correct), but some still question too much relater to operations to do... Maybe could be better move this kind of question the DCA exam, but is only a my opinion.
As several people have remark there are some questions the require a knowleger on hardware vendor's model... I agree that could be necessary, but I suggest to give at least the option of the 3 large vendors, or balance the questions on the different vendor.
In at least question some acronym are relevant to the answer, but for example those acronym are not used on my country... not really nice.
For a couple of question the content of the vSphere Design course is (I think) required to give the right answer... But the course itself is only suggested and the material is not public available... So this could be little problem.
I've do not found a clear way to remove the connector in the Visio part... Only by draggin a connected object to the trash... But is not intuive at all
Maybe some sentences were not clear (or I've not not undestood them in the right way)... But the the clock that was running, I've got no time to analyze them
At 15:28 I finished the exam (less then 3 hours and unfortunately I gave a limited feedback, due to time constraints and due the impossibility to gave a general feedback at the end).
Then quickly to the bus and than more 2 hours to wait my flight that had also a delay (only 15 min, to be onest).
After landed a bus to the parking and then finally home.
A day to leave behind and a bad feeling on the exam results
-
To read other experience have a look at this site:
http://vmwaretraining.blogspot.com/2010/11/vcap-dcd-beta-exam-experiences.html
To some hints on exam see those threads:
hahaha, me too..i've passed twice, but the first time was not me .. vmware veryyyy big mistake..but hopefully the second one was right..:)
i should have had 30 minutes more because NON native english but i've had 30 minutes left..nice? but all was ok..
but some visio questions require too much work for the time available at all..
completely agree with you for the hardware vendor specific questions...
Ciao
CianoKuraz
