VMware Edu & Cert Community
THADC
Contributor
Contributor

Did not pass VCP5 just now..

Very disappointed.. Got a 275 which I guess is 5 or more questions short of passing. I have never prepared more for a certification exam. I read the Scott Lowe book cover-to-cover twice, the Brian Atkinson book twice, and the Bill Ferguson book. I took the required training, completed and used the home lab, took every mock exam I could get my hands on: BluePrint mock exam till I got 100%, the mock exams from the exam engine in the Atkinson book, and those from the Ferguson book (including the two extra ones you can get by upgrading to the Premium Edition). On the Ferguson exam engine, I got scores in the 330s, 340s, and 360s the first time I took each of his exams. I really thought I was prepared based on how I was doing on simulated tests and related resources.

I guess I was suprised how many 3-out-of-5-or-6 questions there were..

The exam indicated the topic areas I answered incorrectly against, and there were more than is worth listing (which makes sense when you get about 1/2 the answers wrong).

In any event, I recognize I can take the thing again after 7 days, but really don't know what I would do differently to get a passing grade. It was not a required certification for my employment, but what I major disappointment after all I put into it. Never have failed a cert exam before...

Not sure what to do yet..

Thanks for reading!

Tim

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nourse
Contributor
Contributor

I realize I perhaps stoked a smoldering fire here and probably shouldnt have. I owe this firm a great deal and an indeed grateful. They're provided me a means to earn a living and created not just a great product but an entire industry. I would like to see this certification process overhauled that's true but it doesnt detract from the value of the product.

Even Jesus had bad days...

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I have to disagree with some of your comments.

I've passed over 25 Microsoft exams and the questions in them got more and more ambiguous and full of irrelevant information - "You are the administrator of a company with offices in Denver and Montreal" - their exams are a case of hunting for the one or two nuggets of information in a long and very wordy question - and they play with you saying that something is "not enabled" rather than being more direct...

I'm also a VCP from v2 onwards, and the current exam is very fair to those who have hands-on experience and have actually done the things being tested about - I do feel that some of those "things" are odd at times but the blueprint clearly defines what you should expect to get tested on... If the exam was easier it would be simpler to pass it using brain dumps, and most people still pass first time as it is in any case. In terms of the training requirement, each vendor sets their own rules on their certification programs, it's a choice to either meet those requirements or not.


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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nourse
Contributor
Contributor

Both your and my experiences are in the end just anecdotal evidence. The opinion as to whether something is fair, better or worse than something else is highly subjective. But at the end of the day that wasn't really the point being made.

The point is that a decision to get a cert or not is dependent upon a personal evaluation of cost versus value. The cost of a VCP5 certification has exceeded the value it brings to me personally. Yes, I do still do things where cost exceeds simple measures of value but the pendulum has moved so far on this I question whether to do it anymore.

And like our previous poster... I too am a partner/reseller. So deciding not to re-cert means one less company pushing the product.

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