Exam help and Guidance

[msramola1]

Hi all,

I know there are many posts regarding this but I have been through almost all of them now!!!
Listed below is how I have been preparing for the exam.

I have taken the ICM 4 days training (Jun 2010)

I have read the
1) Exam blue print
2) VMware vSphere 4 Implementation by Mike Laverick
3) notes by Simon Long
4) notes by Matthijs (b3rg.com)
5) have also been through a couple of Training videos.

I have also been working on my test network with 3 ESX hosts and iSCSI storage for almost 6 months now.

I still cant get the answers right from the Vmware mock exam ( they are supposed to be the easiest) :smileycry: :smileycry:
I have not read the official documentation as the content is too much.

What else do you guys advice? Ideally I want to take the exam before 31 Mar

Any suggestions/advice would be highly appreciated.

Thanks
MSR

[Troy_Clavell]

msramola1 wrote:

I have not read the official documentation as the content is too much.

You need to do this as well.  This would be my next suggestion.  Reading the blue print without the official documentation to support it, to me, doesn't make sense.

[scott28tt]

The questions/answers in the exam are validated against the vSphere documentation, and you are expected to know some very specific pieces of information that no other books or videos will truly give you. I would advise that the mock exam and even Simon Long's practice questions are at a lower level than the real VCP exam.

I am running a VCP preparation workshop online this week, I think it would help anyone preparing for their VCP exam:

http://vmwaretraining.blogspot.com/2009/12/vcp4-exam-prep-workshop.html

http://vmwaretraining.blogspot.com/2011/01/vcp-exam-prep-workshop-new-method-new.html

We do charge for it, it is an interactive instructor-led session.

Scott.

[msramola1]

Hi Scott,

I did check the Exam workshop.
I wanted to actually attend the classroom session but there is no scheduled date for London in March. It would have been great to get to meet you, after having followed your discussions.
Unfortunately I cant do the 8th April date.
Would you mind letting me know how does the online workshop works, are there any requirements (microphone etc) for this?

Thanks
MSR

[scott28tt · Accepted solution]

All you need is a broadband internet connection and a headset, to participate fully in the Webex session.

Scott.

[msramola1]

Thank you for your inputs.

I will try to gain more knowledge from the official manuals.

I am aiming to join a later exam preparation course.

Scott, can you tell me timings of the 21st April course.

cheers

[slaclair]

The mock questions are on the same level of difficulty as the actual exam questions and some are similar in content but not in the wording/final answer.

I initially failed the first time around in which I solely blame in not studying the features that I don't use on a daily basis so I revamped my study methods to make sure nothing was skipped.  I did base my practice off the mock exams, any answer I didn't know off the top of my head I referred to the blueprint in which you'll learn much information just finding the answer you need.

crucial items

1.) Mock Exam

2.) Blueprint

3.) PDF's linked from blueprint

4.) Scott Lowe's "Mastering vSphere 4" book, anything I read in the blueprint I would also read scotts take on it as he would give explanations in a more logical/real world manner.

We're strictly a FC environment so I spent much time making sure I understood iSCSI/NFS only to get hosed by not being absolutely familiar with DRS/Host Profiles/Role permissions.  Most of the questions are mostly trivial such as options within certain menu's which require a photographic memory so make sure you have your vSphere client open as you're answering the mock questions as it will familiarize you with areas you're not commonly in.

Make sure to take advantage of the 2nd try offer with using the VCPTAKE1 promo code.

Best of luck!

steve

[scott28tt]

I think our April exam prep session is being run during normal training hours for us in the UK, so 9:30am-4:30pm.

Feel free to send me an email: scott.vessey@globalknowledge.co.uk

Scott.

[scott28tt]

Most people actually say that the mock exam is more simple than the final exam - that's the feedback I get from those I talk to.

You used a good set of resource there Steve, and well done on passing 🙂

Scott.

[slaclair]

My personal experience is that there were not any questions that were truely difficult but they will catch you up if it is a feature that you don't commonly have eyes on.  I feel the content was more trivial and less conceptual, with that being said I think the trivial approach was correct as it had caught me up in December.  I had to force myself to really read into features that I do not work with on a daily basis, thus giving a full grasp of capabilities of the product.  I'm sure the VCAP/VCDX probably definitely dive into the conceptual territory but I have a long way to go till then (Signed up for the vSphere Troubleshooting class in May to help).

But back to the original point that I got off on a tangent on, the mock exam questions I feel were the same difficulty.  But I would make sure for each answer I could define why what was correct or incorrect by referencing the VMware PDF's and Scott Lowes book.

[FadedHues68]

   Folks, I have taken the Install, Configure, Manage course. I have studied the VCP VMware Certified Professional vSphere 4 Study Guide by McGraw-Hill. I have taken more sample exams, both paid and free, than I care to mention (perhaps a couple thousand questions all together). I printed out documentation from the VMware web site. Out of all of the sample exam questions, you'll be lucky to see 5 of them on the actual test. This exam is designed to make you fail. I contacted the VMware educations folks to find out if I am missing any study materiel. Of course, they offered another week of live training for an excruciatingly painful price.

   Listen, I run Vsphere 4.1 in my production environment. I have "hands-on" experience - this is not a paper certification for me. However, I am starting to truly believe that this is just a scam by VMware to make even more money by withholding information from their course materiel that should cover the complete content of the exam. As difficult as the Cisco exam was, they at least provide all of the materiel that you need to study in order to pass their exam.

    Bottom line - to the VMware folks, provide the course materiel that we need to pass the test. Furthermore, please don't tell me that I need to download and study the 5,000 pages of online guides to pass one exam. That's foolishness and you all know it.

    As an organization, I'm sure that it sounds cool to be raking in tons of education money and still have only a few truly vertified VCPs out there. How exclusive! Are there laws that prohibit an organization for misleading someone into thinking that a paid service will provide much less than actually promoted? There should be.

[slaclair]

FadedHues,

My attitude was much similar as yours when I took the exam the first time around in december.  I had read through that VCP study guide (worthless book, I will not even sell it on amazon) and had plenty of hands on experience.  It wasn't until sitting in on the test are you able to pin point your weaknesses as you're staring at the ceiling talking silently to yourself.  But once pinpointing those spots is when you can finally know what needs to be studied in the PDF's (I backed those topics up with Scott Lowe's book to put concepts in a real-world perspective)

There are many items covered in the VCP that I unfortunately do not get to work hands-on with on a daily basis so I spent three months hammering all of that material.  Does it seem like a little too much work?  Well that's all relative, the exclusivity of the exam is what drove me to study as hard as I did as I wouldn't have put 1/64th of the effort into a Microsoft exam.

If you read through all of the PDF's pay close attention to anything that says "Important", "Note" or any bulleted list.  Don't lose hope and take full advantage of the 2nd chance promo offered on March 1st.  You can obtain this and it will feel very rewarding, and then your triumphs are trumped when you start to concemplate the VCAP (I'm going to spend well over a year on this)

Best of luck!

[FadedHues68]

Thank you for the feedback. I will be taking the free "Second chance" exam. Unfortunately, I feel lost as to what I need to do. Some of the questions that I actually remembered from the exam, I wrote down. Even knowing the questions, I couldn't find answers to a couple for them. I believe one had to do with DRS across datacenters. There were others, but my notes are at home. When you know the questions and still can't find the answers, something just doesn't seem right.

Nonetheless, thank you for your advice. I will certainly try again.

Tim

>>> slaclair <communities-emailer@vmware.com> 3/17/2011 10:54 AM >>>

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reply from slaclair<http://communities.vmware.com/people/slaclair> in VCP: VMware Certified Professional - View the full discussion<http://communities.vmware.com/message/1718657#1718657

[scott28tt]

I personally think it's a good thing that the ICM course manual doesn't tell you everything you need to know for the VCP exam - it would be a much less interesting course if it did. I know that one of the reasons why the 4.1 ICM course was increased to be 5 days was to include more topics that were part of the VCP objectives that were not part of the older 4-day 4.0 ICM course. The other thing to appreciate is that a lot of students who attend the course are not interested in certification at all, that may be different for other vendors such as Cisco.

As a VCI, I would not want to have to spend 5 days focussing so much on passing the certification exam - I consider my job to be about teaching my students the technology and the concepts behind that technology, not just how to pass an exam. The workshop I referred to in previous posts on this thread is where I switch into "exam mode" and my students get a chance to change their focus too.

Remember that the VCP exam is a multiple choice exam, there is only so far that real-world experience can take you in terms of preparation for it. The higher-level vSphere certifications are much fairer as far as that is concerned.

I can't type out a reply without mentioning the exam blueprint - I personally think it's incredibly fair of VMware to produce such a document that tells you what you will get tested on. I've yet to see a VCP study book from a third-party that I would endorse/recommend to my students. I would avoid "paid for" exam questions too, these are normally braindumps which are notorious for containing errors. Also, I would never tell a student that they need to "study the 5000 pages of online guides" but to use them as a reference when using the blueprint to prepare.

There are tens of thousands of VCPs out there in the world, so I doubt anyone could claim some form of exclusitivity. It's certainly a certification I'm proud to have.

Scott.

[FadedHues68]

Scott,

Please don't get the impression that I'm simply looking for a brain dump to pass the exam. I believe in working for the rewards that you receive in life. That being said, please note the following:

1. After taking the Vsphere IMC class, and doing additional study and research, I successfully installed our lab and production VSphere (Enterprise plus) environment.

2. I have spent time (off and on) for over a year now trying to prepare for this exam - more time than any other exam I have taken.

3. I have a very demanding job that requires me to study on my own time - so playing cat and mouse to find mysterious answers that "might" be on the exam is extremely inefficient even for a well respected certification.

Again, it's not the amount of materiel that needs to be covered, but the lack thereof. How can I thoroughly understand Moby Dick when I've only been given the Cliff Notes?

So what's the solution? Here it is:

1. Please, require and charge for a full one week class that comes with study materiel.

2. At the completion of that class, provide additional materiel that covers ALL information that is expected to be known for the exam.

a. If you want to show me a chart and expect me to know whether to adjust the memory limit or increase physical host memory, then do a better job at covering how to interpret reports and charts

b. If you want me to know the intricacies of CHAP, then don't simply mention that CHAP is an iSCSI authentication method in the book and do no more elaboration.

3. After I have already spent over $3,000 to prepare for an exam, don't tell me you have another $2,000 class I can attend - it really makes VMware look like scammers.

Is that such a hard request?

Once again, I do appreciate your time and concern. Hopefully, I can get this thing licked before I retire.

Tim

>>> Scott Vessey <communities-emailer@vmware.com> 3/17/2011 11:53 AM >>>

VMware Communities<http://communities.vmware.com/index.jspa>

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reply from Scott Vessey<http://communities.vmware.com/people/scott28tt> in VCP: VMware Certified Professional - View the full discussion<http://communities.vmware.com/message/1718731#1718731

[scott28tt]

I didn't think for one minute that you were looking for braindump, you made it clear in your previous post that you have plenty of experience and have the training manuals, documentation etc. I would suggest that most VCPs studied for their exam in their own time. I have to say again that all the information you need to pass the VCP exam is available at no cost here on vmware.com - providing a study guide that incorporates everything you need to know would make actually taking the exam a little but of a pointless exercise in my opinion.

Remember that VMware never state that the training course manual is sufficient, you only have to compare the training course content against the exam blueprint yourself to see areas where you know you will have to do additional research/studying/hands-on. To me, the blueprint should be used as a checklist for your study program.

I don't personally work for VMware, I work for a VATC in the UK, but I've been a VCI for 5 years and hold all the VCP certifications available since the launch of the program. I cannot understand why it was suggested that you attend another course - I'm struggling to see what that would achieve for you.

Scott.

[Josh26]

Scott Vessey wrote:

As a VCI, I would not want to have to spend 5 days focussing so much on passing the certification exam - I consider my job to be about teaching my students the technology and the concepts behind that technology, not just how to pass an exam. The workshop I referred to in previous posts on this thread is where I switch into "exam mode" and my students get a chance to change their focus too.

I would suggest the majority of people attending courses would disagree.

I know I've been running VMware in datacenters for several years and had very useful little to learn from any classroom course offered. If there was a more advanced course offered I'd be happy to change that view.

Most of the classmates I talked to shared the view - we were there because it's a requirement to get the VCP, which is a requirement to sell the product as a Service Provider.

[scott28tt]

Well as I ask every single one of my students whether certification is of interest to them or not, your experience on your course was clearly different from all the students I've trained on all my courses over the last 5 years. There is definitely a marked difference between students who work for VMware partners and those who don't, due to the mandatory partner requirements for training and certification.

Remember too that VMware allow the Troubleshooting and new Advanced Fast Track courses to also qualify for VCP certification, so the foundation-level Install Configure Manage course that may be too "basic" for some is not the only training option.

I can't speak for VMware on this although I do have regular dialogue with the Education Services team, feel free to email them yourself via education@vmware.com

Scott.

[FadedHues68]

Scott,

Thank you for your response. Though I may have to direct my attention to other projects and learning endeavors, I don't want to loose sight of this certification. I truly believe that this certification process has some room for improvement, but I will investigate other resources and methods of learning to improve my level of understanding.

Thanks again for your replies.

Tim

>>> Scott Vessey <communities-emailer@vmware.com> 3/17/2011 7:54 PM >>>

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reply from Scott Vessey<http://communities.vmware.com/people/scott28tt> in VCP: VMware Certified Professional - View the full discussion<http://communities.vmware.com/message/1719101#1719101

[radiolandog]

"How can I thoroughly understand Moby Dick when I've only been given the Cliff Notes?"

"please don't tell me that I need to download and study the 5,000 pages of online guides to pass one exam"

You've been given "Moby Dick" --   All of the material that the test is based upon is available to download at no charge. -- but you don't want to utilize it?

I took the test last fall and failed.  Afterwards, I thought that the test was unreasonable.  I was supporting a production VM environment, I had a lab environment set up on my laptop.  I had looked through the blueprint.  I should pass!  I missed with a 280+ (300 is passing).

This spring I took the exam again.  This time I took the time to read and understand all of the PDFs.  I download and printed about eight or nine of them to read through and try out on my lab setup.   Closer to 1500 pages than 5000....  I'm certain that I had a much better understanding of the breadth of the vSphere's product this time.   The result was a pass.

In my opinion and experience, time and preparation should pay off.  Shortcuts may not.

Good luck,

-dog