VCP5-DCV Exam and MeasureUp's Value for Prep

[VMarcSinger]

Hello,

I have just finished taking the "VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V5.5]" course, and am looking into taking the exam for certification in the near future. The issue being, I'm particularly unskilled when it comes to self-driven study. I'm a bit better when I have a list of questions and explanations for the right answers to tackle (easier to set goals and see progress I suppose?), so I was looking into some suggestions other students in the course had made, mainly TestKing and MeasureUp. This has lead to many posts pointing out the poor quality of such tools, but also to an announcement about 6 months ago where MeasureUp was declared the "Official Practice Test Provider" for VMware. Most of the posts warning of the poor quality of similar resources are dated well before this time, and I've not found one that mentions MeasureUp specifically.

So...anyone know how well this particular resource holds up? I'd hate to find out after paying (or worse, after failing to certify) that the practice was no good. Normally I would go with the safe move of working only off the blueprint, but I know myself well enough to realize that I would do better with a (well-constructed and up to date) practice exam resource if available.

Any other tips you want to give are appreciated as well, of course. For now I'll work from my textbook and the blueprint to get started as best I can.

Thanks,

-Marc

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Community - From what I have heard about Measure UP is it should help - because it is officially supported by VMware the questions should be in line with the types of questions you will find in the exam - I actually think they use questions that heave been retired from the pool of questions used for the exam.

Definitely DO NOT use Test King - I have seen their practice exams and easily more than half the questions were wrong -

But I strongly urge you to use the Blueprint - it details what can be covered on the exam and provides the reference points -

[MannTech]

I'm using it right now and I would recommend it for study mode alone. You can do a full exam and as you go you can see if you were correct whilst understanding the answer via the explanation. Blueprint is THE guide but if you can afford it then get the measureup exam... it's also worth looking for discount coupons online

[scott28tt]

You don't really need to pay for anything - you can get all of these for free:

1. The blueprint, to guide you on what to study

2. The software, to practice in evaluation mode for 60 days (and rebuild for another 60 if you need more time)

3. The documentation, to study - this is used by VMware to validate the items in the exam

If you do want to use some practice tests, avoid brain dumps such as TestKing.

[MannTech]

very true... I'd stick with the MeasureUp tests if are you going to buy one as this is the official vmware partner - there is the free mock exams on the vmware site too but it's quite limited

[Mstrzelec]

Hey There,

I have just passed the VCP5-DCV (not 5.5) after taking the 5.0 fast track training about a year ago, working for 12+ months in a spread and quite large ESX environment and buying the measureup access, so:

1. Install, Configure and Manage training does not cover even 20% of the exam I would say. There are plenty of questions which fall out of the scope of the training
2. Measureup can only show you how questions are build - i.e. that there can be answers which are "truer" than the others or there are intentional errors, typos or any other such things which will disqualify an answer and you need to stay vigilant. The practice tests themselves have almost no value when it comes to the real exam.
3. The test was MUCH harder then I anticipated, I was pretty sure I would fail, but somehow I managed to pass it (score: 315 - passing limit was 300)
4. I would argue if even half of the test is really trying to measure your technical skills - there are questions which check your familiarity with the vSphere client. You need to make sure you are familiar with every checkbox on every tab and wizard within vSphere
5. Having said the above - in fact you should be familiar with every button or link in the vSphere client also with what is visible on which view and how. You should have worked with DRS, storage DRS etc etc
6. And on top of the above, you need to be aware of all the ESX related products like VSA and other 3+ letter abbrevations for vmware products.
7. You need to be familiar with shell tools like esxtop as well as some vCLI or PowerCli tools and scripts. If you have not used any of these, you will miss 5-10 questions on the test.
8. You need to be familiar with SAN / NAS storage solutions and their integration with VMware. There are detailed questions about storage, FC links and such.
9. If you have not done any performance troubleshooting (like slow VM or similar) in real life scenario, you will find quite a few questions very difficult or even impossible to answer. There are detailed questions about multiple counters or views within vSphere.

I guess that's more or less it. Hope it helps.

[AmerPatriot]

The VCP-DCV Exam is tough.  No question about it.  To help out, one of my colleagues has developed a new VCP test prep platform.  We are beta testing it right now, and hoping to launch it in July 2015.  I know they are looking for some beta testers right now.  If you are interested please let me know and I will put you in touch with him.

Good Luck.

[Scott_G1]

If they are still looking for testers I would be interested