Preparing for the Microsoft exam

There are multiple aspects of preparing for the Microsoft exam. These include the resources available to prepare for the exam, the ability to access a subscription for hands-on learning, and how you are going to take your exam. If this is your first Microsoft exam, understanding the format that most of these exams will follow is important.

Let's take a closer look at each of these areas.

Resources to prepare for the exam

There are many resources available that can help you prepare for most Microsoft exams. This includes pre-recorded content from learning companies, live courses from Microsoft Learning Partners, and content that's been posted by the community and Microsoft blog articles. Each of these resources is helpful, but the pre-recorded content and live courses will come at a price. This may not be within your budget. Community and Microsoft blog articles generally provide a level of direction regarding where you need to go for each topic, but they do not get into specifics.

One of the best resources is Microsoft itself. Microsoft provides detailed documentation about each of their services via Microsoft Docs, which allows you to search freely and find the information that you need. This information is publicly available and free. Microsoft Docs is tied very closely to Microsoft Learn's content, which will be discussed later in this chapter.

To access and search Microsoft Docs, simply go to https://docs.microsoft.com.

Access to a subscription

When preparing for the Microsoft exam, it is highly recommended that you have had some level of hands-on experience with the services within the objectives. For fundamental-level exams, with the SC-900 being a fundamental-level exam, hands-on experience is extremely helpful in reinforcing your understanding. Microsoft courses have a GitHub repository for labs that are recommended and available to the public.

The lab guides can be found at this link: http://www.microsoft.com/learning.

Microsoft offers trial subscriptions for both Azure and Microsoft 365. The process of creating these trials will be covered later in this chapter.

Where to take the exam

Part of the preparation process of taking the exam includes where you are going to take it. Traditionally, there has only been the option to take these exams at a proctored exam site. Some may prefer this method because it is a controlled environment. Understanding the location and setup of the site can help lower your level of stress on the day of the exam. Making a trip to the site before your exam date can avoid any potential surprises on the day.

When the role-based exams became available, Microsoft provided an additional option of taking the exam remotely from your home or office by using a remote proctor. This may be your preferred option if you are more comfortable using your own equipment and environment. If you do not have this choice when scheduling your exam, then this option has not been made available to your region. If it is available, you will see options similar to the following:

Figure 1.1 – Selecting a location when scheduling the exam

There are some important steps to prepare for the remote proctor. From an equipment standpoint, you must have a device with a webcam, microphone, and speakers. You can only use one monitor, so ensure that you have a high resolution to avoid any issues when viewing the exam. It is highly recommended that you test your equipment before the day of the exam to avoid any issues with anti-malware software.

The location that you are going to take the exam in must be cleared of any papers, books, pens, and pencils. It must also be a quiet environment where no one will enter while you are taking the exam. You will be required to photograph the location and surrounding area when checking in. Valid identification is required as well. During the exam, you must remain within the view of the camera. This may feel intrusive and may not be a manner that is comfortable for some, but others may prefer being within their own environment.

Exam format

Microsoft exams are typically made up of 4-6 question types. These are case studies, multiple-choice, drag and drop, true/false, drop-down fill-in, and best answer scenarios. Let's provide some additional details about what each of these means, as follows:

• Case study questions provide a hypothetical company setting within the current environment, proposed future environment, and the technical and business requirements. From this scenario, 6-8 questions are asked that may cover multiple objective areas of the exam. In most associate-level exams, you could see 1-3 of these case studies.
• Multiple-choice questions are straightforward questions. Some multiple-choice questions may have more than one answer. Microsoft is generally transparent on how many correct answers need to be chosen for the question, and you will be alerted if you do not choose the correct number of selections.
• Drag-and-drop questions are usually based on the steps of a process to test your knowledge of the order of operations to deploy a service. You are given more selections than needed and need to move the steps that apply to the question to the right-hand column in the proper sequence.
• The next type of question is a modified type of true/false question. In these questions, you are usually provided with some exhibits or screenshots from within the Microsoft portals or tables that show what has been configured. There are then 3-4 statements about this information, where you need to select yes or no for each statement based on whether the statement is correct based on the information provided.
• Drop-down fill-in questions are usually where you will find PowerShell or Azure CLI code. You will be asked to complete certain steps within a string of code where the blank sections provide drop-down selections to choose from.
• The best answer scenario questions test your understanding of an objective area. Microsoft will warn you when you get to this section as you will no longer have the option to navigate back to the other questions. You will be provided a specific scenario that needs to be solved, along with a proposed solution. The requirement is to determine whether that solution is the best solution to solve the scenario at hand. After selecting yes or no, you may see the same scenario again with a different solution, where you must select yes or no again.

Each of these exam question types tests your level of understanding in different ways, and all of them are weighted against the exam objectives, which will be discussed later in this chapter.

With that, we have covered how to determine an exam's location and the types of questions that you may expect. The next few sections will cover the resources that will help you learn about the topics within the exam, as well as how to gain access to the solutions so that you can follow along with the exercises in this guide.