Using Microsoft Skills Assessments

Studying for a Microsoft exam, or any other exam, can be a difficult thing. Obviously the more prepared you are, the more likely you are to pass. And if you’re like me, you’ll want to use every possible exam preparation avenue that is available.

Now there needs to be a book written called the Art of Studying for a Microsoft Exam. Of course, you can jump right in, read everything, take every practice exam out there, buy oodles of stuffy guides and be on your way. However, when I study for an exam, I like to start by looking at my existing knowledge and skill set. So exam preparation should include an assessment of your existing skills to determine which areas you should be focusing more of your attention on when studying.

Using the Microsoft Skills Assessments, you can do just that, evaluate your current skills and use the results to better prepare yourself for an exam. Once you complete an assessment, you’ll also receive a Personalized Learning Plan that you can use for studying. And did I mention it is free?

Completing an assessment entails answering exam like questions for a given assessment. For example, you may want to take the skills assessment for Microsoft’s Supporting Deployment for Windows XP, which falls under the category of supporting the end-user desktop. The questions you encounter for this assessment relate back to deploying Windows XP.

There are a number of benefits to using the Microsoft Skills Assessment including:

• You receive a free analysis of your existing skills.
• You can see how your score ranks against other IT professionals.
• You can maintain an assessment history of all the assessments you have taken to date.
• You receive a Personalized Learning Plan.

So once you complete the required number of questions on the assessment, you’ll receive your Personalized Learning Plan. This is based on the questions you answered incorrectly during the assessment. In other words, you need to work on these areas before you go ahead and challenge the exam! The learning plan will give you a list of resources that you can use to increase your skills and knowledge for those topics you did not fare so well on. Seems like a pretty good way to be more organized and focused when it comes to exam preparation. [Diana Huggins]