💦 👩🏼‍🎨 🏫 Microsoft Online Certification

Microsoft Russia has translated an article on the exam test process online .

Over the past year, in one way or another, hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have been preparing and passing exams have already passed through me. Many of them handed over online, even before Covid-19, and after the certification centers were closed, when online-proctored exams were the only options, and the flow only increased. In addition, I myself have passed 8 certificates through online proctored exams over the past year to be able to help our engineers with preparation for certification.

As a result, I had some experience that I wanted to share.
The article is structured as follows: a quote from a Microsoft article is taken in the subtitle, and below are my comments and examples.

Do a system test

I would add that it is necessary to conduct not only a test of the system , but also do it in the place and at the same time where you plan to take it.

Otherwise, you may get a problem when you had enough wifi bandwidth from one room, but not enough from the one where you sat down. There was another example, when in China a girl checked the Internet from home, and went to the office to take it, because the office in China had already opened, and there it was waiting for a surprise: there wasn’t enough channel (either the Great Chinese Fireworks, the admins felted something with the network, or the provider was junking)
At the same time, it is better to check at the same time when you are going to take it, because it happens that in the morning or at night everything is fine with you, and by lunchtime, when you are going to take it, the channel is already sagging
We had cases when people could not start the test because a system test showed an error checking the connection speed. At the same time, there were no problems with the network on the side of the examinee: there were 50-60 megabits in both directions on independent tests. The problem was on the side of the certification center. As a result, we bypassed it by connecting through a VPN to an office in another country for several days, and then Pearson Vue repaired it.
It’s best to take the test before registering for the exam , as you can spend the money first and then realize that you have a problem. One of the engineers signed up for us at first, and then I realized that the tests work only under Win / Mac, but it works on Linux, the office is closed, bios is password protected, you can’t do dual boot on your own and you won’t download from the USB flash drive. In general, it is better to read the requirements in advance.

“Make sure you have a working webcam” and “Use a wired connection if possible.”

Compliance with the second paragraph may cause problems with the first. But in general I support. This should be taken care of not only because some of us seal the camera or prohibit the camera driver, but also because there was an interesting case. The man decided to connect not to wifi, but through the wire to get a more predictable connection quality. However, when asked to show the room through the camera, the man picked up the laptop and the wire went away. I had to reconnect, wait in line again, take another photo of the workplace, myself, my documents, etc. In general, 15 minutes and extra nerves.

Consider using a larger screen if possible.

I support the screen, but I don’t understand the comment about the laboratory work.
Due to Covid-19 and a lack of capacity in Azure, practical tasks were removed from the exams without special announcements . Examinations are greatly lost from this, but there is something there.

In addition, it has become harder to prepare for exams, as most studied using a free trial or msdn subscription, as Spend your money on “pay as you go” or other paid resources.

And yes - this is precisely the lack of capacity. Let's call a spade a spade: if in msdn / free trial subscriptions it is impossible to create databases or virtual machines (which was possible last 10 years) - this is a lack of capacity. The official position (that capacities were redistributed for those struggling with covid-19) is weak amid the fact that AWS / GCP did not introduce such restrictions.

Warn your household about the upcoming exam

The most difficult item that I would like to paint additionally. It is necessary not only to warn, but also to remind before surrender , because they can forget from the night. Personally, I hung a piece of paper on the outside door with the inscription “the exam is in progress” and asked my wife to back the door with a chair outside (I can go out, but such a barricade should clearly raise questions even for the most forgetful, but still adequate people).

It is worth not only to notify, but also to ask your household not to make noise, because for excessive noise, even if there is nobody in the room, you may well be taken off the exam (I was given 2 warnings because of the noise outside the door and said that there would be no third, but that the exam would be canceled. I had to, without departing from the course, through the closed the door loudly convey the essence of the problem to the family).

Ask not to turn on the washing machine, do not wash the dishes, do not vacuum, do not talk on the speakerphone with your favorite mother-in-law about conspiracy theories, ask the children not to play catch-up in the hallway. Check that you did not order delivery and did not leave anything on the stove.

It sounds ridiculous, but this is far from a complete list, which either I or those I mentored came across.

Remove all unnecessary

There are a lot of interesting things to tell. Ideally, around you at arm's length, there should be nothing at all except a computer.

One of our renters decided to book a meeting room for the exam, where the notes remained with a permanent marker. There was no choice - I had to wipe it off for 10 minutes.
Another colleague took a meeting room with equipment for large meetings via the Internet, and as a result of about 15 minutes he was forced to disconnect all wires in order to be admitted to the exam. After the exam, it took even more time to connect all this back, because what was included in stress conditions, of course, the person did not remember.

Keep your phone handy

It is not necessary to even have a SIM card or money on it. Enough wifi. The phone is used to take a photo of yourself in the place where you will take (take a selfie), take a photo of your documents, and 4 photos of your workplace from different sides. It takes about 5-10 minutes.

Carry a state-issued ID

Here a lot of interesting things opened up.

When all the test centers were closed, it turned out that many of our “students” did not have documents at all, where their first and last names were written in Latin letters (no driver’s license or passport). It would be too much for us to offer people to get a passport (which means to pay a state duty) or a driver’s license in order to pass a “free” exam.

There was a person who seems to have documents, but the person passed it (in some countries, it is written in the internal passports in Latin letters) for reissue, and now he only has the relevant certificate. At the same time, the passport desk almost stopped working due to quarantine and some people cannot get at least some kind of document with a photograph.

The official requirements say that the name of the account during registration must match the spelling in the document. It would seem a banal requirement, but even here we learned a lot.

Here we learned that in Russia, for example, we recently changed the transliteration of the name Andrei (from Andrey to Andrei and VITALIY to VITALII). The person already has a new passport, and upon registration, the old spelling.
I also learned that all kinds of umlauts and other dashes over letters can actually be ignored, if with special characters it is similar to spelling a name only in English letters.
Someone changed the last name, and the legal name does not change so easily.
Someone moved to another country, where the spelling of the first name and surname in the Latin alphabet changed, and the legal name, as written above, change, you need to write a whole request in support.
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The official instructions say about waiting up to 10-15 minutes. In practice, we had cases in 2-3 minutes of waiting, and 30 minutes, and 1.5 hours (I repeat: 90 minutes or an hour and a half). However, you do not even know which one you are in the queue, and when they will answer you. The official instructions say that you need to close all programs except the testing system, but actually waiting for the proctor for 10-30 minutes is boring and many of our “students” read the news, chatted before the exam, etc. without any consequences. The testing program still closes all windows, silences all chats and applications during the exam.

We had people who, after an hour of waiting, could not stand it and closed the tests. It is clear that these are isolated cases in a large sample, but this was also the case. The main thing here is to create a support requestto give you the opportunity to reassign the exam, and not just your free voucher burned out.

In addition, I do not recommend appointing exams from 12 to 13 if you are not from the US / UK or are confident in the AM / PM system. It would seem that complicated ?! But no, several people scheduled the exam at 12.30 AM (half past midnight), and arriving at 12.30 in the afternoon, they were very surprised why they could not open the exam. It would be funny, but there were several such people. I don’t know how they did it because my time when choosing slots was displayed in 24 hour format, not AM / PM.

According to observations , the proctors are now softer.I believe that this was due to an increase in the number of online exams and, as a result, they simply do not have time. Often I was not even asked to show the room, but immediately began the exam. The fastest option was that they didn’t even write “Hi” to me in the chat, but immediately started the test. I was very surprised, but in the end I was not interested in these formalities either. But we recommend our engineers to prepare for the most rigorous version, when they have to show the room and be ready to fulfill the other requirements of the proctor.

Do not touch your face

It is important here not about touching the face. It is important that you have visible eyes and lips to make sure that you cannot cheat. You can support the jaw, and does not raise questions. But if you put your hand across the lips, closing them from the camera, then you will be asked to follow the rules.

One of our renters loved to sit in a chair lower, in the end I received a comment because only his forehead and hair were visible on the video. The second observation could lead to disqualification.

PS

It’s good that the process of passing the exam online is, in principle, possible. Through it, we have passed hundreds of people. But User Experience leaves much to be desired and I hope that in 2021, it will be improved since the current one is more like 2010 rather.

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But, although the process is not ideal, it’s quite possible to turn in. I hope this article helps you save time and not get into the situations described in the article.

Microsoft Online Certification - Field Notes