Passed AZ-900 with score above 900. Study for Microsoft certs from Microsoft. Everything else is an add-on.
As the heading suggests. I passed AZ-900 and I am super ecstatic to share my learning experience because let me tell you.
At first Azure Fundamentals appears to be very simple. The truth is it has a very subtle grammar, tone and rhythm to how questions are formatted and which answer(s) are a perfect fit to those questions.
As the skills measured has changed, some topics still appear since they appear in sandboxes and azure portals. So in their (I mean Microsoft’s )trainings they include them. More details in my previous blog.
Having said that the exam by itself is not at all tough. As this is a fundamental certification and meant for anyone who is new to azure.
Microsoft certs have a particular way of to deliberately phrase the question in such a way that you are forced to ponder.
Even if you have a photographic memory; that does not matter. Some questions are such that 1 feature is combined with 2 concepts. And two options usually come very close to each other.
So unless your basics are in place it would be difficult to answer.
And mind you for 1 topic there are enumerable pages of documentation on ms docs. And it gets overwhelming. Since as a Software Engineer we don’t mind going through long documents. And phrase out key notes for our meetings and presentations.
But what is the premise, context and summation of all the ideas in each paragraph, page and doc. That gets obscure.
Nor does UNION or EXCEPT work on reading Microsoft docs because. Everything is relevant.
With limited time to ourselves from our respective jobs. How do we make the most of MS-Learn and also trainings provided by Microsoft. Is just how I hit the ball out of the park with AZ-900.
Tip 1: I followed the current blogs and posts from Microsoft to keep up to date with change of their learning paths/rewards/offers/training, etc.
Tip 2 : Fundamentals path has been upgraded from late Jan 2021 to suit 9th November 2020 changes.
Tip 3: Follow MVP’s videos on YouTube. I followed videos from Adam Marczak and Tim Warner.
Tip 4: Microsoft Training Day events for 100% free vouchers. On attendance via your Microsoft account you will receive a discount voucher. At present its 100% of the cost. Provided you register yourself and have a certification dashboard.
Tip 5: Toolkits tests and practice
I found Whizlabs coming very close to my prep. They have a review question option as well and timing for not just all sections in one prep but section by section prep.
Udemy is another.
Also you may register for practice tests and labs on Microsoft via the below link.
Most important thing to note, I did not subscribe to their full courses. Only practice tests. All questions I saw on the exam were cracked via learning only from Microsoft trainings and paths.
Tip 6: This is final and like I said in the title collection of add-ons.
freeCodeCamp.org
John Savill
reddit.com/AzureCertifications
Pluralsight azure certification paths.
LinkedIn on AZ-900.
There was no need for mindhub or measureup tool kits. They are quite expensive and besides why look elsewhere if we have what we need right here in our tech community.
I did read many posts on Medium and ITNext.io. Along with discussion boards on Reddit.
Also, any problem(s) before and after the exam or anything with scheduling. Start posting on Community questions of Microsoft itself. They are bound to reply within at least 2 weeks.
In my experience did not take that long with 2–3 days all questions regarding timing, proctor, duration and skills measured were answered.
One final note. My exam was scheduled for midnight my time. And the proctor was delayed by 30 mins so do not leave your seat or camera, as a pop-up comes saying you are not there. It may be a bot or something idk. So be patient.
And since this is a non-negative marking exam. Attend all questions. Also, note there are some surveys and feedback screens that pop-up. I read in the community they stall the results and sometimes provide extra time. Its a bug on Microsoft’s side. So I did not even give my feedback.
And yes Passed with a score over 900. In my next blog will share my notes , feature lists and diagrams which I prepared for myself. Since there is a lot of theory (esp for Cost, SLA, Security, Governance, Compute and Networking) so its not an exaggeration to assume mind-maps, word association and memory jogging is very much in play.
Do let me know if anything.
Until next time!!
