VCAP recap

Yesterday was the big day. I spent more of my day on the train into central London than I did in the exam suite, but only just! The beta exam clocked in at just under 4 hours as they threw more questions at us than you're likely to get in the shipping version of the exam.

And it was tough, too. Two weeks of cramming isn't enough time to get it all down. They're testing knowledge of a lot of subjects across technical, design, and project arenas with a broad mixture of highly conceptual and disturbingly specific questions. Not surprisingly it's all covered in the official exam blueprint, and studying the recommended reading from the blueprint will prepare you for the exam, but in much the same way that reading the entire unabridged edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica will prepare you for the local pub quiz. There's no substitute for experience here, and my lack of experience with large design projects was a handicap. But I was expecting that.

The beta exam allowed for less than 2 minutes per question which put the pressure on, especially when there were certain classes of interactive question that demanded 5-10 minutes each. Since you have no idea what types of questions are coming, time management is very difficult, particularly towards the end. Do I rush through these multiple choice questions just in case there's a big one coming up, or take a more considered approach and risk running out of time? I went for the former and actually ended up with 8 minutes in hand at the end. It made me feel like I'd chosen wrong.

Frequently I found there wasn't enough space on the screen for the question. It was frustrating to have to answer questions against a scenario when the scenario ran off the right-hand edge of the screen. Worse were the interactive questions that didn't leave enough space on the screen to create an answer. I don't know if this is a general problem or if the testing centre I visited were just running too low a screen resolution. There were a lot of basic proof-reading and clarity of meaning issues.

I doubt it will matter though. I fully expect the exam grade will be based on a weighted sum across different subject areas and a fail in, say, the projecty bit won't make up for good performance in, say, a logical designy bit. On balance, I'm expecting a fail because of my performance on a couple of sections that I just don't have enough background in to feel confident in.

The afterward made it sound like only those who passed would be contacted once VMware had had time to collate and review all the beta test scores, so I may never know just how badly I've done :)