Despite being without power for a few days, a hectic scramble at work to get things done, and kids off from school, I managed to take and pass the 70-431 exam last Friday. I had the book from Jordan and whoever (Sybex) that covered the exam and I spent a couple hours Friday at lunch flipping through it, trying to be sure I had an idea of what was covered, but I didn't really get any studying done. I was counting on the experience of working with and reading about SQL Server 2005 to get me through. I actually had exam insurance, so I wasn't too worried, but still, I wanted to do well.

So the first part of the exam, 30 some questions, were the standard multiple choice questions I've seen on many exams. They were all over the board, covering everything from Performance monitoring to replication to service broker. I thought the questions were pretty hard, so you really needed to have spent some time on the product.

The second part of the exam was a simulation, with actually screen shots of dialogs or SSMS that responded to clicks. You could click on certain areas and had to solve a problem. Like delete a user that owned a schema, or add a linked server, etc. A few of the items I wasn't sure how to solve, but enough of the product was limited in its functionality that I muddled through. Or must have because...

I passed!!!!!

I'm not an MCITP in both the Database Developer and Database Administration categories.

Now we'll see if I get my free Tech Net. I also have 25% off another exam, so I'm considering the basic BI exam.