I was on that in another discussion. It doesn't say "deprecated", it does say "we recommend you don't use it", and no one knew why. Is SQL Server 7.0 or earlier around anywhere so we could see whether at any time it was announced deprecated? Or did we already do that?

I put the wrong answer, 10.5, I missed that the calculation result was stored back to the int variable(!)

Two thoughts on these exercises generally:

1. Often you look at the puzzle code and go "But you wouldn't do it that way!" But 1a, that isn't the point. And, 1b, the way "you" would do it may be different from the way "that guy who wrote some stuff for us till we found out he was raised by squirrels from birth and not a real MSCE at all" would do it. Some people do write squirrelly code.

A co-worker just couldn't read a query of mine yesterday, so there is something wrong with at least one of us, him and/or me!

2. If you only go in on the questions you think you know, and skip the harder ones, it skews the scoreboard. But 2a, who cares. 😉