Windows 2000 Professional Certification Exam for Executives

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Directions:
This section of the exam tests your technical

proficiency.

Complete all the questions in the section as quickly and accurately as

you can. If you do not know the answer, move on. You have 30 minutes to complete

this section.

BEGIN NOW.

Question 1:
What is the helpdesk's extension number at your

company? ______

Answer Key and Test Strategy:
Although Section 1 accounts for

less than a tenth of all questions, its weight on your overall score is a high

40%. This can make or break your attempt to get certified. To your benefit, the

scoring is subjective and favors the certification candidate. For instance, in

lieu of responding with the helpdesk's number, you may specify your

organization's general reception number with a write-in addendum to "ask to be

transferred to the helpdesk." But to receive full credit, you should know the

extension or be able to read the speed-dial code from your cell phone's

programmed directory. Scoring of this section is immediate. The proctor will

initially review your answers. Those that represent "improbable" extensions

(e.g., extensions containing letters not represented on a standard telephone

like "Q" or "Z," or punctuation marks other than "*" or "#") will be scored as

errors, and the candidate will be dismissed. All other answers will be assumed

correct because, after all, you are an executive whose reputation is beyond

reproach. Sometimes a proctor will ask the executive AA to verify the response

and permit the AA to make necessary corrections. The key to scoring high in

Section 1 is to not be hasty. Take your time, and work with your AA.

Directions:
This section of the exam tests the effectiveness of

your leadership. Many times in your tenure, you will be called upon to achieve a

particular objective. For instance, you may need to compel your entire

organization to upgrade their workstations. How "efficiently" you accomplish

this task (was it done on a weekend with little impact on productivity, and was

the target ROI achieved?) is less important than how "effectively" you

accomplished this (i.e., did they carry out your orders?).

Complete the exercise and associated questions in the section, selecting

the best answer from the choices as quickly and accurately as you can. If you do

not know the answer, move on. You have 25 minutes to complete this section.

BEGIN NOW.

Exercise:
Discretely lean over toward your AA and ask him or her

to bring you a coffee--lots of cream, lots of sugar.

Question 1:
Did your AA dutifully bring your coffee?
(A)

Yes
(B) Yes, but he or she casually reminded me of their Microsoft Office

certificate from the local community college, implying "beverage server" was not

part of that curriculum.
(C) Yes, but in a Styrofoam cup, which I

absolutely hate!
(D) No, I got no coffee, but I was offered a

Velamint with some purse lint on it.

Question 2:
If your AA *did* dutifully bring you coffee

(A) Was it to your liking, as it should be?
(B) Did it have too much

cream or too much sugar?
(C) Was it cold?
(D) Was it otherwise not to

your preference, containing, for example, saccharin instead of aspartame or

Coffeemate rather than cream?

Answer Key and Test Strategy:
This section's objective is

to determine the level of unflinching loyalty you command over your

subordinates. Because the success of a Win2K rollout (indeed, any project)

depends highly on your authority to compel users to upgrade and your ability to

wield that influence, many CEOs apportion a higher significance to this section

than does the certification organization, which considers it only 15% of your

overall exam score. Thus, you cannot afford to score poorly on this section.

The correct answer, then, for both questions is (A), even if it means you

have to wince while sipping your coffee. To imply your subordinates are anything

less than efficient loyalists can be tantamount to career suicide. You score

this section yourself, though the proctor is instructed to look for erasures,

which might suggest a level of impropriety on your part.

Directions:
This final section of the exam tests your ability to

justify a migration to Windows 2000 Professional. It calls on many of your

executive skills to bring such a project to fruition.

This section contains three passages, each followed by a series of

questions. Read each passage carefully and complete the associated questions by

selecting the best answer from the choices as quickly and accurately as you can.

If you do not know the answer, move on. You have 70 minutes to complete this

section.

BEGIN NOW.

Questions 1 through 4:
Read the passage, them complete the

questions relating to it.

David Ladd is the VP of technology for Vandalay Industries Inc., a

manufacturing facility with approximately 300 workstations. Applications range

from inventory control and shipping to product design. Ladd just received an

e-mail from the director of purchasing. Apparently, all the new PCs ordered are

being shipped with Windows 2000. To help manage resources, Ladd is considering

migrating all users to Win2K. Such an upgrade involves not only additional

licenses for existing workstations, but hardware upgrades, as well. Further,

such an upgrade might disrupt the productivity of the entire organization.

Still, Ladd believes the right thing to do is to centralize with a single

operating system and chooses to move ahead. He has three days to prepare a

presentation to the Vandalay board requesting not only additional funding, but

also informing them of the possible risks of meeting availability service

levels.

Question 1:
Get your tin cup ready. The distilled version of

your plea for additional funding is:
(A) We budgeted for an upgrade next

year, but it makes more sense to bite the bullet now.
(B) We were

blind-sided by Microsoft's early release. We thought the 2K in Win2K meant

the year "2048."
(C) Living La Vida Broka: It's the cost of doing

business in the changing world of IT.

Question 2:
One of the board members asks if Windows

Millennium Edition, a cheaper OS, is a viable alternative.
(A) No, you say.

(B) No, you say, explaining that WindowsME is just a repackage of Windows98,

whereas Windows 2000 is really a new release of Windows NT, all the while hoping

that will placate them as you don't know why you even offered any additional

information because you really don't know any more than that except that you

wish someone from the support team was with you to field the question.
(C)

Admit that for most of the Minesweeper[[correct??]]-playing workstation users,

it probably would suffice, but more money could be saved on the support end--

directing their attention to a real flashy pie chart on slide #14 of your

PowerPoint presentation.

Question 3:
Dirk, a director representing the marketing leg of

Vandalay, asks about Linux, claiming it's what everyone's talking about. You

(A) Indicate simply that it's not in Vandalay's best interest, and leave it

at that, recalling how you blew Question #2 by offering more information than

necessary.
(B) Sigh and page back a few slides, *again* pointing out the TCO

of an OS with a bad UI and how little it benefits the organization.
(C)

Challenge Dirk: "Everyone's talking about it, Dirk? No one here is

talking about it. You're the only one talking about it, Dirk. Say, I have an

idea, why don't we let Dirk deliver this presentation?"

Question 4 (short essay):
In reality, the board will likely

rubber-stamp anything you recommend. In the end, it is not the company's money,

but your carcass that is on the line if the costs overrun, or availability

suffers. How do you CYA? (You may shoulder-read the CIO in front of you and copy

the answer if it is a good one.)

Question 5:
Read the following passage, then complete the

question relating to it.

Windows 2000 introduces a host of new goodies including RIS, EFS, IpSec,

and MMC. In terms of justifying the migration based on new features, the first

thing you do is:
(A) Buy yourself the latest edition of an acronym

dictionary.
(B) Focus your cost justification model on the features that

don't sound like government agencies, like improved security (file encryption

and Kerberos support), accessibility tools for the impaired, and powerful new

file-search facilities (but don't dwell on the latter--the 500-meg footprint of

the OS pretty much implies files will be as hard to find as Nobel laureate Arno

Penzias in the "For Dummies" aisle of Barnes & Noble.)

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Questions 6 through 8:
Read the following passage then complete

the questions relating to it.

Rod, your senior support technician, implores you to budget for

additional support staff in your justification model, citing the additional

maintenance overhead (SP1, for instance) as well as the other predictable

support spikes his department sees with every IT change.

Question 6:
You...
(A) Tell Rod the impact is only

temporary, citing as evidence slide #14 of the aforementioned PowerPoint

presentation.
(B) Select (A), then decide to skip the last two questions in

this section of the exam because you're getting hungry.

Question 7:

Question 8:

Answer Key and Test Strategy:
This section of the exam

carries the most weight toward your overall score, although it, like section

one, is very subjective. The correctness of your answers is less important than

how your own efforts play out (i.e., were you given the green light to go ahead

with your own Win2K migration?) Because there is no way to foretell, the

certification organization understands how difficult it is to grade this

section. So it is graded by exchanging your exam with the CIO next to you, who

is likely to be just as interested in achieving a stellar score as you are.

Steve Jones

March 2001

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