Immersion Preparation: MSM Knowledge Exam

I will dedicate my debut post to a very interesting experience I gained in the process of preparing for the Microsoft Certified Master exams on the SharePoint platform. The main features of this certificate are: included training, practical testing of candidates (Qualification Lab) and impressive financial costs for obtaining it (which, by the way, do not guarantee receipt). Accordingly, there are not so many risky or self-confident technicians in the world who want to accept the challenge. Although rather normal people are able to come up with the best use of the required amount. But my thirst for knowledge was doomed to a long and adventurous journey, about a small part of which I will tell here. And by the way, this is one of the few aspects of the program, not closed to the disclosure of the contract.

The first approach to the projectile I deftly failed, not getting quite a bit before the passing score, and now my mind was to just break the exam. For this, I had to approach the training systemically, and my brain became the key tool for the following set of tools:
1. Microsoft OneNote = meine wunderwaffe. Details below.
2. Quizlet , carefully filled with spurs from team mates (MCM Rotation 12, You Rocks!)
3. Exclusive content provided to students during the training process (no chance to share: NDA however)
4. Spence Harbar (not to be confused with Habr) and Steve Peschka , but rather their crystal-clear and understandable articles on the most key and most obscure aspects of the platform
5. Practice on a small virtual farm, kindly provided by EPAM (and where are they going!)
The approach itself:
- leave is taken at work on the basis of 5 days outside the office. Exam - on the evening of the 5th day. This day fell on Tuesday, so I had to donate two days off.
- starting from the first day, the biorhythm is rebuilt. Exam - in the evening and until night, the goal was to bring the peak of the body's activity to this watch. It turned out well, I still can not fall asleep before 3 o'clock in the morning :)
- in OneNote, we create a tree frame of all SharePoint modules (Development Practices, Security, Service Applications, Multu-Tenancy, etc.), beautifully decorated with checkboxes in order to track progress
- determined daily production rate (5 modules per day)
- For each module:

• view training material with slippery spots * added to OneNote tree
• viewed private group QuizLet, OneNote at the ready
• on slippery places read Internet **
• in very slippery places an exercise is done on a virtual farm

* slippery places - craving is required, or it is not clear, or ambiguous, or a steady feeling appears below the back, that there will be a question
** Internet is a dangerous place, you can not believe everything; only Spence and Steve watch key things (even the current one contains quite a few errors)
- Two hours before the exam - light exercise, then tea, then a fresh look through the passage through OneNote.
And all this - for the sake of a four-hour ticking session. However, I managed three.

Overall impression: the pace of preparation was rather severe, it was not easy to close 5 modules a day. But the calculation was justified, an intensive vacuum cleaner of information allowed me to drag the load of knowledge to the right moment without spilling it out, but the forces left me the very next day (or was it night? I was completely confused :)).
')
PS from interesting - on the advice of fellow rotation, in the days of preparation from the food consumed salmon, broccoli and tea with mint. They said the brain is activated ... and now I tend to believe them.

PPS is now calling on the Qualification Lab. Here it will be unlike more difficult. I hope there will be an occasion to write here my positive experience of what many past people call “the most challenging experience in my life”.

PPPS this post is also a poorly disguised stratagem Sun Tzu, JFYI