Microsoft AZ-900 : My Story on the day of the Exam
Hi Friends, Happy to inform you all that couple of days ago, I cleared this exam. Little bit elated and proud of this achievement because, even though before starting the exam, I was confident of clearing it without any trouble, things did not go as planned.
What happened? On the day of the exam, I was supposed to start 30 mins before the Scheduled exam time of 7:15PM and I somehow got delayed doing some of office work. After a quick shower and light dinner, by the time I started logging into the Prometric website, it was already 7:00Pm. Anyway, as soon as I logged in there was an immediate response, say after 2 mins of waiting in the queue. A chat box popped up say, you are chatting with Mr X. I typed “Hello Mr X”. And X disappeared mysteriously, and My Y came in. I did that again and Y explained me to upload my ID photos and photos of my workstation one from behind, one from left front facing, one of right etc. Done that and I had a call from Mr. Y saying that, my ID photos are not clear and do them again. Ok, did it again. Then, Y asked me if I am able to see myself in the webcam. And, I told him yes, I can. But the problem was that he was not able to see me. He kept me on hold telling that he will check with his Technical help desk. After what seemed like hours (though few mins), he told me that he still can’t see me and gave me two options, either to change my WIFI connection or Laptop. It was 7:20 and we are still trouble shooting. I quickly changed my Laptop and by that time, a disaster struck. The call got disconnected and waited for few more mins and still no call back from my friend. Anyway, I logged in again and uploaded all the photos and ID etc again. It was 7:35PM and I thought, I might be disqualified or something and I need to make another booking or something. But a miracle happened. I was able to login again and the test automatically started without any further questions. I am sure, my friend Y must have done something good to my ID. And, I started the exam and because of all the stress, I messed up the first 3 questions which I realised after I did 6th question. Hmm. I don’t bother further thinking about the lost chance because, I have not marked them for review. Alright, take it easy, take deep breath, cool down. I said to myself. And, I kept going. And, I finished the whole exam in 35 mins. I still had another 25 mins but, I clicked on Submit and the Confirmation again. And, then something funny happened. Instead of Submission, I was returned to question 1, So what happened to all the questions that I answered? Am I going to restart again because, I have done the exam too early? Luckily, I noticed that my answered are still there as marked by me. But, I had to Click about 40 times ( I thinks, there are about 40 questions) to come to the final submission page, Anyway, I had a chance to review all the questions and by this I am pretty confident of my answers. But, when I am about to Submit, I
realised that I did not actually look at the first three questions that messed up. But I didn’t want to take further chance and Submitted again. Fingers Crossed. Confirmed that I want to Submit and gladly, I was not taken back to the first question. And, Hulaaa..Got a message that I passed the Exam. And, that’s the Best part.
After the exam, had this realisation that generally, we expect the beginning to be good and when things go wrong, we become panicky. What I did was, I totally ignored the bad start and messing up first three questions. I persisted, kept going and things worked out.
PS: I am don’t want to blame Prometric in anyway. In fact, the Staff Mr Y was very courteous and helpful. I also appreciate all the strict measures they are taking to make sure that people don’t cheat for these things. It was my mistake. This was first time; I wrote an Online Proctored exam and no idea of what was coming. Anyway, it was fun and an exciting experience.
How did I prepared for the exam and all that, I better write another article. But, in short, some hard work and sweat. Studying while your family is sleeping is what I have done.
