New Microsoft Cert FAQs

[kmcferrin]

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/exam-prep.aspx#tab4

There are sections on preparation, scoring, policy, etc. I found the scoring section the most interesting, especially the following comments:


There are several important pieces of information on the score report:
Your scaled score and pass/fail status: All Microsoft Certified Professional exams are scaled so that a passing score is 700. Any score of 700 or greater is a "pass." Any score below 700 is a "fail." Different passing scores do not reflect different levels of examinee knowledge.

Because of the way Microsoft sets the cut score, we cannot guarantee that an examinee who scores 900 is more knowledgeable in the exam's topic area than an examinee who scores 800. We can only say that both examinees are at least minimally qualified. The same is true for failing scores. An examinee who scores 400 is not necessarily less knowledgeable in the exam's topic area than an examinee who scores 600. In this case, both examinees fail to meet the minimum qualifications for the certification. This is why your exam scores do not appear on your transcript.

The scale requires a minimum passing score of 700 on all exams. If you receive a score of 700 or above, it means that you are at least minimally qualified; if you receive a score below 700, it means that you are not minimally qualified. Because of the way we set our cut scores, no other judgments about the numerical score obtained can be made.



________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

 

[PotNoodleBoy]

Is it just me or does that make no sense? If someone who scores 400 is not necessarily worse than someone who scores say 650 - what's the point of a score at all? How exactly are they calculated - a random number generator?? It certainly seems like it.

Only Microsoft could make something so simple so complicated and impossible to understand. The silly thing is, it won't stop candidates and employers comparing scores. The first thing people ask me when I get back to the office after an exam is 'what score did you get?' Luckily I always score quite highly. I think the minimum score I've had is 889. Apparently that means nothing though...

 

[kmcferrin]

I don't think the scoring methodology probably varies much from what other certification programs offered. Heck, I've never understood standardized test scoring very well anyway, even ACT and SAT.

I think that you can safely assume that a 700 is a pass, a zero means you got nothing correct and a 1000 means you got everything correct. Maybe they're saying that two people who scored 850 might have gotten different numbers of questions correct, so you may not be able to judge them as equal. I bet it has to do with the fact that there's no guarantee that two exams would have identical questions.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

 

[mrdenny]

Correct, different questions are worth different amounts of points. Also everyone gets different questions so comparing scores doesn't do much good since a single number doesn't tell you anything about what questions or topics were missed.

Denny
MVP
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