VCAP5-DCA... Passed!

I'm not the world's biggest fan of exams and I've been putting this one off for a while. But, after Gregg Robertson volunteered me (at VMworld Europe) to pursue VCDX in 2014, I thought I ought to get it scheduled.

I took the VCAP4-DCA back in 2011 and became the 189th person to pass it. You would think then that the VCAP5 wouldn't pose a big issue. I was concerned though that I spend more time now using tools like Word and Visio than I do mucking about in the vSphere Client. Turns out that I needn't have worried quite so much.

Despite having manflu for four days before (and during) the exam and having a nightmare journey to get there thanks to a broken down train, I managed to have a crack at almost all tasks in the exam and came away with a score of 448 🙂

The two exam blueprint areas that I knew I was weaker in came up as tasks and I left them until the end to give them as much time as I could without jeopardising my chances on the other areas. That way I knew that if I messed them up, at least I'd given the rest of the exam a good go.

My tip for taking the exam: Before you start it, use the mini whiteboard or notepad that the exam centre give you to make a numbered list of the tasks that you'll be doing. As you do each one, tick it if it's finished or annotate what needs doing of finishing for each one to allow you to move through the exam without waiting for all tasks to complete as they can be slow and you can't afford to waste time.

The worst part of the whole experience is waiting for the results. It used to be up to 10 business days (I think) when the DCA exam first came out. These days they say to allow up to 15 business days. I was expecting that there might be delays, what with Christmas coming up, but it was only 1 week. A pleasant surprise 🙂