I Sat the Azure 70-533 Exam Yesterday

I finally got around to sitting the Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions exam (70-533) this week.  This is how it went.

My exam was scheduled for 9:15 AM.  I showed up at 9:00 AM, signed in, and was promptly taken back to the testing area.  After answering all of the “pre-test” survey questions, the screen informed me that my test would be 42 questions and that I would have 120 minutes to complete it.  I clicked “Begin Test” and it was “game on”.

The first five or six questions (all on SQL retention policies) set the tone for what would be a long morning.  I was sure that this was going to be the first exam that I failed in over 15 years – and I was only 10 minutes in!  Over the next 110 minutes, I would encounter a solid mix of multiple choice questions and well as lots of drag and drop questions.  The collection of questions I encountered covered the 70-533 material pretty well, with a heavy focus on ARM templates and PowerShell commands.  Luckily, I worked with both quite a bit in my own lab environment as I prepped for the exam.

At about the halfway mark, I was starting to feel a little better about my prospects but still felt like I had to run the table to pass the exam – a daunting task, indeed.  The proctor had to be amused by my antics as I sat in the testing room alone, talking aloud to myself, shaking my head in disbelief, and looking agitated as I worked through each question, marking those that I felt I might want to go back to later.