According to the myriad of statistics used to track such things, the post “How I passed the 70-761 certification exam” has been one of the most popular on this site in recent months. If this means folks are studying for that exam, then I thought I’d post a similar post for 70-762 since I passed that one as well.
This exam was originally scheduled for retirement at the end of June, but now you can attempt this certification until January 31, 2021.
If you’re motivated to study for this exam, let me share a bit to try to help you.
These Days
The first thing to note is unlike the 70-761 exam I took this one at home. There was this global pandemic thing which forced the closure of all testing sites, so my only option for taking this exam was at my residence.
I could probably make a whole post about taking these exams at home because it is really a different experience. I’ve actually taken a few exams at home now, and each one varies in the requirements of the proctor. For now, let’s just say you definitely need to clean your desk, take everything off the walls around the workspace, and whatever you do DON’T MOUTH THE WORDS TO THE QUESTIONS.
Anyhow, back to the exam preparation.
Begin the Begin
I studied for this exam using the same methodology I used for the 70-761 exam. I went through the official Microsoft “Developing SQL Databases” book, highlighting anything I didn’t already know. Then I purchased the official practice exam and gradually went through all questions (10 at a time), making notes about the concepts for the ones I missed. Then I went through only the missed questions. Then I tried taking a few practice exams with more than 10 questions with the intention of scoring 90% or better.
It should be noted that the book for this exam has quite a few typos. I’m not doubting the competency of the authors, but it appears they didn’t have access to a good editor. Be warned if you go this route, and just know others have soldiered on before you with this book and still passed the exam.
Also, the practice exam had a few poorly worded questions or answers, with phrases such as such as “create clustered indexes on the columns of the table.” If you’re preparing for this exam, I’m sure you know you can only put one clustered index on a table.
Fortunately, the actual exam didn’t appear to have any such typos. I had 48 questions, and unlike 70-761 none of them involved actual typing of T-SQL. And although it felt a little more difficult than the 70-761 exam, it actually took me less time. Moreover, I’m pretty sure all the material was covered in the book or on the practice exam.
Nearly every question was designed to test situational usage of a solution, not just your ability to memorize an item. Keep this in mind as you study.
What If We Give It Away?
I’m not going to give you any answers, but as you prepare make sure you can comfortably discuss the following subjects.
- Understand why different object types are used for improving performance (CCIs, In-Memory tables, etc.)
- Understand covering indexes
- Understand passing a table variables to a stored procedure/function
- Understand returning tables from a table-valued function
- Understand using views with INSERT statements
- Understand Isolation Levels, especially for multiple queries
- Use cases for Extended Events vs Profiler
- Know the DMVs, at least in a general sense (OS, Execution Plan, In-Memory, etc.)
- Know the trace flags for deadlocks (1204, 1222)
- Know Azure Basic/Standard/Premier levels and their storage and CPU capacities
Hope this helped, and best of luck!