Compartir a través de

exam numbers 101*

  • Artículo

All of the exams associated with Microsoft Certification start with a prefix of two numbers (7something) and then a three-digit identifier (check out this example). Here is an explanation of the "seventy-something" prefixes, if this has ever caused you some consternation:

  • If you are taking an exam and it starts with "70" it is a standard version of a MIcrosoft Certification exam.
  • If you are taking an exam that starts with "71" you are taking a beta exam. What is a beta exam?
  • If your exam starts with "72" that means it is the academically-priced version of the MIcrosoft exam; available only to students (discounted for students at accredited secondary schools and institutions of higher learning). Aside from the difference in price, the “70” and “72” exams are identical and count the same toward any and all Microsoft certifications. E.g. if you pass 72-271 (nice job!), you would become an MCP just as if you had passed 70-271.
  • Exams starting with "74" are specifically tied to the MIcrosoft Partner Program competencies.
  • Exams starting with "77" are Microsoft Certified Application Specialist/Professional credentials on Office applications (thanks for the reminder Alice!)

If you want to know why they all start with "7" to start with, sit still for a minute, for once, and I'll ask someone who knows things like this. OK, I'm back. I talked to Jim Clark, who knows most things about everything. I thought maybe we picked "70" because of the building 7 mystery on the MIcrosoft campus. Or because 70 was how old the program manager's dog was, on the day of our first exam release. Or because 7 is the fourth Mersenne prime exponent (don't believe me?). But really, it is just because: back in the nascent stages of this program we released exams with 10-, 20-...60- prefixes for early days certification products. And by the time we locked on the current program, we happened to be at "70-", where it has stayed since. Is it just me, or is my story about building 7 better? 

*Or should I say, 70-101.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    What's in building 7?

  • Anonymous
    June 28, 2007
    I feel the objectives of this post should have been split between 2 exams 70-101 and 70-102. I found that '7 is the fourth Mersenne prime exponent' quite hard to apply to 70-101 objectives, maybe this should move to the 70-102 exam? ;-)

  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2007
    Your description of "72" exams requires a little more qualification. They are available only to IT Academy (http://www.microsoft.com/education/msitacademy/default.mspx) students, not just any student. Also, "72" exams must be taken at an IT Academy testing facility.

  • Anonymous
    June 29, 2007
    I loved that part about the Mersenne prime exponents. You definitely get the cool points for that one. btw - The mystery is that we don't have a "building 7" on campus. There's alot of Microsoft lore around it, but no one's really saying why. I think there is a building 7, but it's "underground".

  • Anonymous
    July 08, 2007
    My theory is that it was chosen after Bill Gates' surname. "G" is the seventh letter in the alphabet.

  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 14, 2007
    I found http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcpexams/prepare/examresults.aspx?orderby=ID , which lists the Microsoft exams by number. It looks like the 77-x exams are for Microsoft Certified Application Specialist/Professional credentials in the new Microsoft Business Certification program ( http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/msbc/default.mspx ). Also, here are more details about those two 76-x exams (76-210 Windows 2000 Pro and 76-215 Windows 2000 Server), which took place in May 2003: http://mcpmag.com/news/print.asp?EditorialsID=574 . I haven't found any other examples of exams using the 76-x prefix, so apparently they tried it for this new 'refreshing exam content' method, and then went back to just sticking a few unscored questions into the normal exams?

  • Anonymous
    September 04, 2007
    got info from the source (i.e. our academic owner) about brian/alice comments: "Alice is correct. Girls 1 – Boys 0"

  • Anonymous
    September 28, 2007
    I found some more information on this... Prior to the late-2004 introduction of the Partner Competency exams, the '74' prefix was also used for 74-100: Microsoft Solutions Framework Practitioner, a short-lived (from early 2003 to mid 2004) predecessor to the 70-301 exam. In addition to the refresh experiment, the '76' prefix was also used for Microsoft Trainer assessment exams (for MCTs to prove their qualifications to teach a Microsoft Official Curriculum course when there is no corresponding MCP exam). I have found there to be at least 32 of these. I don't have exact date ranges, but they seem to have all been offered in the vicinity of 1997-2000. And I found a previous usage of the '77' prefix: Microsoft Sales Specialist! There seem to have been 4 of these exams, offered in 1998-1999. I have also seen a few hints of a possible '75' prefix used at one time, but have not found any details on if, why, or when.

  • Anonymous
    May 13, 2008
    You can download EVENT RECORDING from here All of the exams associated with Microsoft Certification start