Aug
31
What does your MCP exam score really mean?
Filed Under MCTS, asp.net, certification, exam | 2 Comments
Last Thursday I sat MCTS 70-562, the second out of three planned exams and as I promised myself, I got a better score than the first one. Its up for debate whether this was because I had more time or whether it was just luck, but the burning question that I came away from the exam with was “What does this score really mean?”.
I am perfectly aware that the score is ultimately not important; whoever looks at your transcript only sees that you passed, and since the pass mark is 80% and above everyone knows that you have done well at the very least. But I just can’t resist a good mystery. The following is a dissection of my personal score on this particular exam – I make a number of assumptions that may or may not be incorrect. Please consider that before you take my word as gospel.
The logic
There are 50 questions which means that each question is worth 2%. This brings me to the following assumption: Each question is worth the same amount of points
Seeing as the pass mark is 80% then 700 is 80% of 875. My score (826) is 94.4% of 875. This is an impossible score as that would require that each question was not 2% exactly. Hence the 700 is the fixed point and 0% and 100% are relative to it.
There are 7 areas in this particular exam and seeing as how I didn’t get zero NOR full points in any section, that would mean that each section comprises of at least 2 questions. This furthermore means that I got at least 1 question wrong in each section, which means that my final score was no more than 43 out of 50 (86%). We can also conclude that I didn’t get less than 41 out of 50 (82%) since if I got 40 I would be left with a score of 700.
Now we are starting to see a clearer picture. A score of 826 on this exam should mean a score of between 82% and 86%. But if you then try to find the upper and lower limit for the score you get some absurd results.
So where does that leave us? Either my first assumption is incorrect or I am looking at this from a completely wrong angle. However the bar diagram and the enigmatic score you are left with once you’ve passed your exam doesn’t have to be a closed book. Microsoft may have made the score as hard to interpret as possible to prevent cheating. Or maybe its very simple and the questions are weighted. Maybe with a larger sample of scores it would be easier to interpret. For now I must be happy with this.
Congratulations. Thanks for all the info. Its helpful. I am from java/j2ee background & has 7 years of experience. I am preparing for 70-536 C# first & targeting 562 also by the end of this year. How many questions do we get in 70-536 exam & how much time? Would you mind telling me your score.
Thanks again, Veer
Hi Veer318,
There were 40 questions in the 70-536 exam and if I remember correctly the exam is 3 hours long. In any case there is more than enough time to double or triple check your answers. My score was 746 – not too flash but I only had 2 weeks to prepare