Excellent, this is great news! This is much more like the actual experience of an engineer working every day. It is arguably more important to look up things efficiently rather than memorizing everything for a test and forgetting it a few weeks later. Thanks for sharing!

@dictador4004

10 ай бұрын

Agree.. but don't ask kpmg about it for their interview format, they expect you to memorize 15 plus Question and if you don't answer them as they have ir written you are done lol

This is a game changer. I like the open book concept for renewal because even though I always review the content before, there’s usually 1-2 questions I’m not too sure of and it’s nice you can quickly go back to MS Learn to confirm.

@TheStevenWhiting

10 ай бұрын

And some of us hate and aren't great at exams but are still a good engineer.

@AleksandarIvanov69

10 ай бұрын

@@TheStevenWhiting if you are a good engineer, you would be able to improve your exam skills. So gitgud essentially 😂😂

@ThisNoName

10 ай бұрын

Nope, it's an exam changer, there won't be much knowledge-based questions for you to look up from here on

Such a great change. I've always been a proponent of havings exams make you think problem-solving, not memorizing details to the letter. It's like an actual job: even though you might have ex. AZ-104 cert, on the job you'd still look through documentation to look for stuff such as ports, scripts, checklists (to make sure you do the steps right way when configuring something). The fact that there's no extra time is actually fair in my book. It means you still need to have a solid grasp of the topic.

This is fundamental for any exam that want to evaluate the knowledge and not memory. Lots of people just memorize the answers from lots of websites to pass the exam. This is game changer.

@brianjirvin

15 күн бұрын

well I mean honestly most of the time if I dont know something when troubleshooting I google it any way. I agree it is good to have, and you still have to have some idea of the topics.

As my old Microsoft Mentor told me once: "You don´t need to know everything in the Microsoft Cosmos, it's impossible. But you need to know how you find the Info that you need." Great Change

i LOVE this change. it makes so much sense. one of the most important skills of anyone in tech is finding the information

thanks for the update, I honestly find your videos more helpful than microsoft emails to get updated on their changes. It really is a welcome change to the examination. We're not in school anymore, the focus should only be on testing our skills and knowledge, not our memory.

Great news. I especially like that it doesn't add any time. Honestly at lot of the time you wouldn't even gain much by Googling the answers unless you already have a pretty good understanding of the material, since the questions are often so complex so just having the Learn pages won't save you unless you've actually studied

Great for someone that needs a hint towards a technical detail, maybe a distraction for others. All of us use MS Learn as a reference in our daily business, so this is a great start in getting people to reference documentation.

This is such a game changer and it makes total sense. Let’s be honest, we’re all human and retaining vasts amount of information, trivial or not, is difficult. Being able to search as if you would during your day job makes this very real world like.

That's great. The amount of times I've grumbled whilst studying for Azure exams, complaining about having to remember very specific things opposed to understanding concepts etc... Good move forward.

@TheStevenWhiting

10 ай бұрын

And a week later Microsoft change where it is. They should have always been open book. Taken way too long for them to do this.

thank you John, for great content! The value of exam renewal, being open book, and to easy made the value of renewal considerable Leroy, my opinion.for the role based certifications to be open book, I feel the same for those certifications… Having passed 40+ exams closed book I feel the MS certifcations are not what it used to be - one exam open book Role compared to the MCSE five exams closed books… 😅

This is huge, thanks for bringing this to our attention, John!

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

My pleasure!

Loved to see this video before taking the next exams

Thanks John, I'd find this really useful, sometimes I struggle with my memory on new areas, yet not on others, this will help me a great deal, when I do the job for real, am usually fine, ie. able to look up something, though exams and tests etc I struggle sometimes.

This is great! Thank you by the way, You always share amazing content! I watched your videos like movies with popcorn this month. I passed 2 architect exams!

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

Congrats 🤙

I could try this today on a real exam. I had 2 main issues with it. 1.The search engine of the learn site is barely usable. 2. I could not search on the current open page, so i had to scroll up and down endlessly. So use it carefully, otherwise you will lose a LOT of time!

This is sooooo good. I hope other companies start doing the same.

This announcement was a large welcome surprise. Honestly it is well overdue.

Thanks John. As usual, you explain things well and without hyperbole.

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

My pleasure!

As always Sir John, you are the best source for Azure information and updates. Stay awesome! 😎

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

hehe, thanks :D

Great news for Microsoft test takers! Please make sure to read the description for the chapters and key information about this video and others. FAQ Role-based means basically any non -900 exam. Some exams have this already, rest expected by mid September as the rollout completes. ⚠ P L E A S E N O T E ⚠ 🔎 If you are looking for content on a particular topic search the channel. If I have something it will be there! 🕰 I don't discuss future content nor take requests for future content so please don't ask 😇 🤔 Due to the channel growth and number of people wanting help I no longer can answer or even read questions and they will just stay in the moderation queue never to be seen so please post questions to other sites like Reddit, Microsoft Community Hub etc. 👂 Translate the captions to your native language via the auto-translate feature in settings! kzread.info/dash/bejne/qGmWl5VmgMqrnaw.html for a demo of using this feature. Thanks for watching! 🤙

This will now encourage people to read MS docs documentation as exam preparation for keywords, which they didn't do earlier.

This is great. Things like that port example are the exact reason these tests suck so badly.

Used MS Learn on a daily basis when working with 365 and Azure. Having the open book option will help with those 50/50 questions. Or the ones contingent on variables.

I gave my AZ-400 exam a few days ago and was unaware of the open book thing. When I asked the proctor about MS Learn, he said I was not allowed to use it. Glad that you cleared things up.

@ash6415

10 ай бұрын

I had the same experience

@himankjain8259

10 ай бұрын

@@ash6415 Isn't the proctor supposed to know all this stuff

This is game changer for some people!

I wonder how many people actually use the "take a break" option. I know when I'm sitting those exams I want them done asap, no time to pause. I can see how a short break would be helpful for some though. Access to Learn is a nice addition and for the reasons you mention.

this is good news, thanks John!

Love that chair!

Very cool for cli syntax !!!

Thanks for the news and the video.

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

You bet

Great stuff, thanks for sharing John 💪

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

My pleasure!

I too have mixed feelings about this. While preparing for my AZ-104 (which I took last week) I more than once thought for myself "Who would know this answer by heart and not look it up in the docs!?" So I would endorse that Microsoft would revise some of their questions instead of opening up the docs during the exam.

Great news, top learning channel, and an awesome biceps 💪🏻

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

thank you, thank you and ROFL.

I think it is a good idea. For example, It allows SKU to change/update & you only need to know where to look for up to date SKU, rather than knowing what is relevant today. If I am doing something unfamiliar, then a search engine is first stop. Still need to know & understand what I am trying to achieve - especially any negative risks, so it is not exactly cheating. It is just like when calculators was allowed into Maths exams.

What a great change

Thanks for the update John! I will take AZ-700 next week so I'm excited to try that out if necessary. Just a bit worried if the online procters are fully aware of that and won't nuke the attempt

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

I would expect them to be aware and the agent would still see you are running in the process of the exam.

Thanks for sharing

This is such a huge deal! As someone who has been in this business for 30 years its impossible to remember everything.

Thanks John! Taking the AZ-104 tomorrow!

@NTFAQGuy

9 ай бұрын

Good luck!

@AlexStafford

9 ай бұрын

@@NTFAQGuy Thanks John!

After 16+ certifications.. and the first on the very hard way.. this is ok.. at the end it enables you to no just learn specific Questions and then forget it and use it never again. This will help to not just memorize.. now we can understand why is that

Docs comprehension as we all know is a fundamental part of an IT professional's job and this option should be a part of ANY exam. However, I am not sure how determined the examiners would be to work a bit extra to tailor the question/labs in a way that challenges the docs comprehension skill and not just copy/paste information from the docs, turning into a question format?

Thanks for the update, John! Honestly not sure how I feel about this. Part of me is frustrated the bar is moving for those of us that did it the hard way and passed prior to the change. However, I absolutely agree that I've had that exact thought so many times during the exams, as to it's just something I would look up. I mean if we are being honest with ourselves, everyone has to go look up information to validate current state for specific things. If anything I guess this also enforces that for people coming up through the process on how to find the information in the docs efficiently too. I'm just glad they aren't changing the allowed time at least.

@etiosaodia3100

10 ай бұрын

Completely agreed with you. I actually dont like this change because it is a loop hole that many people will expolit

Does anyone know if you can ctrl F inside the exam environment to find what you’re looking for more quickly? Or do you have to scroll through the whole article?

but It seems we can't search the page (ctrl+f), but instead we can only search through all documentation. so we need to look up line by line to see the corresponding words we are searching on the page. I wonder if this new version includes labs?

Well, I'm not sure I'm happy about this news. You either know it or don't. Often times, when I take an exam, I encounter a question that I have no idea what the answer is, if I spend about three minutes on each of those questions, I'm burning up precious time. If you have done your homework and have a good idea on the material, process of elimination works pretty good.

@etiosaodia3100

10 ай бұрын

Totally agree with you. You either know it or you dont. Dont forget Employers will now know that all MS role based exams are open book. Will that not diminish the cert you get after you pass the MS exam in their eyes.

By Role based, and not fundamentals, are you saying things like Sc100 (a buddy of mine has been studying for months), or the ai102? It would be great to have a phone a friend on the Python questions. Thanks a ton for the news!

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

Anything not a 900 basically.

This is great because in actual real world situations you can Google or use bard etc to help. Some talked about this lessening the value of Microsoft certs however what’s your thoughts on that?

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

don't believe it will change anything about value of the cert.

I wonder if they will make the exams harder? I'm used to SANS GIAC exam format.

FINALLY

I've always wondered which person in MSFT thought it was a brilliant idea of asking questions like "I want to run a server on the internet that does 10gbps. Which one of these SKUs do you I need, AzLsUsAzShNh3, AzLsUsAzShNh1, AzLsUsAzShNh2 or AzLsUsAzShNh4" - like in which possibe environment am I creating stuff on Azure but I can't refer to the list of features for SKUs?

Thanks John. As I have put on my comment on your LinkedIn post, unless it becomes impossible to pass without referring to the info on MS Learn, I wouldn't want to be tempted to use it. A few times I failed being so close to the 700 points mark and I came back stronger by learning much more. Had I have looked up a few answers and scraped the pass, I wouldn't have the opportunity to do better.

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

I think time will limit its use to very specific things.

@a120068020

10 ай бұрын

@@NTFAQGuy I think you are right John. The better a candidate can tee up the relevant pages at the beginning of the exam and be nimble about pinpointing the relevant passage relating to the question, the more they can lean on learn(tm) 😁

This is wonderful news! I ran into this EXACT issue during my AZ-400 earlier in the year with a random deployment tech I had never heard of in any of my learning modules or my paid courses!

On the AZ-500 exam I discovered this. However, there are SOME articles and some sections on the Learn site that they do block. And it will tell you when you try to load the page or the section of a page that it is blocked for the exam.

@jh11579

5 ай бұрын

Did it help you out?

I took the DP-420 exam a little over a month ago, and noticed the Microsoft Learn link in the window. I asked the proctor if this was a resource I was allowed to use during the exam and they advised me it was not allowed! I was confused as why the feature was available if it was prohibited.

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

That really sucks for you :-( Hopefully the proctors will better informed to avoid confusion.

awesome news

Open book tests are rarely easier. You’re under a time crunch so there’s no substitute for knowing the material.

You know what? I have the AZ-800 certification and was contemplating if I am going to renew it before it expires in December 2023. I am still thinking if it is still worth the effort to renew it annually. This is a game changer. Plus, I still have a free voucher for the AZ-104 and was having doubts to take it too. Some exam questions make you scratch your head because you don't need to memorize steps on how to do something on Azure, you just refer to the documentation. This might be just the thing to make take Azure certs again.

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

Renewals are already open book. You just take them in your browser with no proctor lock down experience. I did a whole separate video on that experience when they first released.

@Slayer_of_Asian_Stacys

10 ай бұрын

@@NTFAQGuy No way! I looked at it. It's so convenient and simple. No proctor, open book, and unlimited attempts before it the certification expires. I'm so glad I follow you every where and you replying to comments. John Savill the GOAT!

Hope i can use this for az500?

Thanks for the update! Very surprising news. As a former Microsoft trainer / education consultant, I have mixed thoughts about this change. I will admit some of the questions were really unfair and made it hard to pass. The upside is it'll encourage people to give it a try. I had a lot of trouble getting people interested in taking the exam.

AZ 104, for me the biggest problem is always the time spent on reading.

I didn't use it because I thought it was a mistake 😅. Well, now I know it is legal to use 😜

Wow, this seems like a major change. Unless the time is truly a limiting factor, I'm a bit concerned this could lower the value of Microsoft certification with employers

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

I think time will limit its use to just those few things you really need to check.

@AleksandarIvanov69

10 ай бұрын

If an employer doesn't understand you read docs 5 days a week for at least half of your day on average, that's not an employer worth working for.

@simonkeen9776

10 ай бұрын

@AleksandarIvanov69 Yeah that's fair. What I'm trying to show is that I've put in the extra effort to go through MS learning paths and training videos to learn the tech. I try to get that evidence and summarize it all on my resume

@AleksandarIvanov69

10 ай бұрын

​@@simonkeen9776 same here, I have 7 MS certifications from fundamentals to architect. I've gone through all the paths and courses, but that's not the point. The point is you can't know the documentation by heart, no chance, no way and you shouldn't. For example I am currently working with Kubernetes, logging tech, metrics tech, CI/CD tech and several templating tech. Their documentation combined is about as long as 10 times the Lord of the Rings books. The important things are the principles behind those technologies and how well you think. The information you need is already there 24/7, the skill an employer ought to look for is how well and fast you ingest that information, and produce a satisfying result. Memorization is a public school tragedy, that has no place in business...

I kind of wonder why Microsoft wait so long to do this. After sitting around 15 or so Microsoft exams, I have to say I am looking forward taking a break here and there during the exam.

Wonder if this will be in place for my AZ500 exam tomorrow evening lol

@NTFAQGuy

10 ай бұрын

All by mid-September, some have already.

@NaNa-cq8ck

10 ай бұрын

do let us know if the option is there when you take the exam.. I have one coming up next week.

Really we needed to make these exams easier?

Will this diminish the value of Microsoft role based certifications?

@johnmackay7862

10 ай бұрын

I don't see why it would Jonathan. I know a lot of people myself included have passed exams in the past and then lost most of the knowledge if not using it in work environment. For me, personally, this shows that the person sitting the exam has enough basic knowledge to pass but also the capability to research and discover the answers to questions/topics they aren't sure about. Let's be honest, how many times do we get asked a question we have no idea about that we then need to go and research and learn by doing anyway? Just my thoughts, but I definitely think it's a positive thing.

@etiosaodia3100

10 ай бұрын

Well I believe it will in the long run. They should have made this feature an option to choose from.

this is effect immediatly ?? I mean I have my AZ 104 in 4 hours...lmao

@truerogue76

10 ай бұрын

report back sir

@rvconde89

10 ай бұрын

I think I did fine, I couldn't finish the last 10 questions but approve with 809...😎

@rvconde89

10 ай бұрын

I used this feature in the exam, haha. 😆

@JM-nep

10 ай бұрын

@@rvconde89 Hi. Planning to take az-104, is it open book already? And how much time did you take when you open book? :D Thanks!

This will greatly de-value the microsoft certifications

@trilalterst4656

10 ай бұрын

yeah, this stinks. The main reason to get these is because of the value to (prospective) employers.

@larryrosen6690

10 ай бұрын

Disagree. The way the questions are worded and the use of scenario based questions makes it difficult to "google" your way to a pass. Exam dump companies do far more damage to the value of many certifications. Back when I took the CEH exam (I think V5 I think) is was all about "which NMAP command does this". Memorizing that didn't make me any better than having a nice summary/cheat sheet in front of me.

@AleksandarIvanov69

10 ай бұрын

"This will greatly de-value the microsoft certifications" Have you ever actually worked in IT? How much time you spend every day on average in one or more documentation websites?

@etiosaodia3100

10 ай бұрын

My point exactly. Spot on. A few year from now people will come back to this comment and see you were right in your judgement. You either know it or you dont

Unpopular opinion: But not a fan of this because it just reduced the credibility of a certification.

Not a game changer at all. This will rather make it easier for every tom, dick and harry to pass any MS Role based exam.