I thought I would pass on a few learning lessons from my pursuit of my SBSC and passing the 70-282. Originally, I started an extended self-directed learning plan back in 2006. Learning lesson number 1: Don't Procrastinate.

I took an Exam Cram session in November, 2007, but did not take the actual 70-282 exam in May, 2008. Even though I thought I had done fairly well, I failed the my first Microsoft certification exam with a 583. Learning lesson number 2: I should have scheduled the exam within a few days of the Exam Cram session.

I doubled my efforts and used resources from the Partner Learning site (SBSC training), the "Microsoft Small Business Specialist Primer" (SMB Nation), the minicasts on Bobcasts (oem.microsoft.com), newsgroups (like this one), and I took another Exam Cram session, last Friday. Since, I thought I had done well, I focused on the "Exam Study Group Content and Practice Questions" on the Partner Learning site, to help me with Microsoft testology. Beatrice you were very helpful to this end in the practice questions recorded videos. The Exam Cram session was also a great help with testology.

Learning Lesson number 3: I needed learn how to dissect the questions to figure out the point being tested and get a clue to the correct answer. Many questions seemed to have multiple-possible answers, but only one correct answer.

Learning Lesson number 4: I read the answers before I read the questions which helped me qualify the correct answer.

So 3 weeks after my first failure, I passed the 70-282 with an 823.

I hope this helps someone.

-Paul-