Passing DA-100
Friday, June 4th, 2021
My experience will help you pass the Power BI Exam.
With less than two months of practice (20 full-length days, since I studied three days a week) I scored a 903 on the Power BI DA-100 exam (700 is passing).
Here’s what I did:
- Worked through the free DA-100 training on Microsoft’s website to get an overview. I created free practice quiz questions related to the training.
- The best way to prepare for a test is to do plenty of practice problems. So I went through the Official Practice Test from MeasureUp. I started with practice mode on subtopics (Prepare the data, Model the data, etc). Then I went through the exam in Certification mode (just like the actual exam) twice…. on the second attempt I scored below 70%, which made me nervous! As I discovered gaps in my knowledge, I’d search the Microsoft documentation.
- Sometimes tried things in Power BI.
Even after my preparation, I had a big surprise. I could use common sense to answer some questions. For example, a question asked for a calculation that would return a certain result based on a dataset. I thought about the steps needed to go from the data to the result. Then I figured out which options corresponded to the order of the steps. That seemed to work, even though I’d never seen some of the functions! The function names give you a good hint about how they work.
It’s a multiple-choice test, so thinking carefully about which option makes sense goes a long way.
Before I started preparing, my only experience with Power BI was using it to look at my bank and credit card data exported from Mint. So going from zero to certified is doable.
Hope that helps!
Registering for the DA-100 Exam
Thursday, April 22nd, 2021
Here are the steps to register for the DA-100 Exam!
Start here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/da-100 and click Schedule
After clicking the link to register, you create a profile
If you’re using a personal email address, you’ll then be asked to enter a your corporate email so that you can take advantage of any corporate discounts.
I chose to take the exam at home rather than traveling to a testing center. The website encourages you to use a wired ethernet connection and to avoid using VPN.
PearsonVue administers the test, so you’ll be transferred to the Pearson Vue website for the next steps.
This page explains the setup you’ll need to take the exam at home. Your work area should be clear (no cheat sheets!) with a single monitor and a webcam.
Then you get to check off a whole bunch of policies
Next, select your language
Select the time you want to take the exam… it seemed like you could select any time you wanted in half hour increments… 9:15 AM, 9:45 AM, 10:15 AM, etc.
You get a popup with exam policies. Important to note that you can reschedule your exam. I’m setting my exam date for a month out, but as I study more I may realize I can take it sooner or that I need to push it later.
Also note that Pearson recommends you log in “30 minutes early to start the check-in process and to allow for any troubleshooting.”
Finally I submitted my order and was taken to this page:
Clicked “Run a system test”
Download OnVue and run:
Then you are taken to a page where you test your microphone and webcam
Then you are told to shut down and applications other than OnVue
Then you are taken to a one question sample exam. Once you complete it, you should see this
System test complete!
The confirmation email explains that if you want to cancel or reschedule you should go to the Certification Dashboard.
