I guess I’m going with the clickbait title on this one.
I have a Facebook group for Microsoft Azure users, that currently has 25,000 members. Anyone can join, and as a result we get a mixture of questions. Sometimes there are experienced people asking advanced questions about Azure. And sometimes there are people starting from the beginning and wanting to learn the first steps.
One of those rookie issues that comes up every week or two is the topic of “braindumps”. There’s a group rule against sharing or encouraging the use of those.
Some time ago, a group member pointed out that this might be a language difference and that some people just might not know what a “dump” is, and might equate that with “practice questions”. Dumps and practice questions are not the same thing.
Let me try to explain.
A dump – sometimes called a braindump – is a collection of questions claiming to be actual test questions. The theory is that someone takes the test, and then writes down as many questions as they can remember later. People have been collecting these braindumps for years – almost since the start of vendor certifications 20+ years ago.
There are several issues. One, is that certifications change often. There is no system that tracks if a braindump question is still relevant for the exam. You could be studying questions about networking on an exam that doesn’t have any networking questions.
The second is that these questions are often of very low quality. There’s nobody editing them, or working to improve them over time. So you see questions referring to a diagram but no diagram. You see questions referring to a case study, and no case study to refer to. And you see questions that are just absolute junk. Quality is not the main objective here.
People come to me (in the Q&A section of a course, or in a group), with a brain dump question and ask me to explain why an answer is correct. The student clearly disagrees with the brain dump official correct answer. I can’t help with that. Because the source of the question is crap.
The third, and perhaps most important, reason is that it’s technically an attempt to cheat on the test. When you were younger, and went to school (elementary, or secondary, or college), the teachers did not give you the questions and answers in advance before the final exam. They do not hand out university degrees to people who did not have to know the subject, but instead simply had to memorize the questions and answers the night before the final test.
If you broke into the teachers office and stole the answer key in advance, that was clearly cheating. Is there anyone that disagrees?
So trying to acquire the “100% real” answers before a Microsoft certification exam is also cheating.
Now I’m not here to lecture anyone about right and wrong. I have no interest in making anyone feel bad or getting anyone in trouble.
But I can’t help you with it. The Facebook group doesn’t condone cheating. And those posts get deleted. People who are particularly egregious also get removed.
Now how is that any different than practice tests?
In fact, I sell practice tests! Am I being a hypocrite here talking about dumps when they are the same as practice tests?
The difference is, I don’t take the real exam and then write down all the questions and answers that I remember. In fact, I often forget all of the questions and answers on the real exam within a week or two after taking it. Even a couple of hours later, I largely can’t recall many of the actual questions.
So my practice tests are questions and answers based on the topics of the exam. I start with the exam syllabus, and then come up with questions that I think test the knowledge of the student to the level required.
I would be willing to bet money that not a single question that I have on my practice test actually appears on the exam verbatim. If it does, I’ll have my lawyers contact Microsoft about licensing that from me because I (or Riaan) wrote every question ourselves.
So brain dumps are questions that may or may not be real exam questions, but claim to be real exam questions. They may or may not be up-to-date. They may or may not in fact have correct answers. But what matters here is that the purpose is to allow you to memorize a few keywords, and NOT have to actually learn the topic to pass the test.
A practice test is created by the author, not as exact copies of the actual test questions, but in order to test the student’s understanding of the material. The practice tests might be easier or harder than the real test, and nobody should be promising that the practice test is “100% real”.
My practice tests are not real exam questions. I made them up, from my head, from my courses, and from Microsoft documentation.
They are 0% real, but 100% original. I should copyright that!
So, where do you find the latest Microsoft Azure exam dumps?
Don’t go there. Look for study guides that will take you through the topics so that you learn it. Practice yourself hands on. Do hands on labs. And take practice tests to check your knowledge.
No dumps.
