This was another thread I put in the wrong place so I'm re-writing parts of it to post it here.
I took the VCAP-DCA550 yesterday and wanted to share a bit of my experience. I had planned on taking this test much like I took the CISSP, by over studying to the point that a really tough test shouldn't be so difficult. I read three books, watched the Pluralsight and Brownbag videos, did the three Pearson practice tests twice, went through two really well done unofficial guides, wrote my own series of 400 practice questions, and had the vCenter trial license expire in my lab three times so officially had to build it four times with one of those times even requiring a rebuild of the VMs due to Windows trial licenses expiring. I'd say over a period of 6-7 months I did about 250 hours of studying with 100 of those hours coming in the past month. I figured I was all set to run in, take the test, and bolt out of there with time left to spare and no fear that I didn't pass. It didn't exactly go that way!
From the very first question I was thrown off. The language used on it didn't make a whole lot of sense. It referenced LUNs and datastores that I couldn't find and the requirements for the question didn't even ask that I do anything with them. I know Microsoft writes a lot of useless information in their questions to try and throw you off but on this test it was only in question 1 that I had this happen. It almost seemed like a mistake but not sure. Once I wrapped my head around that I slowly got through the next few questions and found that I was only on number four after a half hour had passed. I was able to get more of a rhythm and had some easier questions so I got to number ten after the first hour was gone. The second hour included four questions that I didn't even know how to answer so I skipped those. Two of them were simple lack of expertise on my part but the other two I don't recall seeing on the Blueprint at all. One of them really threw me because it was a security question and I specialize in VMware security and didn't even know the feature existed. I made it through all 23 questions with 45 minutes left to spare so I was able to go back and fix a few mistakes I had made and made a little progress on one of the questions I couldn't answer the first time.
As I hit finish I certainly didn't know if I passed or failed. I had a reasonably good feeling that I had scored around 360 which was well below the 420 that I had been shooting for. This test was much, much harder than I thought it was going to be. The time pressure is also as real as everyone says it is. I'm glad I never needed to use a bathroom break because there isn't time for that even!
By the time I got home I noticed an e-mail from VMware sitting in my mailbox. It took them only one hour to review my test and send me my results which is really saying something for a Saturday! As I opened it up the first word I saw on there was "Pass"! I scored a 341 which means I passed by a pretty slim margin. But, a pass is a pass
Advice for others taking this test. Over study! I thought by over studying I would take the pressure out of the test and I'd be able to make my way through it pretty easily but that wasn't the case at all. I was anxious through the entire test and feel fortunate to have passed it. Study everything you can from the Blueprint. At least 90% of the test comes from there. The other 10% might be stuff related to what is on the Blueprint but it is beyond the scope of it. I almost would say don't worry about that 10%. The passing score is probably around 50% and I think VMware does that because they know they don't give enough time to go through every question and that some of the questions are just super advanced and only there for the truly knowledgeable to answer. Lastly, here is the split I had for the different types of interfaces I was using: 55% vSphere Client, 15% Web Client, 10% SSH, 10% PowerCLI, 5% vMA, 5% Orchestrator. Conversely, I spent probably 30% of my studying time on SSH thinking it would be a major part of the test. I guess it paid off knowing that I got the SSH questions correct and I didn't need to spend much time doing it but I probably would have been better served spending more time in PowerCLI and Orchestrator than I did.
Hope this helps out. If anyone has any other questions on my test taking experience let me know! Good luck to everyone studying for the VCAP!