Unclear Dynatrace Exam Questions

[ChadTurner]

Any one else run into questions on the Dynatrace Exams that have incorrect answers or are just really badly worded? 

[Kenny_Gillette]

Hmm, been a while.  But I believe so.

[Julius_Loman]

Yes, that's unfortunately common for exams across all vendors I have taken. Some of the questions don't have enough context to decide which answer is correct. 

[radek_jasinski]

Hi @ChadTurner 

I have the impression that many questions are written by people who got the material and were supposed to make questions. I have noticed that for Dynatrace certifications, I have seen the most discrepancies in the Services Delivery exam. There were a lot of questions that were based on one word/phrase that was said during several hours of video material. Nowhere was it possible to find the answer outside of that material - kind of lame. However, it's not just a DT affliction - it's even worse with Azure certification 🙂

Radek

[Julius_Loman]

Service delivery was the worst. Totally agree with you.

[ChadTurner · Accepted solution]

One of the questions I got was surrounding tags. Everyone's Dynatrace instance is different and the terms 'tags' is way too generic. For example, tags can be populated via the following:

 1 - On the actual Monitored Entity, these are shown as [Environment] Tags.
2 - Cloud tags, these are shown as [Azure|AWS] Tags
3 - Automatic Tags Via the Dynatrace UI, these are shown as a Key:Value Pair
4 - Manually set Tags Via the Dynatrace UI, these are shown as a Key:Value Pair but include the ability to delete them from the monitored entity in which they apply.

With covering those 4 methods of tags, tags can be ingested/discovered at time of onboarding but can also be configured later on via auto or manual tags within the Dynatrace UI. The question included another segment about metadata which added to the complexity of the correct answer. But the list of answers had two that contained a sliver of correct information, One was right about tags (Depending on what tag method you are thinking of), but wrong about metadata. Where the other was right about metadata but wrong about tags (Depending on what tag method you are thinking of). And the other two options were totally out in left field. 

Basically, questions should be written where it is explicitly states as segment/construct of the platform and not leave it to interpretation. So 'Tags' should be Dynatrace generated Tags, or Cloud ingested Tags, or Entity ingested tags. 

Lastly, Questions should not include "In your Environment" everyone's environment is configured differently, I've worked for 3 organizations and each one had a drastically different environment. Manages, SaaS, Host Metadata, Host Groups, Network Zones, Management Zones, etc... The questions should never be left to interpretation - call it out - "In a Managed Cluster, where do you go to add a new user to Dynatrace?" Not, in your environment where do you go to add a new person to your environment. That could be the CMC, it could be Account Management, or it could even be Active Directory Depending on how you have Dynatrace set up. 

[pahofmann]

First thing I though of when reading the title 😉

Definitely there have always been some issues. Unclear question or when you are not sure what is the proper answer in terms of how up to date the exam questions are with changes to the product. 

 

[AntonioSousa]

Yes, in a product so dynamic as Dynatrace, it is guaranteed that you will run into issues.

I had some in all three major levels of certification. One that I remember quite well was when preparing for the Professional. I was reading documentation and found out that session timeout had (very recently) changed to 35 minutes. Wait, wasn't that an option that didn't exist in the same question in Taste of the Test, where it still was 30 minutes, along others?

I repeated the Taste of the Test, and sure there was no 35 minute option. I then communicated that to the University team, and they corrected it really fast.

To my great surprise, that question appeared in the Pro exam, with no 30 minute option, and of course the new 35 minutes. One of the easiest questions for me.

But then I wondered: what would have happened to me if I had not stumbled on that issue? The first option I would definitely not consider was the 35 minutes, because I would believe they would be tricking me with the 35 days retention period. And given no 30 minutes option, I would say that Dynatrace had no good reply for this question...

[ssheldon]

I just failed the terribly written Service Delivery exam, and completely agree - the wording on the majority of questions was just terrible, and an argument could be made for SO many answers.