Things I did today

I passed, but the questions that I answered incorrectly were due to forgetting to read the chapter on Views, and not reading the full questions where it said "Pick two answers that satisfy this goal" and I only picked one. Ah well. I'll do a few more, then buy the proper practice test in a few days, and work through that one.

I intended to do another SQL test and read more in the chapters on the SQL book where I was missing many of the questions. Instead, I went for a long walk, finished reading my Food and Wine magazine, wrote a game review for one of my friends, found a recipe to make Chicken Paprikash, watched a thunderstorm roll in, had a video call with one of my friends, and watched a movie. And, forgot all about SQL for a day. Oops. There's always tomorrow!

Today, I slowed down a bit. Slept in a little due to insomnia the night before, and worked at a leisurely pace. Got the rest of the apartment cleaned up, but managed to accidentally get shampoo in my eye when I showered, and my eye's been a bit blurry when reading text like my blog post. Still managed to do another practice test, but this time I failed. However, I encountered more questions on things I'm not completely clear on. Here are the questions I missed: I swear I got the same type of question yesterday and picked ALTER SCHEMA and learned it was supposed to be ALTER VIEW. Clearly I'll need to read Chapter 9, lesson 1 in my SQL book. Clearly, I've just not committed to memory the different types of transaction isolation. I'll reread Chapter 12, lesson 1 in the SQL book. Ugh, this is one that I went back and forth on. I've only done plain SELECTs in my views, so I haven't used any of these clauses in my views. I picked COMPUTE last

After a day of finding non-urgent tasks, like cleaning my bathroom sinks and unpacking one of the boxes from my company's office, I finally got around to starting the Practice Test. They allow for three modes: Certification Mode: where they ask a certain number of questions and 120 minutes in which you cannot pause or stop the test, only abandon. Study Mode: where you select the number of questions you want to answer, and it is untimed Custom Mode: where you select the number of questions you want to answer, it is untimed, and you can select which exam section you want the questions to come from. I selected Study Mode, and only picked 30 questions. I believe the exam will have 40 - 50 questions from a bank of 200 or so. Since I wasn't being timed (it lied!) I got up from my computer to watch my part of the building getting powerwashed for several minutes. Of the question content, some of the questions I didn't know the answer to, and some of the questions were so

This evening, I watched a few JSON videos, and called two people, expecting to be done around 8pm to start the practice test. That didn't happen - The two people and I tried to solve the world's problems, and ended up talking entirely too long - but I enjoyed it! Work won't suck up as much time tomorrow, so I should be able to get a practice test done before 5pm tomorrow. However, I did manage to get a 2 mile walk/run in, what with the 93 temperature and 103 heat index. It wasn't too bad - my route was mostly shaded.

I did more research on the 761 exam, and realized that they had dropped the Optimization Queries concepts and added JSON, so I gathered some JSON videos and articles as I've never had anything to do with JSON. I found a site with test questions, and it's pretty clear that this is going to be a very difficult exam, and I might go the test dump route after learning the concepts. The questions are very nitpicky! I also found a few people on Reddit who had passed the exam, and what they did to study. I purchased the course they used - it was only $15, and I'll run through the concepts I'm not solid on, as well as get a practice exam done. Due to the apartment complex having sprinkler inspections inside today and power washing outside tomorrow, I spent the rest of the evening tidying up. I'll have to get my patio furniture from outside, in. I would rather they just powerwash the furniture, but oh well.

Lesson one in the SQL book's chapter on Using Tools to Analyze Query Performance deals with using SQL Server Extended Events. I learned that SQL Server Profiler, a tool with a robust GUI, will soon be deprecated, I guess I won't need to be an expert in Profiler, but should get much more comfortable with Extended Events. I've used Profiler lightly in the past, but the GUI allows for entirely too many options and often takes me a few tries to fine tune the query into what I want for the proper data capture. Hopefully Extended Events won't be as ridiculous, but the GUI seemed more straightforward with the first two exercise than Profiler ever was. I wish that the book offered more exercises, but perhaps I just need to read slower and take notes. Tomorrow will be a busy day - I'll finish the other two lessons in the chapter, then take the exam practice test. I assume I'll fail, but hope that it'll give me the idea of what I need to study and how I need to ap