Microsoft are currently offering a second shot to resit any MCP exam taken between July 12 2015 and January 12, 2016 if you don’t pass on your first attempt. You must reschedule your free retake within 30 days of failing your MCP exam.
See here for more details: https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/second-shot.aspx?WT.mc_id=MSLS_secondshot
Might be encouraging for those thinking of going for the MCSA or MCSE!
Microsoft has made some changes to the MCSA for Server 2012 and SQL 2012 by introducing electives. This I feel is good idea as it allows you to pick an exam that may be more relative to your job role. So in my case I will be taken the following mandatory exams:
70-410: Installing and Configuring Windows Server
70-411: Administering Windows Server 2012
and then I can decide to do 70-409: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center.
For MCSA: Windows Server 2012 > Exams 410 and 411 are required. You can choose one of the following exams to fulfill the requirements for the third exam in the path:
- Exam 346: Managing Office 365 Identities and Requirements
- Exam 409: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center
- Exam 412: Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services
- Exam 462: Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases
For MCSA: SQL Server 2012 > Exams 461 and 462 are required. You can choose one of the following exams to fulfill the requirements for the third exam in the path
- Exam 411: Administering Windows Server 2012
- Exam 412: Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services
- Exam 463: Implementing a Data Warehouse with Microsoft SQL Server 2012
- Exam 483: Programming in C#
