No Longer Preparing…I PASSED!

Couldn’t help but share that all of the hands on experience, frustration, crying, drinking, and studying paid off. Passed the CPQ Specialist exam today!!!

What a crazy experience though. I was nearly hyperventilating in my car because I was psyching myself out. I’ve only chatted with 4 people that have taken this exam, 2 failed and didn’t retake, the other 2 said it was the hardest one yet. No pressure, right?

So after listening to some Lindsey Stirling in the car and doing a short meditation to calm my nerves before the exam, I was ready to roll. But there were forces against me…

5 minutes into the exam, the server times out. I told the proctor and she fixed the issue, but had to restart the test. Grr. So I started again, got about 15 questions in and realized 30 minutes had flown by. There was no way I was going to make it at this pace! I’ve never used my entire allotted time for a Salesforce exam and usually have 20-30 minutes left over to review. But I knew this one was going to be a nail biter.

I had to speed up the process by trying to read faster and stop over analyzing each answer. Ill also usually mark every question as “mark for review” to go back through them a second time, so knowing time wasn’t on my side for this one, I only marked questions I knew I wasn’t sure about, the rest didn’t get a mark if I was confident in my answer.

Halfway into the exam, the a/c must have kicked off, or the heat kicked on, or something. It must have been 100 degrees in the testing room or close to it. The heat was distracting.

3/4 of the way through the exam, the home stretch. I get to a question that has a LOT of information in it, and half the page is cut off! I’m thinking its a zoom issue with the software they have to use, so I try holding CTRL + Scrolling out to zoom out. Screen turns to white with a security warning and locks me out. Seriously???

I go back to the proctor AGAIN, and this time I have sweat running down my face because its so hot. I looked like I was up to something, so naturally she looked annoyed. She fixed the system and said I must have hit a key, and let me get back to the test….but while she fixed my issue, I lost 5 minutes and the clock still ticked. CRAP!

I get to the last question and get to the review. 22 questions marked for review. Not bad….but wait…I had SEVEN MINUTES LEFT TO REVIEW 22 QUESTIONS!!!!

Time ticked, question after question I tried to speed read through them and ensure I had the right answer. I changed very few, and assured myself it was right, and even chuckled a few times at a stupid mistake I made (damn those ‘gotcha’ questions!).

I told myself at 2 minutes remaining, i’d submit. Well it was now 2 minutes remaining and I still had 15 questions to review. Seriously??

At 00:30 left to submit, I had just about 10 questions left, crossed my fingers and submitted, hoping for the best. I was overly critical of myself, so when “PASS” came up, I naturally had to re-read the screen, thinking the heat was causing delusions.

PASS. I couldn’t believe it. The “hardest exam” the few folks i’ve spoken to have taken, and I passed on the first attempt. Looking at the broken out scores (which, by the way, is awesome and i’m so glad thats a thing now), I did very well. I scored 75% on one heavily weighted section, 85% on another, and the other 2 were above passing, but not by much, but luckily they weren’t weighted much anyway.

The months of doing an implementation and banging my head against the wall to learn this tool paid off. Thank you to ALL who gave me words of encouragement and guidance for this exam.