Cost of MCDST

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Hi just a quick question, i am considering doing the MCDST course and was wonder if someone can give me a little information with regards to the fee of the exam and the reading material, thanx

 

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Hi there Parminder, welcome to CF!

The cost of the MCDST depends on how you want to go about studying for it.

If you want to go for it by self study then the cost of books could be as little as £20, or anything upto about £60.

If you are wanting to do it through a training provider then cost could be several thousand £'s.

The cost for the exams is usually about £115 each, including VAT, althought you could try to get hold of some discount vouchers which will bring the cost down.

Fro more information on the MCDST and it's requirements why not visit here

When you get the chance why not pop over to the new members forum and introduce yourself.

 

Thank you, i am considering doing the self learning option, so buy the recomended book and just study my way through...is that a 115 per exam? or for both? is there anything u could recommend me book wise 2 study from?

 

Your welcome!

Its per exam. you could try going here to see if you can get hold of any exam discount vouchers.

Book wise you could try and get the MS Press books, otherwise I have heard good things about the Sybex book.

I had a lot of prior experience before I attempted these exams so only purhased this book to brush up on my existing knowedge.

 

You can get the exams a bit cheaper if you buy your vouchers from http://getcertified4less.com/default.asp I think they work out at around £88 each exam last time I used them. Make sure you buy the vouchers for your country i.e USA or International etc. I also think you can only buy them for use at VUE centres of which there are loads of. You can find your nearest centre here http://www.pearsonvue.com/

 

Hi, I used a Microsoft Book called "MCDST Supporting Users and Troubleshooting a Windows XP Operating System Training Kit". I see you can get this for about £30 at http://www.play.com

Also, I don't know if it still does but a month ago it came with a 15% discount voucher for the exam. Which gets almost the VAT off the price of the exam (just under £100 I think). I wonder if you could use this exam voucher in conjunction with the one mentioned above? Probably not, but could be worth a shot!

Its worth shopping around when you are buying books as well. Try http://www.froogle.co.uk and http://www.bookbrain.co.uk , just put in the title of the book to search for the best prices.

 

My company has a scheme running to pay for up to £200 of non wor related courses. I've jusy booked myself on exam 272 and the company are paying for it. South East Essex College near me in Southend is a Prometric Testing Centre and they charge £88 per exam which i didn't think was too bad.

I have the M$ Press book for the exam too. Coupled with the Exam Cram stuff (on their way from amazon and Amazon are doing 50% off them at the moment (19.25 for ExamCram for 271 and 272 not too shabby), and also some technet articles recommended to me by the readiness tests, should be okay.

Supporting end users on Windows XP readiness got me 67% without any studying.

 

Nice one Starfury, I really think this cert will come into it's own in the near future. I've started to see employers asking for the MCDST in job adverts. In this industry I always think (Like it or not) that having a recognised Microsoft cert is a good thing.

 

I just did Supporting Deployment for Microsoft Windows XP readiness test. I thought I did really poorly but when it completed I was greeted by a 'Congratulations yours is the highest score in the last 24 hours message. lol.

I got 57% in 27 minutes.

These are really helpful in figuring out what you need to concentrate on in study.

 

Thanks guy's, some really good info here.

 

Agreed, there is some good information here.
This sounds like an IT certification which would
help me in my career as a computer technician.

 

I'm hoping this is going to start things off for me to change careers. Trouble is I've been in the same place for 13 years and there's no doubt I'll have to take a pay cut. Damned scarey too having been with a big company for this long. Have a second sproglett on the way too!!!

I think I have a large amount of knowlegde but no academic qualifications or work experience to back it up. I currently work as a CAD designer for an automotive engineering company.