Of the many Microsoft Certification Exams, the Power BI Certification Exam, PL300 is one of the most popular.
The PL300 Exam (formerly DA100) is a part of the new series of Microsoft Exams focused on Roles, replacing the 70-778 (technology focused exam).
Many certified professionals recommend several ways for preparation. YouTube, Udemy Courses, Paid Classes, Microsoft Learn, Study Groups and many others.
I wouldn’t recommend using a single resource, I think the best preparation is a blend of all available resources you can lay your hands on.
Introducing the best 2 resources (IMO)
As a Power BI Trainer, who have coached many people to write and pass the PL300/DA100, I have found 2 of the best resources to be the Official Exam Ref and Official Practice Exam.
Though they are paid resources, they are for me, the most complete, most handy and most best 😀 available resources.
Exam Ref PL-300 Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst.
I waited a while for this book to launch.
When it finally launched , I knew it would again be a fantastic asset like the DA100 and 70-778 Exam Ref Daniil Maslyuk previously authored.
I have gone through the content and I kid you not, it is extremely (Extreeeeeeemly) easy to follow. It comes with Practice Files for every single lesson.
This book is your ultimate compliment to the free Microsoft Learn material.
It covers all the Exam Skills Outline. It’s available as PDF and Hard Cover.
PL-300: Microsoft Certified Official Practice Test.
I waited a while for this Practice Test to launch 😀.
When it finally launched around….(I can’t remember when it launched 😀).
I knew it would be extremely important to use the practice test before writing your Exam. Especially, if you don’t have a lot of Months or Years of Power BI Experience.
I know there are a lot of very useful practice tests everywhere.
Many of them are legal as well (and there are some illegal exam dumps. I always discourage using exam dumps. Exam dumps violate Microsoft Exam Policy and anyone found guilty can be banned from taking Ms Exams).This practice test provides you with similar exam kind of questions in exactly (exaaaaaaaactly) the exam software interface.
So you can focus on answering your exam questions and not wasting time not knowing where to click, clicking the wrong places during your actual exam.
Although, the first screen in the exam provides you with instructions about the User Interface and Controls, trust me, you won’t remember 10% of them by the time the exam starts.
So the practice exam would have gotten you ready and save you several minutes.
The practice exam has a life span of 1 month, so make sure you only purchase this when your exam is close enough.
Pro tip: You are not likely to pass your first attempt of the practice exam, never get worried about that.
Keep at it, do more research, and retry several times.
While the actual exam pass mark is 70%, you still may never get 70% on the practice test 🙂. Anything from 60 – 65% in this practice exam will put you in a great position to pass the main exam.
Conclusion:
The Practice Exam will provide you a break down of your scores and you can see areas where you need a whole lot of improvement. Open the Daniil’s Exam Ref to the sections and quickly go over those again.
Use the Exam Ref, as your Ref (Now I see why it’s called Exam ref) as you continue with the Practice Exam to correct your mistakes.
Follow Daniil on LinkedIn and Twitter, he shares some of the rarest Power BI information you are not likely to come across anywhere else.
