70-442 : PRO: Designing and Optimizing Data Access by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005

While there are no official prerequisites to take the MCITP certification, both Microsoft and uCertify strongly recommend that the candidates for this exam should have expertise in the following areas:

• Writing Transact-SQL queries
• Programming databases
• Troubleshooting programming objects (stored procedures, triggers, user-defined functions (UDFs), user-defined types (UDTs), and queries)
• Performing database performance tuning and optimization
• Designing databases, at both the conceptual and logical levels
• Implementing databases at the physical level
• Designing and troubleshooting the data access layer of the application
• Gathering business requirements

(on a scale of 0-1000)

In the event that you fail your first attempt at passing the MCITP certification, Microsoft's retake policy is:

• If a candidate does not achieve a passing score on an exam the first time, he must wait at least a 24-hour period before retaking the exam.
• If a candidate does not achieve a passing score the second time, the candidate must wait at least a 14-day period before retaking the exam a third time.
• A 14-day waiting period will also be imposed for the fourth and fifth subsequent exam retakes.
• A candidate may not take a given exam any more than five times per year (12 months). This 12-month period would start the day of the fifth unsuccessful exam retake.
• The candidate would then be eligible to retake the exam 12 months from that date. In order to take a given exam more than five times per year, a candidate must submit a request and obtain prior permission from Microsoft.