Important thing to note here is that I was not taking the exam to learn the software, I was taking the exam to get an acknowledgement that I have learned the software. Taking the certification is definately not the best choice for beginners to learn the software. If you are someone who has just started with the software, I would suggest you to follow other means to learn the software first, and then earning the certification. And I suppose, this is what certifications are for because at the end of day, it doesn't matter how many certifications you hold if you cannot solve practical and complex problems with it. Because if you already know the software, it's just a matter of $250 and couple of hours anyway, fill the form, pay the fee, clear the exam and you're certified. Voila!

Then came the evening of the exam, and as it was clearly instructed on the exam website, I had to clean my room from all the books, any peper ar any sort of material from my desk that might look suspicious to the examner and I logged in 15 minutes earlier. I also made double sure that all appropriate hardware drivers were installed in my laptop and my camera was working fine. After logging in, I waited for 5 to 10 minutes and soon a counseler joined me in the web meeting who ensured my identity by showing her a givernment ID prooof over the camera. I showed her around my room by rotating the laptop camera and all over the desk that noone was present in the room or I was not attempting to do any sort of cheating. Once she was ensured about my identity and authenticity, she connected me to a remote Windows machine where Tableau Desktop latest version was installed and all the required Excel, CSV and Tableau files were kept in a folder on the desktop. And then she hit the start button.

Topics covered in the Exam

Would you believe, some people directly asked me,"Can you tell me which questions were asked in the exam." Kind of makes me laugh and worry at the same time. What is the point of giving an exam if you already know the answer? I will cover a fair overview of topics that were covered or should be covered in the exam.

I had 120 minutes to complete 36 multiple choice questions. Most of the questions were in the form of multiple-choice-one-correct-answer and few questions were in the format of multiple-choice-multiple-correct-answers. Well, but that shouldn't worry you as almost 80 percent of questions were based on the practice and only few were covered theorical for which I did not have to use the software to answer.

Most of questions will point you to some certain tableau workbook or datasource and will ask questions based on those. In order to answer the question, you might need to create some calculated field, create some charts and apply some filters. Seeing difficulty of the exam, time limit usually should be the problem as 120 minutes is plenty of time to answer those kind of questions however, threshold of passing exam is fairly high as 70%. So once does not have scope to get any answers wrong. Even though there is no negative marking or panelty on giving wrong answers, one wrong answer still means you did not score. When I was asnwering I has the target of getting all answers correct and score a perfect 100. I finished at 92% and I was highly satisfied with my performance.

Lots of questions were answered using ratio calculations and filters

A few involved table calculations

LOD really helped me saving some precious time while answering some questions

Few questions were asked from mapping and action filters

Knowing statistical concepts like z-score and standard deviation helped me either

Out of 36, two questions got me thinking really hard

Otherwise, all other questions were fairly moderate and should not take unexpected efforts for people who really have worked hard on fundamentals of Tableau Desktop

There were really no questions related to which chart should be created how (I think this will be part of Tableau Desktop Certified Professional)

How to Prepare for the Exam

For me, most of knowledge of the software has come from using it daily at work. I had almost no solid experience of learning the software before I actually started using it for the real work purpose. So for most of you, that can be one best way to start using and learning Tableau Desktop.

And also, when it comes to prepare for the 'certificate', there is no other special kind of preperation other than just learning the software itself. Tableau itself provides some great resources like On Demand videos to help people getting started. You can also subscribe to YouTube channel of Andy Kribel (if you are reading this article and do not know who is he, you should) and bookmark the Tableau Reference Guide by Jeffrey Shaffer.

Closing Remarks

For me, clearning Tableau Desktop I is just a beginning and I am going ahead for Tableau Desktop II this monsoon. Once I am done with both Tableau Desktop ones, I am also planning to get a little technical and attempt Tableau Server I and from there if I find server interesting enough, then only I will consider Tableau Server II.

I want to thank everyone who asked me questions related to the certification. And I enourage all of you to go learn Tableau Desktop and once you have gained the confidence and go for the certification as well. It really does make a difference, and adds a weight to your data visualization voice.

So those, who are gonna take the exam, all the best. If you have any qustions that I might have missed to cover in the write up, please put them in comment and I will do my best to bring the answer to you. See you around and have fun with the data!

Ashish