Recently, I passed the PL-300 exam for Power BI.
This is Microsofts certified data analyst certificate.
I’ve been wanting to take this for about a year now and finally got around to making it happen. I’m thrilled to have taken it and passed!
In this article, I want to go over what I did to prepare for this exam and pass it.
Let’s get into it.
What’s the purpose of the exam?
The PL-300 exam is for Microsofts Power BI Data Analyst certification.
It also fits into the “Data Analyst” track within the Microsoft Learn pathway. It’s part of a series of exams that test proficiency as a Microsoft Data Analyst. The certification pathway is as follows.
PL-900: Power Platform Fundamentals
This one is an optional beginner-level exam. Some of the information does carry relevance to the PL-300, but not extensively. I recommend it if your company is heavy on Microsoft products.
PL-300: Power BI Data Analyst
The exam we’re talking about today!
DP-500: Azure Enterprise Data Analyst Associate
Note - this certification was expired April 30th, 2024 but I’m keeping it here as it can still be renewed for up to 6 more months for those who already have it.
DP-600: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate
This is the exam that now formally follows the PL-300 within Microsofts “Data Analyst” series.
You can find the Power BI Data Analyst certification page here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/data-analyst-associate/?practice-assessment-type=certification
The exam experience
Currently, the exam is 100 minutes long and contains 50 questions. The price to take the exam is $165 (does not include retakes).
The exam contains a variety of different types of questions including:
Multiple choice
True/False
Drag and drop
Multi-part questions where there are more than one selection needed for your answer
List builds where you rearrange the steps for an answer in the proper order
And a case study that has multiple questions attached to it.
The scoring is done on a scale of 1 to 1000 and you need a score of at least 700 to pass. The score is provided to you as soon as you complete and submit your exam.
Also, you receive partial credit for questions that require more than one selection for their answer.
I recommend going through the Exam Sandbox available on the Microsoft Learn page for the Power BI Data Analyst certification. This will help give you a feel for the exam and the types of questions asked.
One nice feature that was added fairly recently to the exam is the ability to access the Microsoft Learn article archive within the testing environment. The helps add an “open book” aspect to the exam. But be careful as it’s easy to waste time reading articles. 100 minutes for 50 questions isn’t a lot of time!
What to know for the exam
Here’s the exam breakdown, according to the Microsoft Learn website.
Prepare the data (25–30%)
Model the data (25–30%)
Visualize and analyze the data (25–30%)
Deploy and maintain items (15–20%)
Here’s a bit more detail on what you can practically expect to see going into the exam:
How different data sources connect to and interact with Power BI.
Optimizing a data model as well as some DAX related questions and even some questions related to SQL.
Questions related to visuals like which type of chart to choose and when.
Knowledge of the Power BI Service, Workspaces, and Power BI administration.
Context is huge for this exam as well. Read questions carefully and pay attention to details. Often times small details within the question prompt would totally affect the answer.
How to prepare for the exam
Here’s what I did to prepare as well as some additional tips
Microsoft Learn modules - go through 100% of Microsofts course material. It’s free and contains 19 different modules with practical labs. I found the course to be much more helpful and in-depth than I originally expected.
Microsoft practice exams - these are also on the certification page. I took about 10 of these and just kept taking them until I was scoring 96-100% consecutively.
Supplemental courses - Unless you have extensive experience with Power BI, I recommend additional courses to get more hands on experience. Here’s a good one from Maven Analytics that I recommend. It goes on sale often too.
Professional experience with Power BI - This is not mandatory, but it helps. You can pass the exam without having used the tool professionally, but real world experience will help you here. This exam is fairly challenging. If you don’t have real world experience, spend extra time creating projects and definitely take an extra course or two, as suggested in number 3.
Conclusion
Hope this was helpful! I definitely don’t want to scare anybody by saying the exam is challenging. It is, but not to a ridiculous degree. I’ve never been the best test taker and I was still able to pass. I only stress the importance of preparation because I don’t want you to waste your $165 but I having to retake the exam. Take the test seriously and you’ll do just fine.
If you’d like to hear some more of my thoughts on the exam, consider checking out this video I recorded on preparing for the PL-300 exam.
That’s it for this week.
See you next time ✌️