Microsoft 365 Fundamentals: How to Pass the MS-900 Exam

Personnel with Microsoft 365 skills are in high demand. Acquiring the MS-900 certification will provide you with the essential skills necessary to either begin your IT career or enhance your existing career. The Microsoft 365 Fundamentals course will provide foundational knowledge of cloud concepts, Office 365 core services, security, compliance, pricing, and support options.

This article will help provide you with an overview of the following, with a focus on Microsoft 365:

• Exam Training
• Exam Overview
• Exam Details
• Exam Tips and Tricks

MS-900 exam training tips

How can you prepare for the exam?

• Find a course on Udemy that specializes in the MS-900 exam. In addition to gaining valuable skills and knowledge, the Microsoft 365 Fundamentals training course will provide foundational knowledge that can give you an advantage when pursuing additional Microsoft Certifications. The course also offers a study guide to augment your learning.
• Practice tests are a great way to ensure that you know the material. If you are already taking short quizzes, I recommend adding a full-length practice test to your training material. This will help you get a feel for the number of questions on the real exam and how long it takes you to complete it. 
• Don’t try to memorize questions, but rather understand the concepts behind the questions. This is very important, as the questions you see on the MS-900 exam will test your comprehension of the material and will not look exactly like any practice test you have taken.
• Invest in hands-on training. Hands-on training is a great way to reinforce the material you have learned. The great thing about Microsoft is that they offer a free 30-day trial of Microsoft 365 that allows you to configure and test everything you have learned. 

The more you prepare, the better you’ll do.

MS-900 exam overview

The MS-900 exam has a 60-minute time limit and roughly 40 questions. To pass, you will have to achieve a weighted score of 700, which is about 80% of the questions answered correctly.

There are a few question styles on the exam, so you’ll want to prepare for them all. You will have standard multiple-choice questions where you choose the best available answer. There will also be some true or false questions where they will provide three or four statements about a particular topic, and you must identify if they are true or false. This makes up a single question on the exam.

Finally, you will have some scenario-based questions on the exam, where they will give you an example of someone looking into a few options for productivity tools or security, for example, and then you will have to drag and drop the correct tool to match the correct need. Like the true and false questions, there will be anywhere from two to four scenarios within a single question. 

MS-900 exam details

Below you will find the details of the MS-900 Exam broken down into the topical units as by Microsoft.

• Cloud Concepts (10-15%)
  • Describe the different types of cloud services available.
  • Describe cloud services in general and the service SaaS model.
  • Describe the benefits of adopting cloud services.
  • Describe software-as-a-service vs. on-premises services. 
• Core Microsoft 365 Services and Concepts (30-35%)
  • Identify core Microsoft 365 capabilities.
  • Describe options for deploying and supporting Windows and Office.
  • Describe analytics capabilities in Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
  • Microsoft 365 collaboration solutions.
• Security, Compliance, and Privacy (30-35%)
  • Explain zero-trust security principles for Microsoft 365.
  • Explain unified endpoint management and device management concepts.
  • Explain identity and access management concepts.
  • Explain Threat Protection in Microsoft 365.
  • Describe the Service Trust Portal, Microsoft 365 Security Center, and Compliance Manager.
  • Describe information protection and governance solutions.
• Microsoft 365 Pricing and Support (20-25%)
  • Plan, predict, and compare pricing.
  • Identify licensing options available in Microsoft 365.
  • Describe the service lifecycle in Microsoft 365.
  • Describe support offerings for Microsoft 365 services.

Understanding each of these elements is critical as the exam material will include all of them.

Taking the exam

Below, I have provided some tips and tricks that I find especially helpful when taking a certification exam. I hope they will help you along your certification journey.

• Get some rest. The night before the exam, you will want to get a good night’s sleep and remove any distractions. You don’t need to be stressed out the night before.
• Don’t over-study. I tend to just do a quick once-over of the study material and then do something that I find enjoyable. I have found that over-studying can be just as under-studying. So find that balance that works for you.
• Fuel your mind. On the day of the exam, make sure you eat something before you take the test. It will help you concentrate and keep your energy up.
• Take breaks. When taking the exam, feel free to take small mental breaks. It’s not a race. You have plenty of time to complete the exam. If you feel frustrated or overwhelmed, I find that if I sit back in my chair, close my eyes, and take a few deep breaths, it gives my brain a break, and I can come back refreshed for the next set of questions. Most people can’t sit down and knock out 40 questions in a row without a break. So maybe you break it up into sets of 10, then take a small mental break, then 10 more, and so on until you finish. Feel free to do this as many times as you need until the exam is complete.