Tech Exam Prep

Tech Exam Prep

By Ran Chen, EA, CFP®EducationHow ToCourses
Download on the App Store

Tech Exam Prep episodes

  • [PL-300] 36, Themes and Conditional Formatting
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How report themes establish global design consistency across Power BI reports using built-in presets and custom JSON files.
    - How to apply gradient, rule-based, and field-value conditional formatting to background colors, font colors, icons, and data bars.
    - How to avoid the common exam trap of confusing percentage vs number settings in rule-based conditional formatting.
    - How to use DAX measures returning hex color codes paired with field value conditional formatting for dynamic visual logic.
    - How to distinguish report-level theme architecture from measure-driven conditional emphasis on the PL-300 exam.
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    5 min
  • [PL-300] 35, Formatting and Configuring Visuals
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How implicit field aggregations differ from explicit DAX measures in visual configurations
    - Techniques for optimizing axis limits, legend visibility, and layout readability to prevent clutter
    - How to use small multiples for synchronized side-by-side categorical comparisons
    - Adding dynamic Analytics pane reference lines such as constant and average benchmarks
    - Configuring matrix totals and applying measure-driven conditional formatting and dynamic titles
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min
  • [PL-300] 34, Choosing the Right Power BI Visual
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How to match core business requirements like trends, correlation, composition, and distribution to specific Power BI visuals for the PL-300 exam.
    - The distinction between line charts for continuous time series, bar charts for discrete categories, and scatter charts for numerical correlation.
    - Best practices for part-to-whole analysis, including category limits on pie charts, benefits of treemaps, and when to choose stacked bar charts.
    - Key exam scenarios for specialized visuals including Decomposition Trees, KPI visuals, Gauges, Matrices, and Geographic maps.
    - Major exam traps regarding custom visuals, misleading chart choices, and selecting built-in options to fulfill requirements efficiently.
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min
  • [PL-300] 33, Optimizing Model and DAX Performance
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How removing unnecessary rows and columns improves VertiPaq columnar compression in PL-300
    - Techniques for reducing granularity and high cardinality, such as splitting datetime columns
    - Why star schemas with single-direction relationships perform best on the exam compared to bi-directional options
    - How to use Performance Analyzer to isolate bottlenecks between DAX query, Visual display, and Other metrics
    - Methods for diagnosing and rewriting slow measures using DAX Query View to eliminate costly iterators
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min
  • [PL-300] 32, Semi-Additive Measures, Quick Measures, and Calculation Groups
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How semi-additive measures aggregate across spatial dimensions but require last-nonblank patterns over time.
    - How to apply LASTNONBLANKVALUE logic to prevent incorrect summing of inventory or account balances.
    - The operational limits of quick measures and when explicit DAX measures are required for complex logic.
    - How calculation groups use the SELECTEDMEASURE function to apply dynamic logic across multiple metrics.
    - Criteria for choosing between reusable calculation groups and standalone explicit measures in Power BI models.
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min
  • [PL-300] 31, Iterator and Statistical Functions
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How to differentiate standard column aggregators from row-by-row iterator functions in DAX for the PL-300 exam.
    - How to construct SUMX, AVERAGEX, MINX, MAXX, and COUNTX expressions using table contexts and row evaluations.
    - Key techniques for avoiding common RANKX traps by correctly applying ALL and ALLSELECTED functions.
    - How to select appropriate statistical functions including MEDIAN, percentiles, sample variance, and population standard deviation.
    - A quick memory rule to instantly spot when row context evaluation is required on exam questions.
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min
  • [PL-300] 30, DAX Time Intelligence
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - Essential prerequisites for proper date tables including contiguous dates and marking as a date table.
    - Differences between TOTALYTD and CALCULATE with DATESYTD, including custom fiscal year parameters.
    - When to use DATEADD versus SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR for multi-period and prior-period comparisons.
    - How to construct dynamic rolling window calculations using DATESINPERIOD.
    - The CALM mnemonic and how to avoid filter context traps with date dimension tables.
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min
  • [PL-300] 29, FILTER, ALL, VALUES, and Filter Modification
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How ALL and REMOVEFILTERS clear existing filter context to calculate true grand total denominators on PL-300 exam questions.
    - The key distinction between ALLEXCEPT and ALLSELECTED when building category and slicer-aware percentage measures.
    - Why VALUES includes referential integrity blank rows while DISTINCT excludes them in filter tables.
    - How KEEPFILTERS forces logical filter intersection rather than replacing existing filter context in CALCULATE expressions.
    - How to troubleshoot DAX measures incorrectly showing 100% across all visual rows due to retained filter context traps.
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    3 min
  • [PL-300] 28, CALCULATE and Context Transition
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How CALCULATE modifies filter context and follows a strict evaluation order in DAX
    - Key differences between Boolean filters and table filters, including syntactic limitations on PL-300
    - How to use KEEPFILTERS to intersect context instead of replacing existing visual filters
    - How context transition converts row context into filter context explicitly and implicitly through measures
    - Essential precautions when using CALCULATE or measure references inside calculated columns and iterators
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min
  • [PL-300] 27, Building Aggregation Measures
    This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams.
    In this episode you will learn:
    - How to choose between COUNT, COUNTA, and COUNTROWS for efficient row counting in Power BI
    - The critical difference between DISTINCTCOUNT and DISTINCTCOUNTNOBLANK when dealing with blank values
    - Why the DIVIDE function must be used instead of forward slash division to safely handle divide-by-zero errors
    - How VAR and RETURN statements improve measure performance by evaluating expressions once in declaration context
    - Common exam traps on PL-300 including variable re-evaluation nuances and parameter handling in aggregation functions
    For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep
    4 min

About Tech Exam Prep

From the publisher's feed

Tech Exam Prep is a free, daily podcast by OpenExamPrep covering the most in-demand IT and technology certification exams — including CompTIA Security+, AWS Cloud Practitioner, CompTIA Network+, CCNA,…