Create and alter tables.

This objective may include but is not limited to: computed and persisted columns; schemas; scripts to deploy changes to multiple environments, for example, dev, test, production; manage permissions (GRANT, DENY, REVOKE)
Create and alter views.

This objective may include but is not limited to: WITH ENCRYPTION; WITH SCHEMABINDING; WITH CHECK OPTION; manage permissions (GRANT, DENY, REVOKE)
Create and alter indexes.

This objective may include but is not limited to: filtered, included columns, unique, clustered, non-clustered, FILL FACTOR; CREATE STATISTICS; indexing views, compression
Create and modify constraints.

This objective may include but is not limited to: PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY, UNIQUE, CHECK, cascading referential integrity, enabling/disabling, NOCHECK; SET IDENTITY_INSERT
Implement data types.

This objective may include but is not limited to: FILESTREAM; spatial, structured, and semi-structured; collations
Implement partitioning solutions.

This objective may include but is not limited to: partitioned tables and indexes (constraints, partition functions, partition schemes, MERGE, SPLIT, SWITCH); distributed partitioned views (constraints, linked servers)

Implementing Programming Objects (16 percent)

Create and alter stored procedures.

This objective may include but is not limited to: table-valued parameters (TVPs), EXECUTE AS, RECOMPILE, parameter direction (output); WITH ENCRYPTION; manage permissions (GRANT, DENY, REVOKE)
Create and alter user-defined functions (UDFs).

This objective may include but is not limited to: WITH SCHEMABINDING, EXECUTE AS; manage permissions (GRANT, DENY, REVOKE)
Create and alter DML triggers.

This objective may include but is not limited to: INSERTED, DELETED, INSTEAD OF, EXECUTE AS
Create and alter DDL triggers.

This objective may include but is not limited to: enabling/disabling; return event data
Create and deploy CLR-based objects.

This objective may include but is not limited to: permission sets (SAFE, UNSAFE, EXTERNAL_ACCESS), SET TRUSTWORTHY
Implement error handling.

This objective may include but is not limited to: TRY/CATCH, RAISERROR, retrieving error information, custom error messages, @@ERROR
Manage transactions.

This objective may include but is not limited to: BEGIN TRANSACTION, COMMIT, ROLLBACK, SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL, named transactions

Working with Query Fundamentals (21 percent)

Query data by using SELECT statements.

This objective may include but is not limited to: LIKE, WHERE, ORDER BY, INTO
Modify data by using INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements.

This objective may include but is not limited to: row constructors, DELETE FROM, UPDATE FROM, TRUNCATE TABLE
Return data by using the OUTPUT clause.

This objective may include but is not limited to: INSERTED, DELETED, INTO
Modify data by using MERGE statements.

This objective may include but is not limited to: INSERTED, DELETED, OUTPUT
Implement aggregate queries.

This objective may include but is not limited to: built-in aggregate functions, GROUPING SETS, GROUP BY, HAVING
Combine datasets.

This objective may include but is not limited to: CROSS APPLY, OUTER APPLY, all join types; UNION, UNION ALL, INTERSECT, EXCEPT
Apply built-in scalar functions.

This objective may include but is not limited to: CAST and CONVERT; REPLACE; LEN and DATALENGTH; PATINDEX and CHARINDEX

Applying Additional Query Techniques (15 percent)

Implement subqueries.

This objective may include but is not limited to: simple, correlated, scalar, list, table valued
Implement CTE (common table expression) queries.

This objective may include but is not limited to: recursive, non-recursive
Apply ranking functions.

This objective may include but is not limited to: RANK, PARTITION BY, DENSE_RANK, OVER, ROW_NUMBER, NTILE
Control execution plans.

This objective may include but is not limited to: table hints, query hints
Manage international considerations.

This objective may include but is not limited to: collations, defining custom errors, filtering data, sort order, nvarchar, database collation, column collation

Working with Additional SQL Server Components (11 percent)

Integrate Database Mail.
Implement full-text search.

This objective may include but is not limited to: CONTAINS, CONTAINSTABLE, FREETEXT, FREETEXTTABLE, STOPLIST
Implement scripts by using Windows PowerShell and SQL Server Management Objects (SMOs).

This objective may include but is not limited to: cmdlets
Implement Service Broker solutions.

This objective may include but is not limited to: services, queues, messages, message types, message validation, contracts, activation procedures, routes
Track data changes.

This objective may include but is not limited to: change tracking; database audit specification; CHANGETABLE, Change Data capture

Working with XML Data (12 percent)

Retrieve relational data as XML.

This objective may include but is not limited to: FOR XML
Transform XML data into relational data.

This objective may include but is not limited to: OPENXML, sp_xml_preparedocument, sp_xml_removedocument
Query XML data.

This objective may include but is not limited to: XQUERY, XPATH
Manage XML data.

This objective may include but is not limited to: XML datatype, XML indexes, XML schema collections

Gathering Performance Information (11 percent)

Capture execution plans.

This objective may include but is not limited to: graphical execution plans; SHOWPLAN, index details in Query Plans
Gather trace information by using the SQL Server Profiler.
Collect output from the Database Engine Tuning Advisor.

This objective may include but is not limited to: prepare a workload
Collect information from system metadata.

This objective may include but is not limited to: Dynamic Management Views (DMVs), catalog views