Ordering 70-410 materials through work, what do you reckon?

Beany

Morning,

Work have offered to get me the material through my expenses, yippeee.

So I'm getting the following:

1) Transcender Practice Exams for around £90
2) A study book, which book do you recommend? Heard some bad reviews on some of the books available.
3) A decent powershell book that's tailored for the 70-410 exam, any recommendations?

Or is there something else that I've missed that you peeps can recommend which will help me in passing this exam? I can purchase it through work.

I already have a decent lab set up at home and have purchased the CBT Nugget videos. I have been playing around with Server 2012 r2 at work and home for the last few months and planning to complete this exam asap.

All ideas/recommendations will be appreciated.

thanks

YetAnotherITGuy

I found CBT Nuggets useless(70-410, 70-411 is not bad and 70-412 by Greg Shields[concentrated tech] is good). It's probably for those that do not know the basics of server technologies.

I found the 70-410 book, borntolearn wiki, John Savill's (Infinite Skills) and Mark Minasi's book very helpful.

The 70-410 is good material - read every line and you will probably be able to get an excellent grasp of the topics covered in the exam. This book will not help you pass the exam - You have to think of 'what-if' scenarios in various topics covered in this book and hit technet and test things in labs to find the answers to your own questions.

Borntolearn wiki is simply essential. Read it religiously.

I also strongly recommend John Savill's course. Succinct technical explanations of technical concepts. You better be ready to pause the video and take notes with pen & paper as you listen to his videos - May sound unappealing and painful, but you will learn loads. The video is not updated for 2012 R2, but there is no doubt that it's superior to any other video series that I have seen.

Powershell book is not needed, but knowing basic syntax of powershell command structure is helpful. The exam objectives state that you get tested on powershell cmdlets for performing the same tasks you do via GUI and anything else that can be exclusively done only via commandline or powershell tools. Use the following guide and checkout powershell commands in Mark Minasi's book.
Free Download: CMD to PowerShell Guide for AD - Goatee PFE - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

If you have time/money, read http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Hyper-V-System-Center-Windows/dp/1118828186/ or http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-Hyper-V-Installation-Configuration/dp/1118486498/ - There is some good stuff.

Lastly, try everything in a home lab - read the fine print and know your tabs. Good luck!