Looking to book 70-410

dgibson89

Hi All,

I’ve been studying for my 70-410 exam now for the last 5 months and I am in a position I think to take the exam. I currently work as a IT Support Technician and my employers are paying for me to take the exams. Due to my job I know my way around a server and most of the ins and outs of things. However due to not doing an exam for the best part of 6 years I am just a little worried that I am still going to be under-prepared for the exam.

I have currently read the book by Craig Zacher "70-410 Installing & Configuring Windows Server 2012 R2 (Microsoft Official Academic Course) – making notes on all the chapters the first time and then re-reading it the second time and covering parts I didn’t fully understand.
I bought myself a home server and got an evaluation version installed so I could practice setting up roles – configuring etc, and also where possible looked at things on our Work servers as we were in the process of deploying 2012 R2 throughout our company at the time.

I haven’t signed myself up to anything CBT Nuggets as I currently can’t really afford to pay the subscription prices – with a wedding this year and a house bought last year I don’t have an awful lot of cash to pay those kind of prices, and I don’t want to push my look with my employers by asking them to pay for it.
Do you have any recommendations that could help me that don’t consist of signing up for websites to watch videos/take practice exams? Or do you think it is a necessity in order to pass the exam. I just don’t want to be blind sighted by questions on material I haven’t even covered due to not paying the extra cash.

Any help/Advice is appreciated.

dave0212

The main question is do you feel confident with the topics.

But the only way to be sure is to go for it, Microsoft are doing a second shot campaign so you can have a free go, you have 30 days from the first exam to retake for free. giving you a month to focus on areas you fail on and it also means you can go in a little more relaxed

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-gb/second-shot.aspx

CBT Nuggets have a 7 day free trial, if you can dedicate the time use it

dave0212

Also look through this thread

http://www.techexams.net/forums/mcsa-mcse-windows-2012-general/88247-70-410-resources.html

dgibson89

Thanks for the info Dave. I do feel confident in what i have read, but i just don't know whether it has covered everything. I suppose that's where reading different material and doing things for yourself comes into play.

I've read up about the second shot - thats why i want to get it booked and then i can see what it is like and if i fail i can do a second attempt.

dgibson89

I took the exam today and failed with a 567. I'm not too downhearted about it although i thought i was going to do better than what i actually did whilst i was sitting the exam.

As it was my first exam of any kind in a round 5 years, and because I went into the exam not knowing what to expect, any score higher than 500 would have been something to work with, so i'm pleased about that - another month of studying and hopefully that will make the difference.

Surprisingly i was let down by my ability to "install and configure servers", so i will have to go through the processes again of installing bits and bobs and reading about migrating etc. If i am allowed to say this without breaking any forum rules, i would make sure to understand ipv6, hyper-v and active directory as there was a lot involved with that.