Help With Studying - Test 5/9/2015

gh0stdylan

Hi. I know this gets asked 55 times a day, but I need help with what to study. I am taking a Configuring Windows 8 class through my local community college that includes the Pearson Vue voucher. With my A+, N+, and S+ classes I had 1 year to take the certification and I had success with taking the class then spending time studying with Professor Messer videos. The teacher for this Win8 class just informed us that he wants us to take the 70-687 before the end of the semester on 5/9/15. A pass will net me 10% bump in my grade, but I'm more worried about taking my time to study rather than the grade boost. Although I am not doing very well on the tests in the class.

So in short, I have a little over 2 weeks to study for a test that seems pretty difficult (from reading here). I have access to moac.microsoftlabsonline.com and 'Configure Windows 8' book by Craig Zacker. I don't have the time to order another study material from Amazon or purchase online training course. I did well with the Prof. Messer videos previously, anything similar for this test?

gh0stdylan

Just found out good news...if I fail the 1st time I have a free voucher good for 30 days after I take the test! that makes me feel a bit better but still searching for the best form of training for myself.

XxNooniexX

Hi Gh0stdylan,

No idea why nobody is replying to your post. Anyway, in terms of study materials, there isn’t really anything like Professor Messer for these exams…at least not for free anyway! If you are looking for video training, there are two main vendors that provide that; CBT Nuggets and Pluralsight. Both are pretty good however Pluralsight have not updated their course to support Windows 8.1 yet so if you chose to go with them you might have to study up on a few topics that are not covered by them (the majority is exactly the same but you wouldn’t want any surprises when you go into the exam right?). CBT Nuggets have the course fully updated but they may go a little too fast for you possibly (the people from Pluralsight seem to be a bit more chilled and demonstrate features a whole lot more like Professor Messer does, you might prefer Pluralsight if you’re used to Professor Messer). Since you don’t have long before your exams, I would recommend you take a free trial from both sites and watch their videos to help you with your training.

As for your book, I haven’t actually read this one but it doesn’t appear to support Windows 8.1 so there may be a few things that are not included in the material that you might want to search for (eg Assigned Access, Broadband tethering ect). You might want to go onto this link - https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam-70-687.aspx and click the hyperlink that says “content covering Windows 8.1” to get yourself a .pdf copy of the new features that will be included in the exam. Another thing I would say is, the books that I used did have a few errors in it and features that were not emphasised so much such as Powershell. In order to address that, I would take a look at Technet and read through some of the articles on there before your exam. Technet has an article on pretty much every objective on the exam ( with a bit of searching around), I highly recommend it.

Finally, although Professor Messer doesn’t cover the 7-687 course, he does actually have a course on 70-680 which is the Windows 7 one. Although they’re different from each other, there are some topics you could get away with studying from him such as Applocker, Id recommend you study the other videos first as they’re based on Windows 8/8.1 but you don’t have to rule out Professor Messer entirely.

Best of Luck,

XxNooniexX