Passed 70-411 today!

Hello all,

I passed the 70-411 about an hour ago.

By far the hardest cert exam I've taken to date. I squeaked by in the low 700's but a pass is a pass! I am tempted to move right on to Vmware but I think I'd benefit from a break over Thanksgiving.

I have been taking a community college class designed for the 70-411 exam, and they use TestOut. I have found that their exam questions and labs help out a lot. I also used a 50% off Halloween promotion from ITPro.tv and joined up with them. They provided a virtual lab and Transcender practice exams that helped too. I would say that these two were the most beneficial.

I also used CBTNuggets: 70-411 with James Conrad (kinda sucked), and the Ultimate PowerShell course with Don Jones.

Books included: Jeremy Moskowitz's Group Policy, 2nd Edition, Brian Desmond's Active Directory, the MS Press Training Guide and Exam Ref for 70-411, Minasi's Mastering Server 2012 R2, Month of Lunches for Active Directory and PowerShell, and the Sybex MCSA study guide.

And of course, the TechNet articles linked in this forum's sticky for the 70-411

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Comments

ed_003

good work! how often did u study ?

thatguy67

ed_003 wrote: »

good work! how often did u study ?

I put in an average of 4-6 hours every day for the past month and a half. During the final 2 weeks of preparation I was getting up to 8 hours daily.

ed_003

o wow ok, what is ur method to studying? reading highlighting? videos and follow along?

kriscamaro68

Congrats on the pass!!!

thatguy67

kriscamaro68 wrote: »

Congrats on the pass!!!

Thanks!

thatguy67

ed_003 wrote: »

o wow ok, what is ur method to studying? reading highlighting? videos and follow along?

I watched the whole ITPro.tv course without taking any notes or trying to lab along. I would read the corresponding chapters out of the various books afterwards. After all of that was done, I'd prepare notes and jot down important commands etc. I had a notebook dedicated to this exam.

After the notebook was complete, I would go through the course again and then lab along. I would also go through the TestOut modules after each video was complete.

It was a grueling process because each video on ITPro.tv is around 2 hours along. But it helped a lot.

The final week, I did nothing but practice exams/flashcards on Transcender, and reviewed TechNet articles.

gespenstern

Gz! That's an achievement!

greg9891

Congrats Excellent news!

byron66

Was it Server Pro, I used testout for A+. How much help was it towards the MCSA Server 2012.

thatguy67

byron66 wrote: »

Was it Server Pro, I used testout for A+. How much help was it towards the MCSA Server 2012.

Actually it was extremely helpful. The questions on TestOut for Server Pro were very similar in difficulty and technical depth as what I encountered on the exam. I was telling my professor how surprised I was.

nascar_paul

Congratulations! The 411 is a hard test!

Snow.bros

Congrats on the pass and all the best on your VMware studies!!!

knownhero

ITPRO.tv never seen this before. They worth the monthly fee? I too absolutely hate this James Conrad bloke he just talks utter crap in most cases. I mean he started talking about Twilight movies...

techfiend

Congrats! Ditto on 70-411 being the toughest test so far. I also passed it barely the first time. I ended up just failing CCNA the first time mainly because I ran out of time, then aced it the next week. There's something about the way microsoft asks questions and adds new topics that a lot of material doesn't cover. If you study 70-412 and take the test, you may have a new candidate. Half the 70-412 is convoluted AD security topics. I've never in my life had to jump through so many windows to get something so simple done. It's definitely a work in progress, I hope, at Microsoft.

jones551

Great News ! Well done...

thatguy67

techfiend wrote: »

Congrats! Ditto on 70-411 being the toughest test so far. I also passed it barely the first time. I ended up just failing CCNA the first time mainly because I ran out of time, then aced it the next week. There's something about the way microsoft asks questions and adds new topics that a lot of material doesn't cover. If you study 70-412 and take the test, you may have a new candidate. Half the 70-412 is convoluted AD security topics. I've never in my life had to jump through so many windows to get something so simple done. It's definitely a work in progress, I hope, at Microsoft.

Thanks. I barely failed the composite CCNA the first time around. I am relieved the MCSA is done with because I know it's the most painful one. Cisco is a straightforward exam provider.

thatguy67

knownhero wrote: »

ITPRO.tv never seen this before. They worth the monthly fee? I too absolutely hate this James Conrad bloke he just talks utter crap in most cases. I mean he started talking about Twilight movies...

I think it's worth it. I pay $28 a month because I got the half off promotion. The membership includes a virtual lab and two Transcender practice exams per month. The main guy is really good, there is this one young host that is new or something, he's not articulate haha. I got the wrong impression of that site because he introduces the 70-411 course and he didn't even know the title of the exam. He's the only criticism though, everyone else is great and they don't start off each video with a 2 minute random-ass anecdote that somehow segues into the study material (like someone we know).

Dakinggamer87

Congrats well done!!

knownhero

@thatguy67

Found a 30% off coupon on their site and took the plunge. So far so good, I know what you're talking about with the young lad with the dude who looks like Paul Rudd.

Thier iOS app could do with some work though. It doesn't keep track of where you were on a video, nor does it allow you to "save" a course to quick link to it.

bohack

Congratulations on the victory!

gncsmith

Congrats!