70-410 Exam Preperation

Enticles

Hi All,

My employer has enrolled me in an instructor-led course to get me up to speed and ready to sit the 70-410 exam in 5 weeks. I have to say i am extremely happy that my employer offered this to me (i didn't pester them, so this came as a really pleasant surprise). I think they are looking at doing this for all 3 exams to get me MCSA certified.

Anyway, i was previously preparing for my CompTIA Security+ exam, but when an opportunity like this comes by I dont have a choice but to drop the S+ studies and focus on the certification track that employer is paying to train me in

The course consists of 5 full day training sessions with a trainer, with study materials and exam vouchers provided to sit the exam at the end of the training. The material provided is from Logical Operations and comes with a web-based lab environment to log in to and play with - awesome, right?

So i finished day #1 today, and as you'd expect it started with the basics (Server 2012 versions, limitations of each, how to install core vs with a GUI, etc). I found i was relating a lot to my 70-640 exam preparation, so today felt quite easy. I know for a fact that it is going to get a lot harder so i am not getting cocky or confident, i know what Microsoft exams are like and if you don't prepare for them with the level of respect and effort they demand then you're going to fail.

I was thinking about purchasing the Microsoft self-study guide in addition to the Logical Operations book just to add some extra coverage on the material.

one of the things the instructor has left us with in terms of homework is reading the next 3 chapters in the book and to be prepared for a pop quiz on everything covered today. This is the first time in my life that i am actually enjoying being in a classroom - when i was going through school all i wanted to do was get out of there and play videogames! hahaha

there will likely be a weekly update for the next 4 more weeks, and hopefully a "i passed" post following that at some point.

If any of you have any tips or advice regarding preparation i would love to hear them

poolmanjim

Best piece of advice I can offer: try to pay attention. Those classes will get dull at a certain point. The technology being discussed won't terribly interest you or you'll not fully understand it, or something will prevent from being as invested as you are now. My best advice is to keep trying to stay focused and push through the annoying parts.

Additionally, those classes, while helpful and good, are not going to be the only resource you need. Spend time reading the book, studying Technets, and ask your instructor questions after class or when a relevant topic comes up. Also, if they have labs in them - for the love of God do the labs! Too many times have I sat through a course and no one does the labs and then comments on how they didn't get anything out of it.

Enticles

thanks for the advice poolmanjim, I really appreciate it

I am in a very fortunate position, as the company i work at owns a "training center" that is immediately adjacent to the storefront of the company and the instructor is actually a member of the company staff. I see him in between classes several times a week so providing i don't annoy him too much i should be able to get some questions answered should i need to.

As for the labs, i am really surprised to hear that. IMO the labs are the best bit! the class is broken down so there are sections dedicated to us doing the labs in the classroom with the instructor present to assist and answer any questions. I imagine there will be some questions to be asked following next week's class as we delve into the depths of IPv6, which no matter how many times i have tried through self study to grasp i struggle really badly with. I guess it is just one of those subjects...

I do fully intend looking up additional resources on technet and seeking additional study material, i spotted the MS Study guide for this exam on kindle.com (Canada) for $17. so i think I'm going to just buy it and read that in addition to the course book.

Enticles

just checking in with an update:

so our classes have been pushed from Mondays to Thursdays, so as of yet i have not been to any additional days of class - however in an effort to be better prepared for the exam i have proceeded to read the next few chapters in the book that are meant to be covered in the classroom on Thursday. One of the chapters focuses on PowerShell, I have done the vast majority of my "IRL" administration from the GUI and as a result have not really needed to learn PowerShell except for my last MS exam (70-640). A lot has changed since i last needed to learn anything about it.

I have struggled a lot with PowerShell, i have a hard time structuring my queries / scripts and more often then not they fail with errors that are not immediately obvious as to what has happened. This as you can imagine makes me a little concerned about taking the exam as there is a significant amount of PowerShell on the exam (going on what i have read from other posts in this forum).

Do any of you PowerShell guru's have any tips or tricks that makes it easier to understand powershell's syntaxes and structure, and how to create your own scripts that actually work as intended? At this rate i am going to have to spend some extra time working on just powershell before i even think about sitting this exam.

Thanks in advance

AvgITGeek

Powershell is my weak link as well so don't feel bad. The biggest thing for the exam is to understand what the powershell cmdlet does and pick out the one(s) that will accomplish the task at hand. I'll attach two links which helped me quite a bit. Get-Help will be your friend as is Get-Help <cmtlet> -ShowWindow
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn249523(v=wps.630).aspx -Windows Server 2012 cmdlets

https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/getting-started-with-microsoft-power-shell-8276?l=r54IrOWy_2304984382 - Getting Started With Powershell

Enticles

thanks for the links

so today i had my second day of class, today we covered automation, IPv4, and IPv6. needless to say my head is mush after the IPv6 section.

I am getting more concerned with the course resources, its not filling me with confidence in being able to pass the exam after completing the course. I'm not much of a risk taker when it comes to these things so i do have some additional materials to study in parallel which i am hoping will compound knowledge that is either lacking or missing entirely in the course material.

I have some lab work to do between now and next thursday though, it is my personal goal to make IPv6 my b***h before the next class!

more updates to follow

Enticles

Hi All,

forgot to check in after class #3, sorry about that!

So class #4 is being broken up into 2 half days - the perks of the training being in house means we can be flexible about the training times!

We finished the course material today, and like i have been saying throughout the thread i have not been filled with confidence about this course on its own being able to get me a pass on the exam.

The structure has been more of an educational presentation, the instructor's materials were provided in powerpoint presentations and it contained all the material that was covered in the book that we as the students were provided. So i do not blame the instructor in this case, as he was really just doing what the instructors manual expected him to do - can't fault him for that!

Now that i have finished the course material though me and my colleagues who were also on the course have agreed to set some time apart from our work-schedules to set up a test lab between us and get the hands-on labbing done. the plan i want to implement is to have 2 seperate forests, 1 managed by the GUI and 1 managed by powershell. Then we'll go about breaking and fixing things as necessary to recreate the scenarios that we will be expected to know how to resolve for the exam. I am also re-reading the Microsoft Self-Study book to validate the course material and catch any gaps there may be in it.

I have to say though, i am really happy with the changes from 2008's exams to 2012's exams that Microsoft has made, i had a really hard time with the 70-640 because of the additional Active Directory technologies that were included, understandably it was a "configuring active directory" exam but the LDS / RMS / CS / FS sides of Active Directory caused me a lot of headaches as i had no access to a production environment leveraging any of those technologies which i could examine to see how it all came together. With this exam it seems to be starting off (fairly) simply and i am assuming build off of that for the next 2 exams in the MCSA track.

next update ~1 week

shaun5263

Not sure if this helps since I took the exam 2 years ago and don't know if anything has changed since then. I passed on my first attempt and did a write up on how I prepared. I spent a few months preparing but did not have the instructor led class.

http://www.techexams.net/forums/mcsa-mcse-windows-2012-general/106479-passed-70-410-a.html