Failed 70-410

kosta-k

Hi,
today took 70-410 and failed with result 443. Feeling very dissapointed. During exam was sure that will pass but...
Weakest areas: install and administer AD and GPOs. For GPO - it is really a weak point but install and administer AD - have pretty solid knowledge of it...
Materials used:
sybex all in 1 book, cbt nuggets videos, moac labs book.
Dont have experince with servers, helpdesk for 2 years and previously IT technician for 4 years.
Most probably will use Mark Minasi book, MOAC and exam reference.
Will do more labs.

Lexluethar

Keep your head up - without experience it takes a bit more time. I passed my MCSA AD exam for 2008 without any experience but it seriously took like over a year to gather the knowledge through labs and getting a feel for the MS exams.

Keep at it, you'll get there. I suggest going into the Exam Objectives on Microsofts website and simply creating a word document outlining every topic covered in the objectives. Between that an labs you should have it down.

DAVIS NGUYEN

Sorry to hear that. Good luck for next time!

AndersonSmith

Sorry to hear but don't give up. Just out of curiosity how long did you study before taking the exam? Like how many hours a day for how many weeks? The exam is pretty tough even for those of us with a considerable amount of experience. You'll get it next time!

kosta-k

Thx for support:)
In general studied for 3 month but not really heavy, about 2 hours reading and 30-40 minutes of videos depending on its length, 5 days per week.
Watched for videos 3 times, created notes. Labbing was one of the weakest points in preparing.
Probably sybex was not the best book.
Now will use different books and will try more labbing.
What can I do more?

Louie1277

Trust me I know how you feel and I know about failing the exam. I have tried so many times , and my scores started out low but got much higher every time I took the exam. These last 2 exam I took I received the same score happy about that but not excited I didn't pass the exam.

If you need more material to study like other books I'm happy to share them with you. Forum has help me so much that I think it's right for me to share my material with other users that can't afford to buy them or anything. I believe in sharing with other techie guys/gals.

Lexluethar

Honestly the trick is finding what works for YOU. Everyone studies and learns differently, so to go at it assuming you learn the same as everyone else won't work.

For me video's are worthless, i'd rather click through the setup myself (maybe hand in hand with the video) and learn that way. I've never learned by watching someone else setup something without doing it myself. Sure it's nice as a review but to understand say Direct Access you need to go through the steps yourself.

Honestly you just need more time, less video's probably and more hands on lab stuff.

majorpayne

I failed my first attempt as well, but then focused on my weekest areas and passed the second. all it is a learning lesson.

AndersonSmith

The Sybex book doesn't even come close to preparing you for the exam. Take another couple month to study and make sure you lab everything with the GUI and Powershell

AvgITGeek

Read the book and lab along the way. As everyone else said, make sure you can replicate everything in powershell. I posted a Server 2012 R2 Powershell link in a previous topic.

kosta-k

Thank you all.
Will put more time to study and labbing/powershell.

kosta-k

Going through MCSA 70-410 Cert Guide R2 by Don Poulton, seems to be very good book with a lot of PS and details, a lot of new knowledge gained compared to sybex book. And also pluralsight videos which are more exam specific compared to CBT. Labbing still a problem. Guys, how you make yourself to do labs? After work Im very tired and if I sit in front of computer Im doing everything except labs. Maybe dedicate 1-2 days for just labbing?

knownhero

Funny. I failed the 70-332 with the same score first time.

But anyway good luck on your next try!

AndersonSmith

kosta-k wrote: »

Guys, how you make yourself to do labs? After work Im very tired and if I sit in front of computer Im doing everything except labs. Maybe dedicate 1-2 days for just labbing?

You just have to buckle down and make yourself do them. I felt the same way while studying after coming home from work - I was tired and a lot of times didn't really feel like studying but I'd just shut myself in my bedroom and setup my laptop and open the VMs I had for my lab and make myself go through everything. I'd take little 10 minute breaks here and there but for the most part that's all I would do a lot of nights is study. It wasn't always easy to make myself do it but it was well worth it. I would lab every day, not just 1 or 2 days.

Louie1277

That's how i feel after driving home 1hr then dealing with family... Some times I'm sooo tired i tell me myself tomorrow I will study. Then comes tomorrow and I feel the same way. During work i setup my laptop but there's moments i have to stop to help staff with support issue. I get my some what studying through out the day. This weekend I plan on studying hopefully at least 4 hours a day. I'm going to start watching my videos now for about 30 mins before it gets busy around here.

AndersonSmith wrote: »

You just have to buckle down and make yourself do them. I felt the same way while studying after coming home from work - I was tired and a lot of times didn't really feel like studying but I'd just shut myself in my bedroom and setup my laptop and open the VMs I had for my lab and make myself go through everything. I'd take little 10 minute breaks here and there but for the most part that's all I would do a lot of nights is study. It wasn't always easy to make myself do it but it was well worth it. I would lab every day, not just 1 or 2 days.

kosta-k

Got 583 today. A lot of hyper-V questions and it was the weakest point, also GPO(havent read in Poultons book about it yet) and core network services-will reread them.
Have 3 retakes more till end of February, hope time is enough.
Still reading MCSA 70-410 Cert Guide R2 by Don Poulton - about 150 pages left.
Sometimes job is exhausting me so much that can not study at all

Louie1277

I'm sorry to hear that.. Trust me don't give up and keep reading... I know it's hard and you are tired but you have to keep pushing. Just an 1hr is good enough. If you need to use the exam package by Feb I really would suggest you make time and drink coffee or something.

kosta-k wrote: »

Got 583 today. A lot of hyper-V questions and it was the weakest point, also GPO(havent read in Poultons book about it yet) and core network services-will reread them.
Have 3 retakes more till end of February, hope time is enough.
Still reading MCSA 70-410 Cert Guide R2 by Don Poulton - about 150 pages left.
Sometimes job is exhausting me so much that can not study at all

kosta-k

Thx Louie. I feel like I can do if I work a little harder and put more passion into it.

usernick

Well, after 6 weeks of intense studying, I managed to pass 70-410 on my first go - here's what I did within those 6 weeks:
- Set up my own labs in a VMware environment (reason being, going to study for VMware 6 after this one)
- Used the Dan Poulton book (very comprehensive - beats the MS Official one hands down)
- Went through CBT Nuggets (James Conrad) whilst practising on my own lab - supplemented this with the Powershell commands in the Poulton book
- Just as I'd completed the James Conrad CBT Nuggets course, I noticed that CBT Nuggets have introduced a new version of the course by Garth Shulte (at the time of writing this, he hasn't finished the course - still missing some AD and Group Policy lessons)... However, they've included Virtual Labs and he uses Powershell very heavily (which, IMHO, was lacking somewhat in the James Conrad course)
- So, I used the Garth Shulte course as a "revision" exercise, and I think that this was *very* useful - it will probably be even better once he finishes the AD/Group Policy sections/labs!
- I also supplemented the Garth Shulte course with a couple of the lessons from Jeremy Ciaroa's "Cisco CCENT/CCNA ICND1 100-105" course - mainly the IPv4 and IPv6 sections which Garth Shulte pointed to.
- At the end of Garth Shulte's course, I took a number of Transcender practice exams (included with CBT Nuggets subscription) until I passed

My thoughts on the exam:
- I didn't get any IPv6 questions, although don't take that as a given in your exam - I spent a fair bit of time practising IPv6 subnetting (a question or two appeared in the Transcenders).
- I got a fair few questions on AD commands (both Powershell and non-Powershell) - know what each of the various command lines/utilities will do, and what they won't do within a given scenario. I had a couple of questions about nested Powershell commands - so, the exam does expect that you know the details of the command..
- I thought it was a bit sneaky of them to include a couple of questions on Routing & Remote Access considering that's a 70-411 objective (okay, both questions were related to DHCP/PXE)
- Know Hyper-V Powershell commands, and know the Hyper-V GUI interface - i.e. where in the GUI would you select a particular option to do X...

I'm relieved that I passed it - wasn't too confident in the exam, if I'm honest, but relieved that I passed!

Anyway, good luck everyone!

AndersonSmith

Congratulations Usernick! And only 6 weeks of studying is great! I agree about the questions from the 411 being included on the 410; I had a couple as well. When I was studying for the 410 I had seen others on this forum say they had gotten some as well so I took some extra time to study a little for the 411 before I took the 410.

usernick

It was a fairly intense 6 weeks of studying (i.e. I'm currently in-between jobs at the moment, but have some finances to see me through for a while yet!).

I'm taking a break and studying for the VMware vSphere 6.0 Foundations Exam which is a pre-requisite for the VCP6-DCV exam. By the time I've finished studying for that lot, maybe Garth Shulte might have started and finished the 70-411 course? I was quite impressed with his 70-410 course, as that went through both Powershell very thoroughly and the setting up of both RRAS and WSUS in the labs - all of which were very useful for the exam!

Anyway, here's hoping he does before Easter!

kosta-k

usernick, great job. But how you managed to study for all this things in 6 weeks?:)

usernick

Sheer hard work - roughly 8+ hours a day and practise, practise, practise in labs!

Obviously, for most people, work gets in the way, but I'm currently in-between jobs with a financial cushion (read "study leave")!

greg9891

Yeah man I'm getting ready for the 70-410 exam my self and i'm studying as hard as I can. but dont give up man. just focus on those week areas and tackle that test again.

kosta-k

Thx Greg,

Damn,
Microsoft policy requires 14 days between appointments,
Guys, is it possible to get rid of this thing and have less days between exams?

AndersonSmith

kosta-k wrote: »

Thx Greg,

Damn,
Microsoft policy requires 14 days between appointments,
Guys, is it possible to get rid of this thing and have less days between exams?

I doubt it. Microsoft is usually very strict about their exam policies, but you could always contact them nonetheless and ask.

Kinectic

14 days between exams

kosta-k

Unfortunatelly, 3rd attempt was the same score like 2nd - 583. Will take a break in preparation to exams.
Planing to read Minasi - Mastering Windows 2012 R2 and Inside out series as have paper versions - just to gain general knowledge. And after that will decide what to do.
And in case of pursueing MCSA 2012 thinking of doing 70-409 first as Hyper-V was the lowest in all attempts.

greg9891

focus on those week areas and lab lab lab. Don't let it discourage you. I'm looking to by Minasi - Mastering Windows 2012 R2 as well for the 70-411 studies. Heard its very good.