Help, something feels off with 70-742

Alleyrm

First off all, thank everyone for their contributions to this forum. It has been a great asset to me.

But I am in dire need of some assistance and would appreciate any feedback that anyone can give. I am in the process of attaining my MCSA for Windows Server 2016. I earned my MCSA for Windows 10 at the end of 2016.

I have been working my butt off and I passed the 70-740 and 70-741 exams in August and October and passed the first time on each, as well as I passed the 70-697 and 70-698 in 2016 the first time on each.

However, here is my issue. I failed the 70-742 exam in November with a score of 616. No big deal, I thought, as I purchased an exam replay and got an extra retake. I took it a week later again I failed, again, this time with a score of 666.

I was very frustrated, but figured, hey, I improved. So I studied more (I have read 2 books, watched 35 hours of video on ITProTV, taken countless Transcender Practice exams, used flash cards, watched even more video and power point presentations I have found online, etc since October) Not to mention, I am a Systems Admin and Network Engineer for a managed service provider. I took the exam in December and failed again. The odd part, I got the same score of 666. Strange, but chalked it up to coincidence.

So I picked my self up, dusted myself off, and went back to studying. I went in today and took the exam again. I was very confident in my answers and felt really good about the exam. I went through each question 4 times before I clicked the finish button. Happy with my answers, I clicked finish. An yet again, I was met with a "failed" message with as score of... you guessed it, 666.

So if you are keeping count, the last 3 times I took this exam, I have scored a 666/1000. Something just doesn't feel right, and if the scores were different failing scores each time, I don't think I would have given it any more thought. But I know this content, and work with it every day. I find it difficult to accept that I have failed 3 times with the exact same score. Almost like something is wrong with the application and a score above 666 cannot be attained. Has anyone ever run into this before, is there an appeals process with Microsoft so I can have them check into this? Any input from this community would be greatly appreciated.

metaloader

Hey,

I also passed every exam (70-698 70-697 70-398 70-740 70-741 ) in 1 attempt.
But have failed 70-742 twice now.
first 550, second 650.
I feel like the questions in the exam are not covered in the Microsoft 70-742 book/MeasureUP at all.
When are you going to retry?
I'm going to retry March 31

Phalanx

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/learning/certification-exam-policies.aspx?challenge=true

The 5th item on the contents listing is what you want. I'm taking the 70-742 for the first time on the 29th of this month. Will let you know what I get.

malachi1612

I am not having much confidence in this exam now. I had to give 70-741 a break after failing it twice. 70-740, 70-698 give me no problems. 70-697 I did on my 2nd attempt but that was my first ever MS exam so I didn't know how the questions where structured.

CBT Nuggets, Puralsight, ITPro TV and the exam ref. I have all the materials I can for 70-742 but after the effort I put with 70-741 and failing it twice. I am loosing faith in doing MS at the moment.

Alleyrm

I'm retaking on the 29th. Good luck on yours!! I agree that some of the questions feel like they weren't covered in any training material.

Alleyrm

malachi1612 wrote: »

I am not having much confidence in this exam now. I had to give 70-741 a break after failing it twice. 70-740, 70-698 give me no problems. 70-697 I did on my 2nd attempt but that was my first ever MS exam so I didn't know how the questions where structured.

CBT Nuggets, Puralsight, ITPro TV and the exam ref. I have all the materials I can for 70-742 but after the effort I put with 70-741 and failing it twice. I am loosing faith in doing MS at the moment.

I feel ya. I have CBT Nuggets, ITPro TV, Exam Ref and Cert Guide. I just recently did CBT Nuggets and Exam Ref, so here's to hoping they were enough to fill in the gaps on what I have missed.

metaloader

Hey what happend to your exam? unfortunately I could not do my exam so I'll do it this month.

Alleyrm

I got delayed a bit taking the exam again. I took it today and I passed with an 894.

metaloader

Alleyrm wrote: »

I got delayed a bit taking the exam again. I took it today and I passed with an 894.

Congratz, nice score. I'm going to do the exam tomorrow for the 3rd time. Wish me luck!


I studied the Cert guide,Exam Ref book, CBT nuggets and MVA

Alleyrm

metaloader wrote: »

Congratz, nice score. I'm going to do the exam tomorrow for the 3rd time. Wish me luck!


I studied the Cert guide,Exam Ref book, CBT nuggets and MVA

Good luck buddy. You got this. I went into this last one much more confident after watching the CBT Nuggets videos. Those were great.

metaloader

Alleyrm wrote: »

Good luck buddy. You got this. I went into this last one much more confident after watching the CBT Nuggets videos. Those were great.

Thanks! I passed the exam today with 757
For me the 70-742 was the most toughest exam, The CBT nuggets video's indeed helped alot.

malachi1612

Congrats, im still a few weeks off from taking my 70-742. Ive also been using CBTnuggets so hopefully I will pass first time.

backtracker

Can anyone comment on the Pluralsight vs. CBT Nuggets content for this exam in particular? Is one better than the other? CBT nuggets shows about 8 hours of content vs. 30+ on PS- not sure what to make of that....

malachi1612

backtracker wrote: »

Can anyone comment on the Pluralsight vs. CBT Nuggets content for this exam in particular? Is one better than the other? CBT nuggets shows about 8 hours of content vs. 30+ on PS- not sure what to make of that....

I am going through CBT Nuggets with this one and filling in the gaps with Technet. From my experience with Pluralsight when doing my 70-740, they overlap many videos from other certs. That's why it has double the amount of hours compared to CBT Nuggets.

I have watch nearly all of CBT Nuggets for 70-742 and it focus on the exam objects directly.

backtracker

malachi1612 wrote: »

I am going through CBT Nuggets with this one and filling in the gaps with Technet. From my experience with Pluralsight when doing my 70-740, they overlap many videos from other certs. That's why it has double the amount of hours compared to CBT Nuggets.

I have watch nearly all of CBT Nuggets for 70-742 and it focus on the exam objects directly.

thanks, I'm going to give 'em a go. Congrats on your pass on 741! when do you have this one scheduled for?

malachi1612

backtracker wrote: »

thanks, I'm going to give 'em a go. Congrats on your pass on 741! when do you have this one scheduled for?

Thanks, I want to get this done in mid July. Hopefully I will pass this one first time round so I am going in at 70-742 extremely hard on the studying.

jpanda206

Just passed the 70-742, it was pretty difficult. really need to dive deep into the ADFS and ADCS if you dont do it @ work much.

backtracker

malachi1612 wrote: »

Thanks, I want to get this done in mid July. Hopefully I will pass this one first time round so I am going in at 70-742 extremely hard on the studying.

Best of luck to you. I'm hoping to also have this one done in roughly that same time frame.

malachi1612

Final Round!!!!!! For the MCSA in Server 2016, I am due to take the exam in a few weeks.

CBT Nuggets 70-742 is now complete, watch the videos twice while taking notes. I have access to the MS Exam Ref, Sybex 70-742 study guide and MCSA 70-742 exam success with this Cert Guide from Pearson IT Certification ebooks. I am going through edx course material.

I am reading that this exam is harder than 70-741 (which I struggled with) and MS has made this exam over complicated.

Anyone else who has taken this exam want to offer any tips please?

scaredoftests

No **** here. go away

eillinois31

metaloader wrote: »

Hey,

I also passed every exam (70-698 70-697 70-398 70-740 70-741 ) in 1 attempt.
But have failed 70-742 twice now.
first 550, second 650.
I feel like the questions in the exam are not covered in the Microsoft 70-742 book/MeasureUP at all.
When are you going to retry?
I'm going to retry March 31

Old post I know, but I just passed the 70-742 today with a 700(I had to do a double take at my screen). I also used the MeasureUP test and agree, something was definitely off with this test. Without divulging too much info some of the questions were entirely too over complicated and some questions were too obvious. In the 70-740 and 741, I never hit the 'review later' button, but this time I had to.

malachi1612

eillinois31 wrote: »

Old post I know, but I just passed the 70-742 today with a 700(I had to do a double take at my screen). I also used the MeasureUP test and agree, something was definitely off with this test. Without divulging too much info some of the questions were entirely too over complicated and some questions were too obvious. In the 70-740 and 741, I never hit the 'review later' button, but this time I had to.

Agreed that some of the questions were entirely too over complicated. Anthony Sequeira from CBT Nuggets said the same too.

70-740 and 70-741 were scaled over a number of technologies while 70-742 is about AD only and nothing else. So MS must of ran out of ideas when writing 70-742 and made hard for no reason.

70-742 should of been easy out of the three.

rfehrenbacher

This is pretty weird - I failed the exam last week with a score of 666 as well. Who knows how the grading is actually calculated, but that's a pretty strange coincidence that you got the same score 3 times in a row.

Also, just a heads up for all prepping for the exam, the CBT Nuggets coverage of ADCS and ADFS is wildly inadequate. You need to pay more attention to those areas than just what the videos show.

malachi1612

rfehrenbacher wrote: »

This is pretty weird - I failed the exam last week with a score of 666 as well. Who knows how the grading is actually calculated, but that's a pretty strange coincidence that you got the same score 3 times in a row.

Also, just a heads up for all prepping for the exam, the CBT Nuggets coverage of ADCS and ADFS is wildly inadequate. You need to pay more attention to those areas than just what the videos show.

I agree, for ADCS and ADFS ITPro TV was better when I was studying for 70-742.

Qais_24

Hi,
I took 70-742 exam 6 months ago and failed with 660. I will take it again on Saturday. When I saw all the above comments, I got confused.

malachi1612

Qais_24 said:

Hi,
I took 70-742 exam 6 months ago and failed with 660. I will take it again on Saturday. When I saw all the above comments, I got confused.

Confused about what?

Qais_24

Tnx God. I passed 70-742 on 5th September. Scored 826.