Passed 70-697 here is my esperience

marellano11

I took the 698 exams on January 5, 2018, and passed with a 740. Anyone thinking of taking the 698 first please do so. It's a lot less content to cover than the 697 exams. When I took the 698 I took a short class in college and purchased the testout.com lab. Also, considering I have about 5 years in the IT world.

The exam itself was not that hard and I had plenty of time left "52 questions 150 minutes". The thing about Microsoft exams you really have to pay attention to the type of verbiage they structure in the sentences. For the 698 exams, I had like 5 PowerShell questions, some DISM questions, 4 fill in the blanks, use drop down below questions, like 5 drag and drop in correct sequence questions. Overall just study and get a solid understanding. Remember everyone learns differently.

Now let's talk about the 70-697 exam. There are a lot of threads on here stating the exam is very difficult. There is some truth to that but my exam was not at least to me that difficult or at least I knew what to expect the second time around. Remember every exam is going to be different in regard to the questions given. That is just how Microsoft delivers the exam.

So, I took the 70-697 exam on April 27, 2018, the first time around and failed with a 625. I think I failed it because I was overconfident and a bit tired. On the second try, I got a 700 and a pass is a pass. On the whole subject of study, there are at least 10 to 15 questions on each section so do prepare to see a wide range in each section. Some of the questions were in drag and drop, fill in the blanks, a lot of corporate environment what-if scenarios, multiple choice, I had like 3 PowerShell command questions. I did see questions about ODT click-to-run such as setup.exe /download - setup.exe /configure. Do know the difference between Scanstate and Loadstate, IPsec/ikev2.

You really need to study and try to get a broad understanding of it all. Now, as far as studying for the exam I use a few websites.

First I still had a valid subscription to testout.com which was purchased through a school so, I used that for some reference. which by the way was very detailed and the practice questions were like 70 to 200 questions.

I also purchased the practice questions exam on Udemy.com which was pretty good. I did see some questions on the real exam and they update the questions every 2 to 3 weeks I think.

Some might know this one I also purchased the Virtual labs on Cybrary.it which are pretty good and some of the steps to complete the labs are long so prepare to do them at least 2 or 3 times.

Then I purchased CBT nuggets by Antony Sequeira which by the way its $84.00 comes with virtual labs and practice exams by Kaplan I believe, but it might have changed. Although informative not very detailed pretty much its just a crash course. The Remote app content was like 5 minutes but also consider Azure remote app is phased out and replaced with Citrix XenApp. The practice questions were very good and the good thing about them is if you get a question wrong it provided a link to Technet.

I also used this document by Mike Russcher "70-697_Notes_final" which was from this forum and I found it to be very detailed and some of the study material content was on the exam. Almost forgot, sign-up for a trial for Azure, Intune, office 365 because there is going to be questioned on how-to setups/scenarios. Also, study these 3 subject on Hybrid deployment not just Standalone. There is some question about CNAME enterprise enrollment and device enrollment. Know the difference. DO NOT FORGET TO STUDY Remote apps which will be on the exam.


I wanted to provide some feedback because there was very little on this forum, and too far apart. Anyways, Good luck and if you fail re-take the exam within 1 week that is how long I waited to re-take the exam the 2nd time around.

Howlinghawk

Congrats! I did 70-697 in March, and just passed 70-698 3 days ago with a 736. I only prepared for a month for 698 and no practice exams, there was definitely some crossover. Proud to have an MCSA! Good luck to you.

malachi1612

The 697 with James Conrad is old and has been removed from CBTnuggets as of last year.

There is an update version with Anthony Sequeira which I used last year. Its shorter than the James Conrad videos and hits all the right objectives for the exam.

malachi1612

I cant remember but it was about 8hrs worth of videos.

malachi1612

Ok, just to prewarn you. The exam objectives changed from when James Conrad did the videos compared to now with Antony's. So with James you might be watching stuff which is no longer relevant to the exam. Still doesn't hurt to have an overview from watching both videos.

Howlinghawk

Anthony Sequeira's 697 course is roughly 6 hours long. I never did James Conrad's course but Anthony's course for 698 is 10 hours long, so 697 is shorter but the content is a little more difficult. I would definitely sign up for the Azure/Intune trial and play around with all of the main settings like understanding Configuration and Compliance policies, and Mobile Device Management, just the main ones anyway. You have an advantage since you already know a lot about local client technologies from 698. I did 697 first, unaware that it was somewhat harder. Good luck man!

Now i'm working on the first exam for Server 2016. Getting my MCSA has created a lot of momentum for studying and achieving more so i'm going to just go for the 1st exam in the series and see how I feel about it. So far I like that i'm learning about server tech I never really new about. Its pretty amazing. Has anyone else taken this same path and found a huge advantage in the job market/salary in a relatively short time?

Cheers

thesecuritybro

Out of curiosity why not pursue the MCSE by taking one more test? And then just back peddle and review the MCSA convent for server?

backtracker

Howlinghawk wrote: »

Now i'm working on the first exam for Server 2016. Getting my MCSA has created a lot of momentum for studying and achieving more so i'm going to just go for the 1st exam in the series and see how I feel about it. So far I like that i'm learning about server tech I never really new about. Its pretty amazing. Has anyone else taken this same path and found a huge advantage in the job market/salary in a relatively short time?

Cheers

I'm working on this general route too. I will say in the past having a client and server OS cert from the same vendor was a good combo for me. I'm hoping this is still true.

malachi1612

I'm on this same path, last year passed 697 (my first ever MS exam so I didn't pass first time, did on the second) Did 698, six weeks after. Passed first time round as it was way easier than 697 because it was more Windows 10 base.

I wanted to get my server skillset up so I went for MCSA Server 2016 as I wasn't interest MCSA Mobility. Challenged 70-740 last September, beat it on the first attempt. Finally passed 70-741 yesterday (on my 3rd attempt!!!) Now hoping to get the 70-742 done in July and start applying for new jobs as Ive noticed they are asking for Server 2016 skills now. I'm not surprised as Server 2019 will be out in a few months, so Server 2012 R2 will be taking a backseat from then onwards.

Howlinghawk

thesecuritybro - That's a good question. For me there are a couple of reasons. I was laid off recently and my unemployment just ran out so I need a job pretty soon. I did Desktop Support for 5 years so I have some exposure to things like SCCM and MDT. I am just beginning my job search and I know enough about these tools that I can demonstrate that in a job interview. So for me having the MCSA will help me get the interviews, and in the long run a Server MCSA will be more valuable. If I can demonstrate my skills, I don't think passing one more exam is going to make a huge difference given my experience.

malachi1612 - Congratulations on passing the two server exams! I read your posts a couple of months back when I was still studying for 70-697 and you helped me stay on track. Thanks for that!