Question for anybody that passed 70-271

Ok, so I’m taking 70-271 soon. I have been studying for the last 3 weeks using the following items:

Week 1 - MCDST Self-Paced Training Kit
Week 2 - Sybex Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician : Study Guide
Week 3 - CBT Nuggets 70-271

Now I’m starting my last week (Week 4) studying with Transcender practice exams.

Since I started studying with Transcender, I noticed that the majority of the questions in the practice exams were NOT covered in any of the books or CBT.

So here is my question. Is the real exam focused more on the book studies, or the questions on Transcender? I ask because I want to know which one should I focus on more for study purposes.

If anybody can help me out with this question, it would be gratefully appreciated. I just want to make sure I’m ready for the day of the exam.

PS - I work in desk support as a level 1. So I'm familiar with troubleshooting problems. But we don't troubleshoot Win XP problems, we troubleshoot software problems of software that was made for a specific company. So besides printer problems, we only troubleshoot the software.

So I guess I would be considered a "Newbie" for troubleshooting Win XP. So any advice you may have for a newbie that is about to take this exam, please feel free to share. Also, if you know of any other study guides that you think will be helpful with this exam. Thanks

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spree610

Trancenders are generally harder than the actual test. If you can get 100% on the measure ups in certification mode 3-4 times you should be ok imo.

sprkymrk

You had some good study materials on your list that should fully prepare you for the exam. My only concern is that you only spent 4 weeks to cram it all in. You might be able to do that, but I can't. I have to slowly absorb the material and chew on it a while before "getting" it. I would make double sure the Transcenders questions really aren't covered in your other books - I suspect you may have just gone over the material too fast and didn't catch it. The other thing is to make sure you have followed along any labs and tried the stuff you are learning about.

The Transcenders are typically a bit harder than the real thing, but the questions are formatted very close to the style MS uses, so make sure you're comfortable with the way the scenario is given and how the question is asked, because that's the way MS will likely present it.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

lucjac11

spree610 wrote:

Trancenders are generally harder than the actual test. If you can get 100% on the measure ups in certification mode 3-4 times you should be ok imo.

Thanks. I was going to buy the MeasureUp pratice exams first, but it was a toss-up and I wasn't sure if Trancenders and MeasureUp were the same thing, or different.

I think I might just shovel out 100 buck from the MeasureUp practice tests.

Do you know if Test King or **** are any good for studying? I googled for practice exams and those 2 sites came up to.

^^I see they blocked the words of the 2 sites I asked if they were good sites, so I guess they aren't good for studying. But if anybody knows any helpful study material, please share. Thanks!

lucjac11

sprkymrk wrote:

You had some good study materials on your list that should fully prepare you for the exam. My only concern is that you only spent 4 weeks to cram it all in. You might be able to do that, but I can't. I have to slowly absorb the material and chew on it a while before "getting" it. I would make double sure the Transcenders questions really aren't covered in your other books - I suspect you may have just gone over the material too fast and didn't catch it. The other thing is to make sure you have followed along any labs and tried the stuff you are learning about.

The Transcenders are typically a bit harder than the real thing, but the questions are formatted very close to the style MS uses, so make sure you're comfortable with the way the scenario is given and how the question is asked, because that's the way MS will likely present it.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to take a total of 5 weeks studying, I'm only in my 4th right now. I like to try and focus on one thing at a time, that's why I break it down in weeks. After the 4th week, I take the last week to review everything in the last 4 weeks. With the books, I'll just go through them and take the chapter tests at the end of each chapter, just to see if I remembered everything I read in the 1st and 2nd weeks of studying. Then I'll take 2 days out of the last week and go over the CBT videos again, then the last 2 days of week 5, I'll study with the practice exams again.

When I first start to study for something, no matter what it is, I always make a flowchart of what should be done by days and by weeks. I study for about 3-4 hours a day M-F and take the weekends off. This always seems to work best with me keeping to a chart, but if I have and doubts about me not being ready for the real exam, then I will add 2 more weeks of studying.

Plus I signed up for the Microsoft second shot voucher, just in case

Thanks again for the advice!

lucjac11

sprkymrk wrote:

The Transcenders are typically a bit harder than the real thing, but the questions are formatted very close to the style MS uses, so make sure you're comfortable with the way the scenario is given and how the question is asked, because that's the way MS will likely present it.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Yeah, I found that Trancenders are kinda tricky with their words and details. Example: In the scenarios, they would say something like “there is a hardware problem and the computer is Win XP” then go through the details of the problem and ask what is the first thing you should check for. I got it wrong because I was focused on the hardware problem so I answered the question that dealt with the hardware, but the correct answer was to check the version of Win XP first. Those kind of questions that I got wrong like that just made me want to slap myself upside the head and say “Duh!” lol

I think I was just going to fast reading the questions and assuming the answers. But I got this upcoming week to focus more on the practice exams. I was just browsing through the questions to see what they are about, not really focusing on them 100%.

sprkymrk

lucjac11 wrote:

sprkymrk wrote:

The Transcenders are typically a bit harder than the real thing, but the questions are formatted very close to the style MS uses, so make sure you're comfortable with the way the scenario is given and how the question is asked, because that's the way MS will likely present it.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Yeah, I found that Trancenders are kinda tricky with their words and details. Example: In the scenarios, they would say something like “there is a hardware problem and the computer is Win XP” then go through the details of the problem and ask what is the first thing you should check for. I got it wrong because I was focused on the hardware problem so I answered the question that dealt with the hardware, but the correct answer was to check the version of Win XP first. Those kind of questions that I got wrong like that just made me want to slap myself upside the head and say “Duh!” lol

Yeah, we've all been there with the Transcenders and MS exams. I like the ones where they go something like this:

You are a network administrator of a Windows 2003 domain. You have 25 servers all running W2K3 and 500 clients running XP Pro with the latest patches. You enjoy fishing on your days off and your favorite ice cream is vanilla. A user, Bob, cannot log on to the network. Bob also enjoys fishing, but his favorite ice cream is chocolate. You check Bob's account and see that it is locked out. Question: How can you grant your assistant, Mary, the ability to check the Web Server logs with the least amount of administrative effort?

1. 525
2. Strawberry
3. Unlock Bob's account.
4. Place the Web Server in an OU called "Web Servers".

lucjac11

sprkymrk wrote:

Yeah, we've all been there with the Transcenders and MS exams. I like the ones where they go something like this:

You are a network administrator of a Windows 2003 domain. You have 25 servers all running W2K3 and 500 clients running XP Pro with the latest patches. You enjoy fishing on your days off and your favorite ice cream is vanilla. A user, Bob, cannot log on to the network. Bob also enjoys fishing, but his favorite ice cream is chocolate. You check Bob's account and see that it is locked out. Question: How can you grant your assistant, Mary, the ability to check the Web Server logs with the least amount of administrative effort?

1. 525
2. Strawberry
3. Unlock Bob's account.
4. Place the Web Server in an OU called "Web Servers".

LOL, I know right! I've seen some like that

It's like, why even put all those details in the question when they don't have anything to do with fixing the problem.

shednik

lucjac11 wrote:

sprkymrk wrote:

Yeah, we've all been there with the Transcenders and MS exams. I like the ones where they go something like this:

You are a network administrator of a Windows 2003 domain. You have 25 servers all running W2K3 and 500 clients running XP Pro with the latest patches. You enjoy fishing on your days off and your favorite ice cream is vanilla. A user, Bob, cannot log on to the network. Bob also enjoys fishing, but his favorite ice cream is chocolate. You check Bob's account and see that it is locked out. Question: How can you grant your assistant, Mary, the ability to check the Web Server logs with the least amount of administrative effort?

1. 525
2. Strawberry
3. Unlock Bob's account.
4. Place the Web Server in an OU called "Web Servers".

LOL, I know right! I've seen some like that It's like, why even put all those details in the question when they don't have anything to do with fixing the problem.

Because its Microsoft...

spree610

dont waste your time on anything that has "real exam questions" or "braindump" in it. you'll waste your time, money and risk decertification and disqualification from all future microsoft tests.

Krank

The base of everything is actually read the theory an practice A LOT, at least the graphical learning is proved to be more effective. Besides it's more probable that you remember things associated with images, menus, options, tabs, etc.

spree610 wrote:

dont waste your time on anything that has "real exam questions" or "braindump" in it. you'll waste your time, money and risk decertification and disqualification from all future microsoft tests.

By the way, how do they figure out you readed that stuff instead of a hard and in-deep study?

brad-

sprkymrk wrote:

Yeah, we've all been there with the Transcenders and MS exams. I like the ones where they go something like this:

You are a network administrator of a Windows 2003 domain. You have 25 servers all running W2K3 and 500 clients running XP Pro with the latest patches. You enjoy fishing on your days off and your favorite ice cream is vanilla. A user, Bob, cannot log on to the network. Bob also enjoys fishing, but his favorite ice cream is chocolate. You check Bob's account and see that it is locked out. Question: How can you grant your assistant, Mary, the ability to check the Web Server logs with the least amount of administrative effort?

1. 525
2. Strawberry
3. Unlock Bob's account.
4. Place the Web Server in an OU called "Web Servers".

Strawberry FTW!