Failed with a 651 yesterday

Hey all, I honestly didn't prepare as well as I should have so I'm not surprised I didn't pass. I think some of that was because I had the second shot voucher to fall back on. It had been 5 years since I had taken a test of any kind so I had forgotten what to expect. Despite having 7 years IT experience and 3+ years maintaining Servers 2k and 2k3, I still feel I needed to study A LOT more. Funny thing is that the Sims were easy for me. I guess because they were more "real world" than anything else. The back up questions were difficult for me because my company uses Symantec Backup Exec for everything. I was sort of middle of the road on all topics except the "managing and maintaining" topic. Of course that makes sense because that's about as close to my Network Admin Job as it gets. I'm pretty down on myself right now. I feel like crap because I know should have prepared better for the test.

To top it all off, I had all sorts of problems when I arrived at the testing center. First, they couldn't find me in the Thomson system because I took the XP test (70-270) about 5 years ago. Apparently that was under the "VUE" system so they couldn't access my previous test/certs. They wanted to register me as a new account but that would've meant that my XP/A+/Net+ would not count towards the MCSA I'm currently pursuing. Unfortunately, I didn't have my MCP card/number with me either. So finally, after about 2 hours of searching and talking to Microsoft on the phone, they got it to work. I really should have been studying during that extra time but I just couldn't concentrate on it. Next, I sit down at the test station and proceed to do a brain **** onto a dry erase board they provide as scratch paper. I go through the little tutorial before the test and when I click the button to start the test, I get the normal "please wait" screen. 5 mins goes by and nothing. still "please wait". So I get up, call the girl at the front desk and she says give it another 5-10 mins and she'll check back. time passes, she checks back, still "please wait" on the screen. They figure out my machine is frozen so they ask me to leave the testing room and sit in the waiting room. Obviously, they've taken my study materials and brain **** from me so I'm sitting there for 45 mins doing nothing. Finally, I get back in, they give me my brain **** back and it has been virtually erased. fawk. So I pretty much winged it at that point.

I know these all sound like excuses and to be honest they are. There's no excuse for not knowing the material. I was too cocky about my experience. I really should have know the material better. All I can do now is buckle down, study my arse off and pwn the test next time I go in there.

FWIW, I used the exam cram book and the cd that comes with it. I didn't purchase any other testing materials as was suggested to me by people on this forum. Like I said, I was waaaay to cocky.

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dynamik

94jedi wrote:

They wanted to register me as a new account but that would've meant that my XP/A+/Net+ would not count towards the MCSA I'm currently pursuing.

I don't think this is correct. If you inadvertently create a new account a receive a new MCP ID, you should be able to call MS and have them merge the two you have. I've never heard of anyone losing all their past certs because they created a new account. Regardless, that sounds like a poor situation to be in.

94jedi wrote:

Next, I sit down at the test station and proceed to do a brain **** onto a dry erase board they provide as scratch paper.

I never understood the logic in this. I'm not singling you out; I often see others mention they do this as well. I guess this could be useful on something like the Network+ where you cram port numbers or cable lengths before you walk in there, but I really don't see how this is useful for MS exams. Either you know the material or you don't.

I'm sorry to hear about the fail. Things like this really remind us that there is often a lot more to these products than we use on a daily basis. Don't beat yourself up over it. Brush-up on your weak areas, and you'll get it next time. You probably only missed it by a couple of questions.

94jedi

dynamik wrote:

94jedi wrote:

They wanted to register me as a new account but that would've meant that my XP/A+/Net+ would not count towards the MCSA I'm currently pursuing.

I don't think this is correct. If you inadvertently create a new account a receive a new MCP ID, you should be able to call MS and have them merge the two you have. I've never heard of anyone losing all their past certs because they created a new account. Regardless, that sounds like a poor situation to be in.

94jedi wrote:

Next, I sit down at the test station and proceed to do a brain **** onto a dry erase board they provide as scratch paper.

I never understood the logic in this. I'm not singling you out; I often see others mention they do this as well. I guess this could be useful on something like the Network+ where you cram port numbers or cable lengths before you walk in there, but I really don't see how this is useful for MS exams. Either you know the material or you don't.

I'm sorry to hear about the fail. Things like this really remind us that there is often a lot more to these products than we use on a daily basis. Don't beat yourself up over it. Brush-up on your weak areas, and you'll get it next time. You probably only missed it by a couple of questions.

MS did eventually say they could merge the two but they ended up getting my original number to work. Still, I was worried that it would be more of a hassle later down the line.

I just wrote down a few things to remember; some cmd utilities that I always get wrong, info about basic disks (partitions), dynamic disks (volumes), what can do what, the different types of volumes etc.

But overall, you're right. I should know the material. brain **** or not. it was more of a security blanket than anything else.

94jedi

dynamik wrote:

I'm sorry to hear about the fail. Things like this really remind us that there is often a lot more to these products than we use on a daily basis. Don't beat yourself up over it. Brush-up on your weak areas, and you'll get it next time. You probably only missed it by a couple of questions.

Agreed and to add to this, many of the things on the test rarely come up in real world situations but that's the difference between being able to solve a problem in house or having to call an outside consultant at $125 + p/hr.

brad-

94jedi wrote:

Despite having 7 years IT experience and 3+ years maintaining Servers 2k and 2k3, I still feel I needed to study A LOT more. Funny thing is that the Sims were easy for me. I guess because they were more "real world" than anything else. The back up questions were difficult for me because my company uses Symantec Backup Exec for everything.

Thats one thing I strongly disagree with in principle with MS...the fact that someone with no XP can booklearn their stuff, and not know anything...while someone with real XP will struggle with their irrelevant and unnecessarily tricky questions - Backups and Monitoring specifically. Who in their right mind would use the built their built in tools for that?

Dont sweat it though, you only missed by a couple questions. Now you can get with it and pass it for free.

2nd shot ftw.

94jedi

Well, After taking alot of time off and squandering my second shot opportunity, I'm going to finally retake 70-290.

I hope to sit for it in about a weeks time and post a passing score!