Ready to schedule "The Beast"

Magnum2544

I knocked out my other 4 Microsoft tests within a month...and I need to take this one to get my MCSA.

My method: Schedule the test for a week later and be forced to study for a week.

(I'm also an Information Technology Network Administration student at a Technical College)

I figure it's about time to schedule this one...but I'm definitely gonna give it more than a week haha!

More like a month maybe.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

snadam

Magnum2544 wrote:

I knocked out my other 4 Microsoft tests within a month...and I need to take this one to get my MCSA.

My method: Schedule the test for a week later and be forced to study for a week.

(I'm also an Information Technology Network Administration student at a Technical College)

I figure it's about time to schedule this one...but I'm definitely gonna give it more than a week haha!

More like a month maybe.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

I have 5 solid years of experience with the 291 objectives, and I'm probably on week 3 of studying with the expectation of taking this late April/early May. I'm not trying to rush and take chances. I want to knock this baby out of the park first go-round.

Unless you are a DNS, WSUS, RRAS, Subnetting guru, Id say at the minimum one month.

G1LL1US

I was averaging one month study time for each cert I took and actually took two months to pass 291. I failed twice and according to the retake policy you have to wait two weeks before you can schedule again after the second failure so take your time and make sure you understand the content. Good Luck, and keep kicking ass in your certs dude

Magnum2544

Thanks alot guys...It's really nice to have such support.

These certs are so addicting they should be illegal! haha

I am taking a class right now called Network Infrastructures which has a very big focus on DNS and RRAS, and WSUS is in another class I have right now so...I guess we will see but I'm definitely giving this beast a month or two of study first.

Claymoore

Depends on your experience. I rolled through 291 two weeks after I passed 290 and then passed 293 a week after that. BUT - I have 4 years experience managing a 2003 domain, an NT4 MCSE (TCP/IP was one of my electives) and a CCNA. Updating my MCSE was more an assessment of my current abilities than it was an attempt to learn new material, although I did manage to learn a few things along the way.

291 covers a lot of material. I didn't appreciate how much material until I started tutoring a co-worker while he pursues his MCSA. If this is your first experience with the physical and logical networking side of things, expect a steep learning curve. I remember subnetting kicking my ass for a couple of months during my NT4 studies before I finally understood it. While you may not be asked to figure out the subnet mask for a network of 16 hosts, you'll probably run into a DHCP scope with an incorrect subnet mask and you won't be able to spot it unless you understand subnetting. Plus, being able to subnet in your head practically objective #1 for the CCNA.

IMHO, 291 is the most important exam because it covers the most useful material. Besides creating user accounts and understanding permissions, the rest of 290 is kinda useless. I doubt you will ever see a software RAID in a production environment and I have never seen anyone use Windows Backup. However you will use DNS, DHCP, WSUS, and subnetting is universal. Take your time and make sure you understand the material. You will use it in whatever Microsoft job role you find yourself in and it's even useful for Unix/Linux and Cisco if you eventually follow one of those paths.

Good luck and be sure to hang out on the boards here and ask for help if you need it. I found techexams when I was started studying for 291 and the information on the boards definitely helped me. In fact, I didn't really understand stub zones until I read this post a few days ago.

Mishra

Weird

"I doubt you will ever see a software RAID in a production environment and I have never seen anyone use Windows Backup. However you will use DNS, DHCP, WSUS, and subnetting is universal."

I've seen both >_< But never had to deal with Microsoft DNS. lol It has always been BIND.

Magnum2544

Thanks for the humble post Claymoore.

I'm definitely not that familiar with DNS yet...I will finish out my class right now.

DHCP I'm pretty familiar with, but I will brush up on that as well.

I would consider myself pretty good at subnetting as I had a class that we did it like it was going out of style

I will stay on these forums and rely on gurus like you for help!

Thanks folks!