Passed it

Took the 70-290 today and passed; I've gotta say it was harder than I thought it would be, and the experience wasn't pleasant, so I'm well chuffed about achieving a 928 score in around 2 1/2 hours.

I got six sims, the funny thing was that my preparation didn't include any sim material, so I was quite surprised when I was confronted with a full-on desktop by the first simulation question! I thought sims were the 'drag and drop' questions I had been performing in Transcender... oh well now I know.

I thought that the questions were quite evenly spread over all subject areas, if there was one topic that featured more than others it was share/NTFS permissions.

For studying I used the Microsoft Press Training Kit (old version), Transcenders, and of course the Techexams tech notes. I found that the Microsoft guide didn't cover everything, for example Software Restriction policies, which I read up on independently. It's coverage of IIS was also very light, this may have been because I was using a first edition copy, I don't know.

Because I work term-time only in a school IT department I do get lots of time off throughout the year, therefore I have just spent the last two weeks (Easter break) doing nothing but studying for this exam, I do have experience with Server 2003 from work, which helped.

Next move is 70-291, I get a month off in August for the summer holidays which seems like an ideal time to bite the bullet and make MCSA!

Good luck to everybody else taking this exam soon, my advice is to do as many practice questions as you can, and make sure you re-read every question at least once.

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Comments

Slowhand

Congratulations, that's not a bad score at all. Good luck with the 70-291 exam.

RS_MCP

Congrats! Well Done

nielpeel

I forgot to mention in my iniitial post, I also used CBT Nuggets prep material for this exam, it was extremely useful especially for IIS, group scopes and Terminal Server.

Niel.

7255carl

congrats

rjbarlow

Well done and good for the beast.

dales

sorry to jump in, Congrats on the pass by the way!

I thought the CBTnuggets section on group scopes was really good too. I was having a spot of bother figuring them out until i watched that.

nielpeel

dales - thanks for the congrats - I rewatched the CBT Nuggets video on group scopes twice and found it really helped me too, I don't know about you but I was struggling to see through all of the caveats and 'do's and dont's' of group scope before I eventually gained some clarity on the subject!

If I am struggling with a particular subject during studying I like to print stuff out and pin it on my wall in my study room..... for example I printed out a table of all the NTFS permissions, screenshots of expanded gpedit consoles, user account properties etc. This helps me to get the info into my head, along with the use of copious amounts of highlighter pen!