297 Strategy

colebert

Ok, in the last two months I have rattled off the following exams:

291 (Pass w/ 79?)
293 (Pass w/ 89?)
294 (Pass w/ 87?)

I have opted and registered for 297, so it is a done deal and I can't change to 298. I picked 297 because it seemed to be the harder exam and I wanted to come out of my MCSE with the feeling I earned it.

Now I am watching the 297 nuggets and seeing a lot of review, especially of 294.

Currently I am scheduled for April 18th (or thereabouts.) I couldn't get anything for the week after next, and Tuesday was all that was available next week.

But I am pondering cramming for the next 2 days straight, changing dates to Tuesday, and a making a quick "decaptiation strike" (thanks, Rumsfeld) against 294. My reasoning is:

1. Alot seems like review (topic-wise)
2. Most reviews state the biggest challenge to 297 was the format
3. I have my second-chance voucher

My usual MO is to never take an exam until I am absolutely confident of my knowledge (and even then I worry.) But I am beginning to feel like every time I worry or think I'm going to fail, I end up passing by a wide-margin.

So I finish my nuggets, read as much as I can (selectively) of the Syngress and Sybex. Roll into the test with a head of steam and either thug it out or get my hat handed to me and take the slow-boat to my MCSE in two weeks. This way if I crash and burn, I'll at least have gotten the test format shock over with.

I guess I'm mostly just thinking outloud since not sure anyone can give me any profound advice, but I would be happy if I was wrong about that. (I personally think there is a little to much "tell me what to do about something only I can decide" posts around here.)

The advantage to this is that I get a two-week head start on my first CCNA exam, which is important since I am scheduled to take the LSAT sometime in June and will need to drop all this IT testing sometime around early May to prep for that. (Yes, LSAT. I know, why am I doing IT certs if I'm going to be a lawyer? )

dynamik

I haven't taken my design exam yet, but I started looking over the materials for 298, and a lot of it seems like common sense and/or review. I think if you've been paying attention up to this point, you should have a good handle on things. FWIW.

sthomas

The exam is mostly review of what you have studied so far. In my opinion the only thing difficult about the design exams is the format. Good Luck!

danclarke

I can recommend the selftestsoftware practise tests for 297 - not just the testlet format, but the look & feel and also the language used in the case study notes were good preparation for the exam.

Selftestsoftware is from the same company as Transcender.

Good luck!

royal

I don't even think the format is all that difficult to be honest. They give you a case study, some categories such as business objectives and technical objectives. When you get asked questions, it's pretty obvious what category you need to look at and then you just go look it up. I'd rather have it this way than a page long question where you have to keep going back and look through the entire question for where it's appropriate based on the question provided. At first I was intimidated, but when I sat down and saw the organization, I liked it.

HeroPsycho

The biggest difficulty I hear from people is they run out of time.

The trick is don't read the case scenario notes first. Read the questions, then go through the case notes looking for info to help you answer those questions. That way you know what you're looking for while skimming the parts you know darn well are irrelevant, and reading closely the parts that are relevant to the questions.