nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Why is this exam the beast?

halflife78

I don't start my MCSE courses until this summer, but I was curious as to why everyone refers to this exam as the beast?

Find more posts tagged with

SAVE $250 on Your Microsoft Boot Camp — Use Code "EXAM26"

Exclusively for TechExams members for Infosec Boot Camps starting before April 30, 2026

View Microsoft Boot Camps

Comments

pandimus

MHO

DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS

a little subnetting....

Gotta know your bloody DNS..

Hey by the way.. DNS

Active directory integrated.. bah....

mikiemov

Oh and some DNS with integration with WINS mixed in as well.

2lazybutsmart

So why don't they call it "DNS beast" isntead.

I think the purpose that name came to be was becuase some good geeks flunked it many times (it's the geeks the always glue the names). methinks, a cert by the name of Sec+ might adopt that name sometime soon

pandimus

Sec+ might adopt that name sometime soon

ahmen to that...aymen

2lazybutsmart

Well at least you won't have to worry about it being called " the beast" or not anymore. It's already in da bag.

Man does that SEC SEC SEC+ stuff cool your resume! It already looks cool on your profile

SniperHunter

I agree

Rexel

sooooo, my guess from this thread would be focus mostly on DNS!

Ten9t6

halflife78 wrote:

I don't start my MCSE courses until this summer, but I was curious as to why everyone refers to this exam as the beast?

My thoughts on this is....This is usually the 3rd or 4th test that people take chasing the MCSE...Well, for 2-3 tests you have been studying installs, upgrades, and permissions......Then for this test you have to hang sharp left and start brushing up or learning networking. When a lot of people start studying for this exam, they haven't dealt with a lot of DNS, WINS, DHCP, Routing, Subnetting, and summarization. This can be a little confusing at times....

skully93

Ten9t6 wrote:

halflife78 wrote:

I for this test you have to hang sharp left and start brushing up or learning networking. When a lot of people start studying for this exam, they haven't dealt with a lot of DNS, WINS, DHCP, Routing, Subnetting, and summarization. This can be a little confusing at times....

Yep!

At least there's a lot of crossover on the first few exams, so it weaves a web of understanding.

Mindraker1

I flunked this test twice, on the first two times there was -no- WINS at all. So, when I was studying (again) for this test, I said "what the hell, I'll just study for the other areas I didn't do too well on." Sure enough, the third time around, I got nailed with WINS questions coming out the wazoo. I passed by a very narrow margin (714).

keatron

I really think that one thing that makes this test hard is the fact that you really need to practice applying some of the topics to do well. Infrastructure is not really that hard, it's just that a lot of systems administrators don't really do infrastructure on a day to day basis. Unless you're a consultant, you really don't spend your days setting up dns in a WAN environment, probably do more troubleshooting than anything else. As a consultant I would have to say that at least 50% of my company's business comes from going in behind someone who's set up dns, active directory and/or dhcp poorly. The routing, certificate services and IPSec stuff is not the simplest thing either. Again, how many systems administrators have actually had to set up a CA Hierarchy, and if they have they probably don't do it very often. My advice, set up a test lab (it's pretty cheap using virtual machine) and apply all of the topics, then repeat it until you understand how and why it works. As far as ****, dont even waste your time. I had a student in a 2153 class (prep class for 216) I was teaching recently who told me she flunked the test 3 times. I asked her what she'd been studying, her answer? Braindumps. After years of hearing all hoopla about the **** I went there to see what was up, and honestly, some of the answers were simply pathetic, even laughable. So here's my formula...

1st Get the concepts and understand them
2nd Get the specifics and learn how to apply them using the concepts
3rd Get some good practice tests and visit forums like this often.

Do this faithfully and 70-216 will be a fun challenging test for ya, and not a dreaded one.

Longbow

Good advice Keatron,

I backed into this test by taking 217 and 218 first. Compared to 216 the 218 test seemed relatively easy. But anything seems easier when compared to 216 tho. These two test (217 and 21

were good preps for 216 - IMHO.