No video games this time.

undomiel

Took my 70-290 today. I was able to keep away from the video games this time! Still did a horrible job studying. Got maybe an hour or two a week putzing around in my VMs. Getting sick didn't help too much either. I did some hard cramming today so I actually got in 3 hours before the test, plus practice questions when I could at work. Used practice questions from free-tests.com mostly with some supplements from another cd I bought. I forget the name of it and can't seem to find where I placed it. Oh wait there it is. Syngress MCSE quick study pack or something like that. I also used the Microsoft Press book and opened up Exam Cram today. The Microsoft Press was definitely the best for getting some scenarios easily setup to get into things. The Syngress and Exam Cram were good for overviews. The Syngress practice questions are terrible though. I don't believe there was anything helpful in there at all for the 290. I relied mostly on my own experience though. Well anyhow I took the exam without much fanfare. Used the same testing center as before, no bad experience last time nor this time. I was a bit hesitant about my prospects at first but after the first half I was pretty confident I had a win. Which I did! I scored an 842. So on to the 291!

I was hit with lots of back-up questions with many weird scenarios. Oddly enough those were the hard ones. I wouldn't have expected any difficult back-up questions since it is all pretty straight forward after all. I got surprisingly few permissions questions though. Maybe just 3 or 4. 45 questions total with 5 sims. I loved the sims. They were a piece of cake. After I had the first one every time I clicked next I was thinking, "Come on, sim sim sim!!!" Only one of them had some slight difficulty as the question was a little bit ambiguous about what were the exact results expected. But still nothing too difficult. I would say over all this exam was easier than the 270 but perhaps that is because I was more familiar with Microsoft questions and I also am pretty immersed in Server 2003 every day.

Anyhow. Yey! Finished! Bring on the Beast! I will hopefully be able to schedule soon ...

Essendon

Good on ya, undomiel . Good score and that little story was a good read. Surprising though that you had very few permissions questions. Hey, update your profile, it still says WIP:290 !!

I take my 290 on the 29th of May. Any suggestions? I am using CBT Nuggets, MS Press, Transcender, MeasureUp and this great forum, should be a good enough combination!

Sie

undomiel congratulations! Good luck with the 291!

MobilTech with the study aids your using you should be set, if your nailing the Transcenders you shouldnt have any problems! The CBT Nuggets for this one are good and James Conrad's always good to listen to.

nel

congrats man, great score too!!!

I take my 290 on the 29th of May. Any suggestions? I am using CBT Nuggets, MS Press, Transcender, MeasureUp and this great forum, should be a good enough combination!

These will be more than enough to learn everything you need..

Essendon

Thank you Sie and nel for your suggestions and opinions.

undomiel, good luck and slay that beast first time around !

peanutnoggin

Congrats undomiel on your pass!

MobilTech,

Good luck on your exam!

~Peanut Head

undomiel

Thanks for the congrats! There, got my profile updated. I was so out of it last night that I completely forgot!

MobileTech, yeah I had been hoping for lots of permissions questions because I feel like those would be free points for me. My suggestions for studying would be to make sure you've got your lab set up and do those exercises. Nothing beats the experience of working with the stuff directly. Make sure you understand back-ups and the basics of using IIS. Make sure you know what command line utility does what. And get yourself lots of experience with ADUC. Don't neglect those permissions either just because I'm the odd one out. If you aren't working with this stuff at work then make sure you put in lots of time in the lab. That's probably what saved me since I don't think I did enough time in the lab. Oh and don't neglect those Transcender questions and the tech notes and questions from here are good as well. I also like the free-tests.com questions even though they're nothing like the Microsoft questions there are a lot of them and they do a good job of making sure you have the applicable knowledge. Good luck on the 29th!

dynamik

Congrats, buddy!

I didn't use the Syngress book for this one, but my experience with the 293 book was the same way. The information in the book was great, but the questions were definitely sub-par. It was like they were tacked on as an afterthought.

You certainly have more willpower than I do. A friend of mine talked me into playing Halo until 2am the night before my 291. He was sending his console back because of intermittent problems, and it was his last night online. I was a zombie with coffee and Redbull flowing through my veins the next day. So, is this a celebratory GTA weekend?

hetty

Congrats undomiel, Great score!

undomiel

No GTA for me, it just isn't really my type of game. Bring on Mario Kart though! Well except I'm getting Wii Fit next. Really looking forward to that one! But otherwise I'll probably just continue playing Baroque when I have a few moments to spare. Already gearing up to start studying for the 291, no rest for the weary!

snadam

Awesome job! Glad to see those books finally got some good use!!!

Mishra

Good job. I have started on my 293 too not too long after my 620 was completed.