Gyrating geckos

undomiel

"The Beast" is likened by some to deathly dragons. A minority say more like a fuzzy wuzzy kitten. I liken it to gyrating geckos. The difficulty seemed to be at about the same level as the XP exam.

Anyhow. Passed! I had to drive up to Prescott to take this exam because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of that convenient 2nd shot offer. Lots of driving and then they wouldn't let me take the exam early so I had wait around for 2 hours to boot! Oh well, still worth it to pass. Scored a 778.

I got hit mostly with DNS and secondly with DHCP. Next would be Ipsec and then just a couple of RRAS and monitoring questions. Which is fortunate considering I did horrible at studying RRAS. One sim which felt more like a test on reading comprehension than actual skills or knowledge. The hard part of the test for me was picking up the little things that completely changed a question or an answer. According to the graph at the end I'm best at IP Addressing and Network Security and worst at Routing and Remote Access and Name Resolution. Which is kind of irritating to me because going into the exam I felt I'd do best on anything DNS.

Study materials used were MS Press, ExamCram, Royal's sticky, and a lab consisting of several 2003 servers. Best recommendation I can make is to make sure you understand subnetting, know your DNS backwards and forwards, and hit those labs for as much hands on experience as you can get. I was still a bad student as I didn't really start studying seriously until this weekend. Definitely have to fix those bad habits! 293 will be up next but I'm not sure quite when, the finances took a beating over the weekend so it will take a bit to replenish the emergency fund. But at least I finally have an MCSA to show for everything. It feels good.

Slowhand

undomiel wrote:

I liken it to gyrating geckos.

That's a lie, the 70-291 exam is nothing like me!

Congratulations on the pass, good to hear it didn't throw you for a loop. Good luck on the 70-293 path.

snadam

undomiel wrote:

"The Beast" is likened by some to deathly dragons. A minority say more like a fuzzy wuzzy kitten. I liken it to gyrating geckos. The difficulty seemed to be at about the same level as the XP exam.

Anyhow. Passed! I had to drive up to Prescott to take this exam because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of that convenient 2nd shot offer. Lots of driving and then they wouldn't let me take the exam early so I had wait around for 2 hours to boot! Oh well, still worth it to pass. Scored a 778.

I got hit mostly with DNS and secondly with DHCP. Next would be Ipsec and then just a couple of RRAS and monitoring questions. Which is fortunate considering I did horrible at studying RRAS. One sim which felt more like a test on reading comprehension than actual skills or knowledge. The hard part of the test for me was picking up the little things that completely changed a question or an answer. According to the graph at the end I'm best at IP Addressing and Network Security and worst at Routing and Remote Access and Name Resolution. Which is kind of irritating to me because going into the exam I felt I'd do best on anything DNS.

Study materials used were MS Press, ExamCram, Royal's sticky, and a lab consisting of several 2003 servers. Best recommendation I can make is to make sure you understand subnetting, know your DNS backwards and forwards, and hit those labs for as much hands on experience as you can get. I was still a bad student as I didn't really start studying seriously until this weekend. Definitely have to fix those bad habits! 293 will be up next but I'm not sure quite when, the finances took a beating over the weekend so it will take a bit to replenish the emergency fund. But at least I finally have an MCSA to show for everything. It feels good.

really? I compare this thing to my ex-girlfriend a; B***H with an attitude

let me congratulate you and welcome to the MCSA club. Youre probably already ahead of me for 293 studies, but at least I ordered the books!!

okay, now we are onwards to the MCSE

bwcarty

Congrats on the pass and MCSA. We're in the same boat now. I picked up my MCSA earlier this month, and I've slacked off a bit with studying for 70-293.

sprkymrk

Nice job undomiel!

gojericho0

Congratulations! RRAS was the hardest for me as well because I never had any experience with it

Mishra

You go MCSA.

I think snadam's motivation is to make himself feel bad for not studying until he feels bad enough to shamefully get the books out.

rjbarlow

Big congratz undomiel, enjoy this pass and Your MCSA.

undomiel

Thanks for the congratulations everyone! I think I'll be taking a break from studying for the rest of this week and then get back on the horse this weekend. Unfortunately it is looking like at least 1 month before I can schedule the exam, possibly more. I'm a bit depressed about that, I had originally been hoping to take the 293 at the same time as the 291 but that's ok. I've still got plenty of time to move up in the world.

NetAdmin2436

Undomiel,
Even though you burned me pretty good this morning, I still have to give you your congrats! That's awesome.

I know how you feel about the long drive too, I have had to drive 2 hours (twice) to take a test in a certain time frame.

PS - I'll try not to double post again....darn F5 button.