dammit i fail today...

got a 654. all i have been using are sybex book (3 months), technote here (1 week), and the cramsessions (2 days). the practice questions on sybex and technotes here are nothing compare to the real exam (not even close). why they hell these study material for practice exam questions doesn't have the same form the real mcsa test? wasted $$$ on sybex book. is microsoft book better? does the microsoft book have practice test that resemble the real test? dammit i'm pissed.

Find more posts tagged with

Save $250 on 2025 certification boot camps from Infosec!

Book now with code EOY2025

Button

Comments

KGhaleon

What material didn't they cover? It's usually your own fault if you fail the exam.
You'll get it next time, did you register for the Second shot?

vincentnyc10

KGhaleon wrote:

What material didn't they cover? It's usually your own fault if you fail the exam.
You'll get it next time, did you register for the Second shot?

yeah i got 2nd shot...it is not the material...it is the weird ass long 2-3 paragraph question from microsoft. sybex book and technote questions aren't like that.

shednik

vincentnyc10 wrote:

KGhaleon wrote:

What material didn't they cover? It's usually your own fault if you fail the exam.
You'll get it next time, did you register for the Second shot?

yeah i got 2nd shot...it is not the material...it is the weird ass long 2-3 paragraph question from microsoft. sybex book and technote questions aren't like that.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one the sybex book questions and the forums questions were right on target for the type and style of questions. MS tests are different to put it nicely they give you long winded questions to make you think it through and weed out the important info. It may be a pain but it's how they feel will best test you on the material. There's no reason to be vulgar either. There's a reason the questions you practiced with and the one you got weren't the same ones because it wouldn't be much of a test then if you had the questions beforehand. Practice tests are for familiarity of the style of questions and to gauge how well you know the material. I recommend transender practice exams they are right on for them, and sinc eoyu have second shot they may be all you need aside form some review. 654 is close you don't have too much more to go...good luck!!

vincentnyc10

what about the microsoft book? if i use the microsoft press book...do they have reviews questions at the end of the chapter? are they any similar to the actual test?

ladiesman217

vincentnyc10 wrote:

what about the microsoft book? if i use the microsoft press book...do they have reviews questions at the end of the chapter? are they any similar to the actual test?

I have the same mspress book and readiness review suite by measureup. I actually did not find close similarity to the actual test. all you need is to study all the objectives and perform the exercises and drill on to the advance topics.

NetAdmin2436

Bummer man,
Microsoft tests are not easy, so I wouldn't get all huffy puffy about failing. There is A LOT to know about XP and this test goes way beyond just the surface. Many people just think they can skim over the reading and then pass. I don't know your study habits and I'm not knocking you. Just study hard (1-2 hours a day) for another 2 weeks, you should pass easily. I think the cramssession study guides are good, I always use them in conjunction with Preplogic and the technotes from this site. Recently I bought a MS press book for 70-291 off Amazon for like $16....can't beat that price, I'm only on chapter 1 still, but it looks like a wealth of info.

You've seen the test once, now go study the material you were confused or guessing at.

undomiel

Well on the plus side now you are familiar with the format of MS questions. So far the 270 was the hardest one for me. If I had to go back and do it again I would definitely put together a lab for it. There's a lot to know about XP and not everything will have been something you've done before much less a good number of times. For me it was RIS and unattended installs. I wish I had put some practice into those before I had done the exam. So if you haven't already I'd say put together a lab and focus on your weak areas identified in the exam.

vincentnyc10

undomiel wrote:

Well on the plus side now you are familiar with the format of MS questions. So far the 270 was the hardest one for me. If I had to go back and do it again I would definitely put together a lab for it. There's a lot to know about XP and not everything will have been something you've done before much less a good number of times. For me it was RIS and unattended installs. I wish I had put some practice into those before I had done the exam. So if you haven't already I'd say put together a lab and focus on your weak areas identified in the exam.

it wasn't the lab...i was pissed how detail were some of those questions. i went back to look at my sybex book (3rd edition) the latest edition book and it didn't even go into that much detail! i wonder if ms press book are any different.

undomiel

This is why I am recommending setting up a lab. It will help you in preparation far more than any practice questions can.

vincentnyc10

undomiel wrote:

This is why I am recommending setting up a lab. It will help you in preparation far more than any practice questions can.

how is lab gonna help me when i'm following labs on sybex which aren't that detail at all.

TLwilliams904

I Agree with most when they say set up labs... I cant afford to set my pc up to use virtual machines in order to do so but it will definately help.. what i did find helpful is not so much as focusing on test questions that will be the same but focus on the problem that is inside of the question and uderstanding why the correct answer is the correct answer for that problem .. that way any question that is thrown at you, you will be able to recognize what the problem is and find the correct answer. I used Microsoft xp resource kit , and obtained a lot of information from technet.. which is basically the resource kit online the knowledge base articles on microsoft website. I didnt want to just memorize the questions so i stopped reading the entire question and just started reading the problems then reading the answers and skimming over the rest of the questions because there maybe one or two words at the beginging that is needed to make the answsers make sense..

I wish you the best of luck

undomiel

Create your own scenarios then if the book isn't helping you. Set up a domain and join some machines to it. Go through disk management and set up several different partitioning schemes. Build a RAID. Break out the performance monitoring and set up some performance counters and alerts. Fire up gpedit.msc and experiment with how policies work a bit. Get to know your internal groups and how they work. Boot the recovery console and experiment with some of the recovery options available there. Install IIS and get familiar with how it works. Look through the forums here and try and replicate some of the broken OS scenarios and see what steps you would take to fix it. There's plenty of things you can do to get useful hands-on experience from labs. Don't let the book limit you!

Megadeth4168

A lot of people underestimate the difficulty of an MS exam, myself included. I have to defend the Sybex book for this exam though, I used it and thought it was right on. I failed the 270 my first time, didn't study for it at the time, I figured "how hard can it be" and took a beating. I picked up the Sybex book and 1 month later scored in the high 800's.

best of luck on your next attempt

Sie

Sorry to hear you failed.

The best and most effective tool to use as mentioned is to create a lab and get hands on work with XP.

Its proven that people retain more information from seeing and doing than other ways.

Good luck for the retake!

Gundamtdk

It is regrettable that it you failed.

The 70-270 is harder than it looks.

Just because it is Windows XP doesn't mean it is easy.

KGhaleon

I think you really just need to grab the MSPress and go from there.

stevemurzyn

You were so close, don't give up. Now that you know about the long winded questions you can plan more time to read through them. I skipped the hard questions and went back to them at the end of the test. I thought the technote stuff was real important because the only other material I used was the microsoft book and CBT videos.

bwcarty

I'll second the idea that if you're looking for practice questions that are nearly identical in format to the real thing, Transcender is the way to go. I used the Transcender 70-270 test, and there are definitely gaps in it as far as content when compared to the live test I took last month, but when it comes to the format, it's exactly like the real thing.

Also, 70-270 covers a lot of varied material. As someone who deals with servers and networking more often than clients, I found the test to be much more difficult than I expected.

RapidFire

I feel ya man, i just failed the Net+ exam by like a few questions, I passed the MCP test so a little words of advice is since you barely failed it, dont panic just study what you were and open and mess around with MMC.

1MeanAdmin

vincentnyc10 wrote:

it wasn't the lab...i was pissed how detail were some of those questions. i went back to look at my sybex book (3rd edition) the latest edition book and it didn't even go into that much detail! i wonder if ms press book are any different.

For 70-270, 70-290, 70-291 I found MS Press books way more superior than Sybex, because they go into more detail.

vincentnyc10

midiman wrote:

vincentnyc10 wrote:

it wasn't the lab...i was pissed how detail were some of those questions. i went back to look at my sybex book (3rd edition) the latest edition book and it didn't even go into that much detail! i wonder if ms press book are any different.

For 70-270, 70-290, 70-291 I found MS Press books way more superior than Sybex, because they go into more detail.

well i dont wanna waste $$$ to buy the ms press book for the 70-270 since i almost pass it. but for the 290 and 291, i would consider it over sybex...can u give me a direct link where to get the ms press book from amazon.com for those exam? thx.

NetAdmin2436

vincentnyc10 wrote:

midiman wrote:

vincentnyc10 wrote:

it wasn't the lab...i was pissed how detail were some of those questions. i went back to look at my sybex book (3rd edition) the latest edition book and it didn't even go into that much detail! i wonder if ms press book are any different.

For 70-270, 70-290, 70-291 I found MS Press books way more superior than Sybex, because they go into more detail.

well i dont wanna waste $$$ to buy the ms press book for the 70-270 since i almost pass it. but for the 290 and 291, i would consider it over sybex...can u give me a direct link where to get the ms press book from amazon.com for those exam? thx.

I bought mine used for $16.
http://www.amazon.com/MCSA-MCSE-Self-Paced-Training-70-290/dp/0735614377

http://www.amazon.com/MCSA-MCSE-Self-Paced-Training-70-291/dp/0735614393

fommy

i always use ms press books, they are the best for studying for ms exams.

although the sybex books are more in depth, but i have never seen a ms exam which has the same style of question in the real exam.

good luck mate.

vincentnyc10

NetAdmin2436 wrote:

vincentnyc10 wrote:

midiman wrote:

vincentnyc10 wrote:

it wasn't the lab...i was pissed how detail were some of those questions. i went back to look at my sybex book (3rd edition) the latest edition book and it didn't even go into that much detail! i wonder if ms press book are any different.

For 70-270, 70-290, 70-291 I found MS Press books way more superior than Sybex, because they go into more detail.

well i dont wanna waste $$$ to buy the ms press book for the 70-270 since i almost pass it. but for the 290 and 291, i would consider it over sybex...can u give me a direct link where to get the ms press book from amazon.com for those exam? thx.

I bought mine used for $16.
http://www.amazon.com/MCSA-MCSE-Self-Paced-Training-70-290/dp/0735614377

http://www.amazon.com/MCSA-MCSE-Self-Paced-Training-70-291/dp/0735614393

i was reading some of the reviews for this ms press book on amazon.com...here are some of the bad reviews:

1st reviewers:
"I am extremely disappointed with the quality of this title. The lessons are not organized and skip steps, apparently assuming that the reader has the ability to read the author's mind. There doesn't appear to be a logical progression from chapter to chapter, lesson to lesson"

2nd reviewers:
"This book was one of the WORST test prep books I have ever used, across ALL fields.

The book skims the surface of various topics, and if indeed all the test wanted you to do was have a superficial knowledge of how to "sort of" get things done, you'd be set.

However, the 70-290 test requires you to have an in-depth knowledge of how to get around the 2003 environment, something which this book IN NO WAY prepares you for.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK if you want to pass your test! It will give you a false sense of security and knowledge. "

3rd reviewer:
"The first thing I'll point out is that Craig Zacker is not even an MCP! This is a poor atempt at an exam preperation guide for the 70-290 exam by a man who could not pass the exam himself if he tried. I've studied for exams on nt 4.0, server 2000, SQL, and rarely have I seen such a lack of understanding of the material by an author. For as thick and heavy as this book is there should be three times the information in it.

I'm tired of people saying microsoft is trying to make the exams harder to add legitamacy to the certification. After reading the entire self study series it is apearant that Microsoft has attempted to make it harder to achieve the MCSE by limmiting students access to good information. Quite frankly the exam questions haven't gotten any better, it's the study materials that are getting worse. The sad thing is unless you have already mastered the technology how are you going to notice? "

anyway...i'm having 2nd thoughts about ms press book...lol.

dynamik

You almost always have to supplement a book with one or two other resources. Technet is a great resource that you can use to fill in any gaps in knowledge. Just compare the exam objectives with what you know and use Technet or help files to solidify your knowledge. I used this book as well, and thought it did as good of a job as anything else I've used.

vincentnyc10

dynamik wrote:

You almost always have to supplement a book with one or two other resources. Technet is a great resource that you can use to fill in any gaps in knowledge. Just compare the exam objectives with what you know and use Technet or help files to solidify your knowledge. I used this book as well, and thought it did as good of a job as anything else I've used.

where is this technet u talking about? do you have a direct link? maybe i go read some material there instead since i already got the sybex book. thx in advance.

undomiel

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

Don't forget that Google's your friend!

snadam

vincentnyc10 wrote:

i was reading some of the reviews for this ms press book on amazon.com...here are some of the bad reviews:

1st reviewers:
"I am extremely disappointed with the quality of this title. The lessons are not organized and skip steps, apparently assuming that the reader has the ability to read the author's mind. There doesn't appear to be a logical progression from chapter to chapter, lesson to lesson"

2nd reviewers:
"This book was one of the WORST test prep books I have ever used, across ALL fields.

The book skims the surface of various topics, and if indeed all the test wanted you to do was have a superficial knowledge of how to "sort of" get things done, you'd be set.

However, the 70-290 test requires you to have an in-depth knowledge of how to get around the 2003 environment, something which this book IN NO WAY prepares you for.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK if you want to pass your test! It will give you a false sense of security and knowledge. "

3rd reviewer:
"The first thing I'll point out is that Craig Zacker is not even an MCP! This is a poor atempt at an exam preperation guide for the 70-290 exam by a man who could not pass the exam himself if he tried. I've studied for exams on nt 4.0, server 2000, SQL, and rarely have I seen such a lack of understanding of the material by an author. For as thick and heavy as this book is there should be three times the information in it.

I'm tired of people saying microsoft is trying to make the exams harder to add legitamacy to the certification. After reading the entire self study series it is apearant that Microsoft has attempted to make it harder to achieve the MCSE by limmiting students access to good information. Quite frankly the exam questions haven't gotten any better, it's the study materials that are getting worse. The sad thing is unless you have already mastered the technology how are you going to notice? "

anyway...i'm having 2nd thoughts about ms press book...lol.

I dont know about the entire training kit, but the book themselves are fantastic for both 290 and 291. I dont really understand where most of these bad reviews are coming from otherwise. It is always suggested that you have multiple resources for any test, and this goes for MS ones as well.

vincentnyc10

undomiel wrote:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

Don't forget that Google's your friend!

thx. but the technet website is huge. any1 got a direct link for 70-270 notes from that website? thx in advance.

jamesbhp

Most people agree that the best practice for studying for the MS exams are a few different books, one being MS Press and another source; most prefer sybex or examcram. Then you have to follow it by hands on labs, the more experience you already have in the field, the less labs you have to setup and do practice runs. Lastly if you are more of a visual learner, you can get into CBT Nuggets.

No one source will give you a carbon copy of the exam, it is however your fault for not doing enough research and knowing the layout of MS type exams and their detailed paragraphs. If you do enough research and googling, you will find that most guides tell you to be prepared for the lengthy type of questions and to use multiple sources to study from. Those that get away with studying less than you either have more experience in the field or just more hands on with the labs.