First Post in 290

ULWiz

Well I came to this forum a few months ago and have recently passed my network+ and my MCTS Vista exam. So my questions is "Will the MS Press book cover what i need for this exam".
I also have the CBT for this exam and will be watching it as well.
I have a decent machine with 8GB of ram so i am going to do a lab and practice scenarios.

So just looking to see how people feel about this exam. How hard is it from 1 to 10.

Anything to focus on for the exam.

Will CBT Nuggets and MS Press book be enough for passing the exam.

Thanks for the Help in advanced

Essendon

The nuggets and the MS Press book are both good for this test. I would suggest watching the nuggets first and then read the corresponding lessons in the blue book. I followed this method and it worked out pretty good in the end.

So just looking to see how people feel about this exam. How hard is it from 1 to 10.

How hard it is probably depends on a number of factors such as your experience with Windows 2003, your home lab setup, study materials used and time spent.

Personally, I had about 6 months of experience at work with server, which helped a fair bit on groups/permissions/backup/SUS. Spending about 1-2 hours a day and a few on the weekends should see you through in a month or so. I would give it a 5 or maybe a 6 on the difficulty scale.

Make sure you have a DC, a member server and an XP client so that you can fully grasp the concepts. VMWare/VirtualBox/Virtual PC is the way to go. With your wicked 8 GB Ram machine, you should be well set for the virtual machines.

I would also suggest buying the transcender exams or test-out (which probably is rebranded by transcender) as your testing software. Just be aware that the transcender questions are harder than the actual test. Aim upwards of 90% on them and you should be good on the test.

Good luck!

P.S. These days backup and performance are getting heavily tested, ensure that you are pretty good in these areas (dont neglect the others, though!)

dynamik

Yea, MobilOne summed it up pretty good.

I'd say it's four-five times as difficult as 620, to put it in perspective for you.

Essendon

Just an add-on, stay away from that crappy free MeasureUp software. Incorrect answers, weird answer choices and questions that were waaay easier than the actual test/transcender. Relying on MeasureUp (rather CrapUp!) tends to give you a rather false sense of confidence going into the test.

I have a friend who was scoring almost 100% on them, partly because they are so useless, and partly because he had memorised the answers. He went to the test full of confidence, even bought a bottle of good scotch (anticipating a celebratory evening after the test)! He failed with a rather miserable score of 571.

Vogon Poet

Ditto.
Play around a lot with your home lab setup. Once you learn the info well, then focus on troubleshooting. I used Syngress & Sybex, monkeyed around a lot with my home lab, and used Measure Up and another practice test. Just know the objectives inside and out.

undomiel

If you don't have actual server 2003 work experience that will make things a bit difficult. Server 2003 is rather intimidating at first. When I got pitched headlong into it at my current job for the first time (and everything was breaking and disintegrating around me) it was so intimidating that I considered hiding and running back to doing tech support. It takes a few weeks to get really comfortable with it. The labs in the MS Press book I thought were pretty good so I would recommend going through those a number of times until you are comfortable. The lab is the most important thing here. Don't forget to go over the tech notes for the 270! Lots of that is applicable to this test.

bwcarty

For me, 70-290 was the easiest of the four MS exams I've taken (270, 290, 291, 227), but I can't compare it to the Vista exam. With that in mind, note that I took 70-291 first, so everything will seem easier after that one. I also have several years' worth of experience dealing with networks, servers, etc.

I didn't use the MS Press book much, but it is worth skimming through, even if you're familiar with the material. My main study materials were the CBT Nuggets, Transcender practice test, and my test lab.