The beast has slain me twice

donko1

Been following the forums, but have never posted. You had better be prepared for the 291 or it will beat you down. I have failed miserably twice, and I thought I was pretty well prepared. The questions are very lengthy and I would recommend having plenty of time to devote to it along with a clear and fresh mind. I have gotten down subnetting along with a lot of the other objectives, and have the MS press book now and it seems pretty good. I plan on doing the labs(I do want to pass this test right)? I also bought the exam cram book for 291 because it looks readable and it seems pretty good after skimming through a copy of the book in our IT lab at work. Anyway, good luck to everyone, this exam is no gimme. I do however plan on taking it and passing by the end of this year, and probably before then. Much studying to do, good luck to everyone.

infinite-j

donko1 wrote:

Been following the forums, but have never posted. You had better be prepared for the 291 or it will beat you down. I have failed miserably twice, and I thought I was pretty well prepared. The questions are very lengthy and I would recommend having plenty of time to devote to it along with a clear and fresh mind. I have gotten down subnetting along with a lot of the other objectives, and have the MS press book now and it seems pretty good. I plan on doing the labs(I do want to pass this test right)? I also bought the exam cram book for 291 because it looks readable and it seems pretty good after skimming through a copy of the book in our IT lab at work. Anyway, good luck to everyone, this exam is no gimme. I do however plan on taking it and passing by the end of this year, and probably before then. Much studying to do, good luck to everyone.

good luck to you! i plan on taking it as well in the next few weeks...

RobertKaucher

Have you been doing LOTS of labs? I say this all he time in this forum and in the 293: you have to get your hands dirty to pass this one. Get as many old PCs together as you can and load them up with Server 2003. Throw in a couple of extra NICs and a few old switches. On top of that if you can run some VMs you will be golden. Set stuff up, then break it and then fix it. Set up a domain and then delete all your SRV records. How do you get them back quickly? Set up a wireless network and use PKI and RADIUS so that clients connect to access pont using PEAP and WPA2. Don't give your sel too much time. I would get lazy if I did.

If you have the time give yourself 1 month and 3 weeks. One month to review and do lots of labs. Three weeks to do test prep and narrow in on areas you are weak in.

NetAdmin2436

Bummer man, keep at it and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Are you using any practice exams? I'd recommend maybe looking at transcender or preplogic practice exams.

bjaxx

I plan on doing the labs

Your own stupidity to not do the labs...

Do you want to just pass this exam or do you want to understand the material? This exam has a large base to cover and is probably the biggest foundation in server 2003. Don't cut yourself short, prepare like your going to pass.

Slowhand

Yup, do the labs. This is the first exam most people run into that requires you to do more than "just study". You have to get the hands-on experience, and you'll probably need to do a little more reading than just the study guide(s). Additional reading on topics like DNS and RRAS is definitely recommended, as is some extra practice with subnetting and general IP routing so that you understand not only how Microsoft does it, but the broader concept of what you're trying to accomplish with these features of Server 2003. This thread also has some great suggestions on extra-curricular reading.

Study all the topics on the exam outline, make sure you not only understand the theory, but the underlying technologies and know how to configure them on Windows Server 2003 machines. You can use Virtual PC or VMware to set up your lab machines if you don't have the hardware for it. Between the labs at the end of each chapter in the MS Press book, trying out new configurations as you read about them, and the information you're picking up as you read, you should do just fine on the exam the third time around.