Are simulations covered in the MSPress books ?

jibbajabba

Obviously we didn't talk about specifics, but a colleague mentioned that he got owned by the simulations and mentioned they weren't covered in the official book.

Is he right or wasn't he just studying properly ?

jbrown414

Did he do the practices at the end of each section or the case studies? They may have been covered there. I just started studying the 70-431 and paying extra attention to the hands on portions.

jibbajabba

jbrown414 wrote:

Did he do the practices at the end of each section or the case studies? They may have been covered there. I just started studying the 70-431 and paying extra attention to the hands on portions.

I honestly don't know ..

But IF you use the official MS Press book - take a look here :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920926/en-us

Site down first tho .. it might knock you of your feet ...

I am quite new to MSSQL myself .. funny enough I know how to setup and configure a Cluster and Mirror but when it comes to the TSQL stuff I am lost ..

I just started my studies for the exam with reading

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470119284

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672328674

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072260939

and because I love Mirror and Cluster myself

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/159059780X

savior faire

The MS Press Training Kit for 70-431 does not contain practice test/questions for the simulations.
What you need to do to prepare for the sims is to be very familiar with SSMS and do the practice exercises in the book.
Also you would also need additional study materials because the MS Press practice tests are not indepth enough. I used PrepLogic study materials.
The simulation questions are pretty good and interesting in my judgement. I have no live, work experience with SQL Server 2005, and I passed the exam with a very good score. I just put the time in.

jibbajabba

savior faire wrote:

The MS Press Training Kit for 70-431 does not contain practice test/questions for the simulations.
What you need to do to prepare for the sims is to be very familiar with SSMS and do the practice exercises in the book.
Also you would also need additional study materials because the MS Press practice tests are not indepth enough. I used PrepLogic study materials.
The simulation questions are pretty good and interesting in my judgement. I have no live, work experience with SQL Server 2005, and I passed the exam with a very good score. I just put the time in.

I rather meant if the topic itself is covered ... Let me think of an example .. let's say there are either / and questions about mirroring and the question would be if there is mirroring even covered in the book .. Hard to ask specific questions without forcing someone to breach the NDAs :P

savior faire

Gomjaba,

The answer is yes... what you are asked to do in the simulation questions is covered in the book. I suggest becoming very familiar with the basics of the entire SSMS interface. Poke around, click on different things to see what pops up... etc.
Think of the simulations as case study questions depicting situations that you would have to handle in a work environment.
I cannot give specifics due to non-disclosure I agreed to, but the sims are really interesting. There was one I recall that was a very clever problem. You will enjoy the sims. There should be less multi-choice and more sims.

jibbajabba

Glad to hear there are a lot of sims .. I just hate the tickery :P

savior faire

Did you mean "trickery"?

I cannot say there was any sort of sneaky and nefarious questions. All above board.... good luck with it. When is the date?

jibbajabba

I did mean tickery .. as in making ticks only