I passed the 70-290!!

I took the test today and barely passed with a score of 700! That was close! I felt that I underestimated the test. I usually study 3 months for every test I take, but for this one I only studied for a month and a half.

The biggest subject I can remember that was on the test was backups. Know everything about backups. In fact, study everything about it and do several backups and restores on a computer. That will help out a lot with this test. I saw a lot of questions on system monitor also. I had several printer questions too. Know about RAID, the different types and how to recover from a disk failure. Not too many questions on the DS commands. I just remember one question about DSQUERY.

Thanks to everybody that helped me on this site. I think I'll have a few beers and celebrate

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Comments

ULWiz

700 is right on the money. Definately close. Good job on the pass though. Whats next for you at this point.

gravyjoe

ULWiz wrote:

700 is right on the money. definitely close. Good job on the pass though. Whats next for you at this point.

Thank UlWiz! I'll be studying for the beast next! I've heard it's hard though.

amp2030

Congrats mate! And have fun studying for the beast! I'll be fighting it next week.

Bulletz

Congrats mate!!! good work....i will be taking 70-290 nxt month, throw me any advice since
you know how is it for now...

gravyjoe

I would advise you to know backup/restore and system monitor like the back on your hand. Be an expert on these subjects. Know printers as well. All the sims I had were on users and groups. Know how to create them and assign permissions to them. Know about share/ntfs permissions. Also know about group nesting, which groups can nest into other groups.

Sie

Congratulations!!

impelse

Congrats. I will sit this exam next month too.

puertorico123

may be each take tester have diferent experience in questions?
some have diferent question in AD, whiles other have less question in backup?

gravyjoe

puertorico123 wrote:

may be each take tester have diferent experience in questions?
some have diferent question in AD, whiles other have less question in backup?

I think to a certain extent you're right. Somebody else might get more questions on AD than I did. With all of the people that I've spoken to that have taken the test and the posts I've seen online, the two subjects that everybody said they got tested on heavily were backups and system monitor. That's my experience as well. They may get tested a little more or a little less on these subjects than I did, but I believe everybody will see these questions on their test pretty frequently.

Johnny Johnson

Congrats man! Glad to hear you passed!

gravyjoe

Johnny Johnson wrote:

Congrats man! Glad to hear you passed!

Thanks Johnny! I thought in the middle of the exam that I was going to fail. Well I almost did actually

Slowhand

Congrats on the pass!

motogpman

Congrats on the pass! Take mine on Friday, hope I post the same "pass" as you!

Big Jizay

motogpman wrote:

Congrats on the pass! Take mine on Friday, hope I post the same "pass" as you!

Thanks motogpman! Hopefully you'll get a better score than I did

Good luck on the exam!!

(GravyJoe under a different name)

pyroflames

well done dude

Devin McCloud

I've heard some people say this test is harder then the the 70-291! I guess it depends on your strong points.

Big Jizay

Devin McCloud wrote:

I've heard some people say this test is harder then the the 70-291! I guess it depends on your strong points.

I hope that's true! I'd love 291 to be easier. Unfortunately I heard different.

(formerly GravyJoe)

M.C.S.A

Hi gravyjoe,

1) Does it have simlations in the exam and how many of them?

2) How many Question total ?

Congratulations!

gravyjoe

M.C.S.A wrote:

Hi gravyjoe,

1) Does it have simlations in the exam and how many of them?

2) How many Question total ?

Congratulations!

On my exam, I had 38 questions and 5 simulations. Most people that take the test had 30 questions and 3-5 simulations. I don't know why I received more than most people.

Gimmyno

Congrats Man!!Well done!!

Meast

Congrats on the pass!!! Regarding the number of questions and the difficulty of the exam, an ex-military buddy of mine works for Microsoft, and he informed me that your test layout is based off of your survey answers. Taking my 70-290 on Monday!

meadIT

Meast wrote:

Congrats on the pass!!! Regarding the number of questions and the difficulty of the exam, an ex-military buddy of mine works for Microsoft, and he informed me that your test layout is based off of your survey answers. Taking my 70-290 on Monday!

Every MS test I've had has the survey after the test.

Big Jizay

It's weird because when i took the 270 at a college, the survey came after the test. When I took the test for the 290 at a Prometric center, the survey came before the test. I wonder why that is.

motogpman

I just took the 290 and the survey was at the beginning of the test. My 270 test had it at the end of the test. Does this survey have a significance on the question pool?

Big Jizay

The exam says that the survey questions don't have an effect on your test score, but I don't remember it saying that the survey doesn't effect what questions you actually receive on the test. I doubt that the questions have an effect on the question pool, but dealing with Microsoft you never know

lucifer_sam

Congratulations on the pass!

I think all my MS exams had a survey before the exam, a chance to write comments on each question after the exam and a prometric survey after getting the results. Not sure if the first survey effects your question bank though.

Is the 291 easier than 290?

I suppose it depends on individual strengths in certain areas. In my experiance I found the 291 harder and longer (oh err) than the 290. But I got a higher score in the 291 because i studied harder for it and it's the kind of thing I've been working with the past 8 years or so.

Good luck with the 291

gravyjoe

Thanks Sam! I actually don't have a lot of experience with the topics on 291 so it might take me awhile to study. So far, the big subjects on the 291 seem to be DNS, DHCP, RRAS, AD, and a lot of networking. I plan on setting up a lab with three 2003 servers and three XP workstations. I'm using the MS Press book and Sybex book. Hopefully, all of this will be enough to learn the subjects well.

amp2030

gravyjoe wrote:

Thanks Sam! I actually don't have a lot of experience with the topics on 291 so it might take me awhile to study. So far, the big subjects on the 291 seem to be DNS, DHCP, RRAS, AD, and a lot of networking. I plan on setting up a lab with three 2003 servers and three XP workstations. I'm using the MS Press book and Sybex book. Hopefully, all of this will be enough to learn the subjects well.

If you're setting this lab up just for 291, may I suggest more servers and less workstations? 3 servers may be enough but 3 workstations is overkill, and adding another server may increase the potential complexity of scenarios you test out. Either way, this is a fun exam to study for.

Good luck with it!

gravyjoe

Thanks for your feedback Amp. How many servers vs workstations would you suggest that I implement? Maybe four servers and two workstations?

amp2030

gravyjoe wrote:

Thanks for your feedback Amp. How many servers vs workstations would you suggest that I implement? Maybe four servers and two workstations?

I did all my labs in VMs, I just ran 4 servers at a time, no workstations but sometimes i was using one server as workstation, as needed. 4 servers and 2 workstations is a sweet setup, now make sure some have two network cards and try to put them on separate network segments, so you can test out RRAS, DHCP (and DHCP relay), etc.