Study and Motivation

Lefanduch

Hi guys

I just started to Study for Microsoft Exam 70-620 because i bought the book and failed the exam a year ago and put it away...

I don't want to have bought the book for nothing, so i'm doing it and it will be good for me.

But i'm bored reading the book and taking notes. I had so much more fun Studying for the 2 A+ exams! I don't know why.

So i have 2-3 questions for you:

1. Which certification your study have been the most boring? Which
one you had more fun?

2. When you had a down in motivation, what way you reacted to refind
the motivation?

3. How much time you allowing to you start from when you receive the
book until you take the exams? 1 Months? 2 Months? How you guys set
the ''deadline''?

Well that about it! Hope many people will answer!

impelse

I will not answer your question by order, but something that helped me motivated were two things: I set my Goals and I want to learn and be knowledgable.

For ex. I set my long goal: Security and I set my short goals, one of them is MCSA and I know that I have to pass 4 exam for that so I focus in just one exam, sometimes I feel boring with some objectives but I said myself, after I finish this objective the rest will be very interesting and I remind myself that I need to pass just this exam, and keep going.

So it is normal to feel boring but after you pass it, you will feel great and will try the next and the next, etc.

How long take to prepare for the exam, it's depends of many factors, some people do it in two weeks, one month, three months, 8 moths, etc, etc. My CCNA took me 7.5 months and the 70-290 more than two months, forget about the time, just learn the material and after that you will know when you are ready.

dynamik

Lefanduch wrote: »

So i have 2-3 questions for you:

1. Which certification your study have been the most boring? Which
one you had more fun?

2. When you had a down in motivation, what way you reacted to refind
the motivation?

3. How much time you allowing to you start from when you receive the
book until you take the exams? 1 Months? 2 Months? How you guys set
the ''deadline''?

I counted seven...

My CWNA was the most boring. It spent a lot of time with nitty-gritty details instead of actual configuration. I learned a lot about wireless, but it got very tedious. While I don't have the CEH yet, it's been a blast to study for. The Security+ was interesting too.

Sometimes you just need to take a break. Be sure to set a time limit, so you don't completely abandon your studies, but give yourself a day or two where you just relax and do some leisure activities. Sometimes all you have to do is recharge your batteries. You might want to also simultaneously study something you do find interesting.

I can typically pound out an MS exam in a month if I have sufficient time. That might slide to 6-8 weeks if I'm busy. I'll typically schedule my exam about a month out when I start, and then I might reschedule when the date gets close and I have a better idea of how much work is left. Be sure to mark the dates on your calendar; I've forgotten about a couple

You might also want to check out this thread: http://www.techexams.net/forums/general-certification/32248-how-do-you-motivate-yourself.html

HeroPsycho

70-649 was easily the most boring for me. Since I've gotten MCSE 2000 and 2003, and because I've gotten so interested in PowerShell, core Windows stuff was just not what I wanted to study at all. I was just absolutely sick of it. But I did wrap it up.

How did I get motivated to finally do it? I think it was the thought that if I could manage to knock it out, I wouldn't have to study core Windows stuff for years.

The most fun cert I've studied for? ISA 2004 (70-350) because I've always been interested in firewalls, and I was at the time fixing a broken ISA 3 node NLB array deployment, so I immediately was applying what I learned.

I don't set deadlines for myself typically. I study until I've learned the material sufficiently to feel comfortable working with the product AND to be able to take the exam. If it takes me six months, it takes me six months. If a month, cool, too.

With that said, it doesn't usually benefit me to learn any new product unless I have expert level skills in it. Being certified is usually not enough in and of itself.

Aldur

Lefanduch wrote: »

1. Which certification your study have been the most boring? Which
one you had more fun?

The JNCIS-M was the most boring for me to study. The reason behind this was that it was all just an insane amount of memorizing, I think the book was like around 800 pages and I think I put together 100's of flash cards to help memorize the whole thing.

The most enjoyable was the JNCIP-M and JNCIE-M, I really enjoyed these certs because it was all hands on lab work, no real memorizing whatsoever. It was a blast setting up things in the lab, breaking them, and fixing them all over again.

Lefanduch wrote: »

2. When you had a down in motivation, what way you reacted to refind
the motivation?

Alot of times I would think about how much I hated my current job, granted that's not the best motivation especially since I love my job now.

Another thing that helps is switching it up a bit, I'll do some reading some days, make flash cards another day, do some lab work on a different day. Some times I'll study other things then the current cert I'm shooting for. It helps with the burn out factor and as long as I'm learning things that pertain to my career I figure its ok.

Lefanduch wrote: »

3. How much time you allowing to you start from when you receive the
book until you take the exams? 1 Months? 2 Months? How you guys set
the ''deadline''?

I'll set soft deadlines and go from there. For example, I started really studying for my JNCIS-ER about 2-3 weeks ago and I figured I'd take it mid April, well things have come up, I'm supposed to be getting the JNCIA-EX mid April , and I'll be taking JNCIS-ER at the end of April or the first of May.

Deadlines can be good, since they can help give you the motivation to study, but if they are just causing you stress then it may be best to stay away from them.