The Beast - Scheduled for April 14

swat

Hey all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. I figured I would create an account and say thanks for all the helpful tips and feedback, I've been studying for 291 the past few months and have taken a lot of it into consideration.

These next two days before the test I'm off for studying, so I'm trying to get a little smarter and target my weaker areas. No matter how much I've studied DNS, I still get a little confused trying to translate what the situation requires and what type of zone is needed etc, but I plan on hammering that into my brain as much as I can.

One question though, is the Windows Scientfic Calc provided in most testing centers? I can do binary calculations manually, but I've become very accustomed to my "way" and hope the lack of it won't throw me off.

Thanks all, and wish me luck!

PS. I do have Second Shot so I don't have "The Fear" of losing $160 CDN to compund my anxiousness, at least that's a plus

sprkymrk

I don't recall if you get to use calc on the exam or not.

However, welcome to the forums and best of luck to you.

Big Jizay

sprkymrk wrote: »

I don't recall if you get to use calc on the exam or not.

However, welcome to the forums and best of luck to you.

Yes, you can get use a calculator on the exam.

swat

I passed!

I would have been more than happy to slide by at 700 but managed to get an 857. I studied very heavily the past couple months though, and spent 8-10 hours a day the past few days doing Transcenders, MS Press Exams, and my own notes (where I targeted my weak areas).

Please delete any of the following if it's not NDA worthy:

I used the Official MS Press book, read it inside out, did a lot of the exercises but focused more on the reading and touching up on the review sections. Both the Transcenders and the MS Press Exams helped a lot, but I found the questions on the test weren't near as wordy or involved as them. Labs, Labs, Labs. As soon as I read something, I would hop on my VMs and check out how it translated to the real world. Create things, break things, fix things, and learn as many menu options as you can.

Where's all the DNS? After diving HEAVILY into DNS, I was surprised to find a lack of it on the test. And from what there was, it was very basic. WSUS, on the other hand, was all over the place. There seemed to be a 1:1 WSUS/DNS ratio.

Know your command line utilities, their parameters and when to use them! Even if you are confident on all of them, and their switches, go back and even learn the more obscure ones inside and out. I was hit pretty hard with them.

RRAS was everywhere. Lots on IPSEC, IP Filters, etc. Know your DMZ.

Also, a big thanks again to everyone on this forum, this place has been a tremendous resource, and everyone here is very helpful.

So far I've done 70-210, 70-290 and now 70-291. Not sure whether or not to go for Exchange 2003 and get my MCSA, or ride the DNS wave to 70-293. From what I hear, 293 makes more sense, right?

GOOD LUCK to everyone else on this exam!

neathneathneath

swat wrote: »

I passed!

I would have been more than happy to slide by at 700 but managed to get an 857. I studied very heavily the past couple months though, and spent 8-10 hours a day the past few days doing Transcenders, MS Press Exams, and my own notes (where I targeted my weak areas).

Please delete any of the following if it's not NDA worthy:

I used the Official MS Press book, read it inside out, did a lot of the exercises but focused more on the reading and touching up on the review sections. Both the Transcenders and the MS Press Exams helped a lot, but I found the questions on the test weren't near as wordy or involved as them. Labs, Labs, Labs. As soon as I read something, I would hop on my VMs and check out how it translated to the real world. Create things, break things, fix things, and learn as many menu options as you can.

Where's all the DNS? After diving HEAVILY into DNS, I was surprised to find a lack of it on the test. And from what there was, it was very basic. WSUS, on the other hand, was all over the place. There seemed to be a 1:1 WSUS/DNS ratio.

Know your command line utilities, their parameters and when to use them! Even if you are confident on all of them, and their switches, go back and even learn the more obscure ones inside and out. I was hit pretty hard with them.

RRAS was everywhere. Lots on IPSEC, IP Filters, etc. Know your DMZ.

Also, a big thanks again to everyone on this forum, this place has been a tremendous resource, and everyone here is very helpful.

So far I've done 70-210, 70-290 and now 70-291. Not sure whether or not to go for Exchange 2003 and get my MCSA, or ride the DNS wave to 70-293. From what I hear, 293 makes more sense, right?

GOOD LUCK to everyone else on this exam!

Well done, today was a good day for us

swat

neathneathneath wrote: »

Well done, today was a good day for us

Indeed it is. I am currently enjoying a nice cold beer and letting my brain have some well needed rest. Cheers

ian g

Congrats SWAT! That beer was well deserved. Mine was a big fat German Weissen!
I hear you on the WSUS and command-line stuff. 'Sounds like we had a similar exam experience.
I also agree about using labs. I use VMware Workstation, which is a brilliant product, although I was pulling my hair out trying to make RRAS work on it.

Johnny Johnson

Nice score! Congrats to you!

impelse

Congrats