Planning on taking the 70-290 either tommorrow or the next day..

I earned my CCNA May 22, 2009, and immediately started studying for the 70-290.. I am on an aggressive schedule, as I feel that I need to stack my certs to reflect my 10+ years of experience in IT, and I am having a rough time finding a job here lately.

I am studying on a virtual lab with VMWare Workstation trial, and Microsoft Press Self Paced Training Kit.

I look at it this way... Anything I am not 100% on, I can reference in a real job. As long as I am close to 100% on disaster recovery type objectives, I am a smart enough dude to know where to look up exact syntax on scripting commands and such.

At this point with the family finances.. Picking up a few days here..a few days there of extra study time is absolutely priceless. As it is, when I do get my MCSE, I am prob gonna have to go to another area to get a job, (preferably Wash. DC area, because I have a security clearance..) and leave my family here in Florida.

I'll update youz all when I make a firm decision on the test date.

Russ

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Comments

pogue

I think I have decided to take the test on Wednesday. I am just hoping that the exam questions are worded better than some of the book questions.

Example:

Org does full backups on Monday.. Incremental on Tues, Wed, Thurs, Friday at 8AM.

User comes to admin on Thursday afternoon and says their PC and the mapped server share are hosed by a virus, and that it happened this morning.

Which backups are to be used in the restoration of the server share?

A. Monday

B. Tuesday

C. Wednesday

D. Thursday

E. Friday

The CORRECT answer of course, with the information EXACTLY as given is... A, B, C.

Book says to use the Thursday backup as well.

User did not say what TIME this morning he/she was infected. If they came in early to catch up on work, the server share could have been infected at 0730, so if the incremental backup kicks off at 0800, then all files changed by the virus will be backed up. Using that backup will reinfect the server share as soon as it is used.

I've seen a few questions like this in my Microsoft Press book, and it is starting to p*ss me off.

I don't like having to be a mind reader to figure out what the test question writer was thinking before he had his morning cup of coffee.

Russ

Hallucinate

I found similar annoyances when working through the MS Press books. Fortunately, when you take the actual exam, not only will the questions be shorter (less fluff), but will contain much more clarity too.

skrpune

Hallucinate wrote: »

I found similar annoyances when working through the MS Press books. Fortunately, when you take the actual exam, not only will the questions be shorter (less fluff), but will contain much more clarity too.

Not necessarily...while most of my exam had much shorter and clearer questions than those found in the MS Press book, I found my backup questions to be utterly ridiculous in their complexity and lack of clarity. The MS Press backup questions involving alternating days of incremental and differential backups & what files would be restored if using differential backups from days 1 & 3 & 5 were LESS complicated than most of the backup questions I saw.

It's a grab bag as to the type/complexity of the questions you get on test day. Best bet is to be as comfortable as possible with the test objectives and then just go do your best and do some educated guessing on the stuff you don't know.

Good luck pogue!

pogue

Yo, and check this out.

I am doing a practice test right now in the software that came with the kit.. And the practice test is telling me you can set a group of users' logon hours by right clicking on their group name, and selecting "Account" from the properties menu.

And it marked me wrong for saying "Select all Users, then right click on the whole list of people, then properties, then Account tab.

And another question asked for the steps required to force an immediate password change and a different username. I chose the option to right click, display properties, and change logon name, as well and check "Must change password at next logon.

The test marked that wrong, and chose an option to rename the account and change logon name. There is absolutely no need to change the account name in order to change the logon name.

I think I might want to find a better study guide for the next few tests. I mean...This is basic, BASIC stuff the practice test is getting wrong.

I had the distinct feeling whilst reading both the questions in the final four chapters, as well as the practice test questions in the software, that whoever wrote the questions had not been a system administrator for a LONGGGG time.

Russ

astorrs

You must be using the MeasureUp tests that come with some of the self-study books?

If so those suck.

djhss68

Yeah, bro. Pay the 60 bucks and get 30-day access to the Transcender package. With your experience, you could basically use Transcender as your single study source.

skrpune

astorrs wrote: »

You must be using the MeasureUp tests that come with some of the self-study books?

If so those suck.

Yup, beware of freebies that come with books...they often are worth what you pay for them.

I have really grown to hate using practice tests in general. I find that I can use my time more effectively by reviewing and practicing than by taking tests. For 290, I used the section-end quizzes in TestOut & the questions in the MS Press book to make sure I "got" the main points of the lessons, but that's about it. I can usually tell what my weak points are, so for me, it's better for my mental health to focus more on reviewing. But that's just me.

dynamik

astorrs wrote: »

You must be using the MeasureUp tests that come with some of the self-study books?

If so those suck.

I really think my sea monkeys comment has stood the test of time

Seriously, when are they going to clean up that site...

TravR1

I haven't had a problem with Measureup. Maybe that will change as I start in Microsoft since I ran out of CompTIA tests to take.

dynamik

TravR1 wrote: »

Maybe that will change as I start in Microsoft since I ran out of CompTIA tests to take.

You need to check their website again. You're only a fraction of the way there