Advice on reading material for MCITP:SA

Hello,

I am gearing up to study for the MCITP:SA in order to balance out my bland studying of the CompTIA Security+ (The encryption is killing me). I bought the MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit. I did not realize until received it that it basically just runs you through the motions of using it.

I have only taken CompTIA exams. What are Microsoft tests like? Will just learning how to use the GUI be enough?

http://www.amazon.com/Self-Paced-Training-70-640-70-642-70-646/dp/0735625085/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252456933&sr=1-2

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Hyper-Me

No. There is plenty of command line you will need to be well versed in for the exams. Any of the prep materials ive used have done a pretty good job of preparing you for this, though.

veritas_libertas

Hyper-Me wrote: »

No. There is plenty of command line you will need to be well versed in for the exams. Any of the prep materials ive used have done a pretty good job of preparing you for this, though.

Did you use the Microsoft Press books?

Hyper-Me

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Did you use the Microsoft Press books?

I mainly used the Trainsignal Videos and the ExamCram books, i did use the MS press for reference here and there.

70-640 - Trainsignal is good, but not everything you need. CBT Nuggets is very good and would be better than trainsignal here. ExamCram is a good book for this. MS press is pretty good for this

70-642 - Trainsiganl isnt bad, but you need to reference a couple of additional resources because they left out a few things like IPv6. ExamCram is ok for this test, MS Press is very good for this one.

I havnt taken 646 yet, though if i cant pass 643 i may scrap my EA hopes for now and take 646.

BradH

I finished my SA last week.

640 - TS for a foundation only - CBT provides the majority of the course esp the DNS and Ceritification services. It is a much much better overall for 640. Build yourself a bunch of VM's as this exam is interactive as well and not just the same old multi-choice questions. I also use the MS Press books and Measure up exam practice questions that came with it.

642 - Had some good mentors at work who are the network gurus who provided me some documents on 642. If you have no idea on subnetting, get to know it. TS did cover some good points and used the MS Press and Measure up test questions here as well.

646 - plick of an exam. Marked more question on this one for review than any of the others. MS Press/Measure Up/TS again however had to practice lots of VM work on this one. Set up a WDS and deployed to few machines, clustering practice and WDS practice also using the Windows 2008 Technet VM's which are available to anyone. They have some awesome VM's esp for the 640 and Certificate services!

Also I have a training account with Skillport which helps heaps for course content however their questions are quite poorly worded but they make you think.

I started studying in March and finished SA on Sept 1st for a sort of time line guideline. Certainly not the quickest someone could complete a SA but when you have a wife and three kids under 10, it tends to take some time.

Hope this helps.

veritas_libertas

I wish I could afford TrainSignal and CBT Nuggets.... I should still be well off if I keep practicing, reading, and using the quizzes that come with it right?

So the tests are interactive?

BradH

Just the 640 test is interactive with 2 VMs which you need to configure according to what they ask.

642 and 646 were all multi-choice