Failed 293...

mrmcmint

with 646.

Pretty much expected to fail this one. Still... back to the books! !

It was a hard exam. Much harder than the 291. The questions were hugely wordy, most questions were a full page long, and lots of choose 2/3 answers and lots of drag/drop.

Questions were mainly around PKI/Clustering, NLB, comprehensive DNS and authentication.

Most questions were ok, once you had deciphered what was necessary and what wasn't.

Another 2/3 weeks of hard study should hopefully see this one in the bag. I'm not giving up!! This is the exam that should be called the beast

bwcarty

Tough break. What study materials did you use?

mrmcmint

I used CBT Nuggets, lots of Technet articles, and labbed up as much as could.

The CBT Nuggets don't quite seem to do the trick on this one, they are not bad by any means, but they just seem to need to go into a bit more detail in certain areas.

I have been ok with other exams as we use most of the stuff on a daily basis at work, but we don't have PKI, clusters, NLB or any UNIX dns servers where we are in our office. I need to go and pay more attention to the nitty gritty's!

Still, I WILL nail it next time! I now have a very good idea looking at my score report where I need to dedicate more time.

Technito

mrmcmint wrote: »

with 646.

Pretty much expected to fail this one. Still... back to the books! !

It was a hard exam. Much harder than the 291. The questions were hugely wordy, most questions were a full page long, and lots of choose 2/3 answers and lots of drag/drop.

Questions were mainly around PKI/Clustering, NLB, comprehensive DNS and authentication.

Most questions were ok, once you had deciphered what was necessary and what wasn't.

Another 2/3 weeks of hard study should hopefully see this one in the bag. I'm not giving up!! This is the exam that should be called the beast

Well you got a 646, so that was definitely a good try. You probably only missed it by or less than 5 questions. You'll get it on your next try, good luck .

docspawn

mrmint
Wouldnt worry to much, not many pass first time (I didnt). Its a
real stinker of an exam but with a 646 i'm sure you'll get it next time.
Deffo the beast senior i'd say.
D.S.

mrmcmint

Thanks guys, it was my first failure out of 7 exams so it dented my ego a little!

Still, i'm back in the books now so hopefully i'll nail it next time

thanks again

tanix

I failed today as well. 682 was my score (one question off I believe).

I had hard times when I took the test though. The program crashed every time a simulation loaded and I had to wait for them to reboot the machine and log in again. This happend around 5 times (5+ mins each) before the moved me to another machine where I waited in the waiting room for 45 mins before they had me come in again.

My results showed me 50-70% across the material which leads me to believe I need work across the board. I am a terrible test taker and it usually takes me a bit to "get into the test" before I calm down. I was comfortable getting around in the labs, but the wording in some of them were confusing and I seemed to get most of my long questions on the latter half after I was burned out from the frustration of the test crashes.

I seemed to run out of time (6 mins left when I finished), so I didn't get the chance to go back and look over any questions I might have been on the fence with.

Overall, it was a terrible test experience and as I said, I loath taking tests.

So now, I have decided to move on to the 298 and keep side studying on the 293 for a while seeing if I can improve some understanding I may be lacking.

What I think really were the hard parts for me were Clustering and GPO's, with a bit of the more complicated DNS design problems confusing me.

What is sad is I was pulling 96% and 90%+ on the Trancender and Testout random exams before I went to take this. There is one thing different that I did this time which I haven't done in the past and that was I spot read the MS press book on topics I felt I was weak on rather than going through it cover to cover as I have in previous exams. It might have been the issue, but I did read the key chapters in PKI and Clutsters and I did do every single lab in there on my virtual network.

Not to displace blame, ultimately the fail is my fault but I can't help thinking that I might have got that one question I needed if I had been able to go through it without issue.

Oh well, as they say... a failure is simply a learning step to success. Back to the books.

mrmcmint

unlucky Tanix, sounds like a bad experience.

I'm really struggling to get motivated to continue studying for this one. I need to dedicate a good week to studying again and firing my lab back up.

Good luck on your re take!