Practice tests and its questions

Now Im probably older than most of you so my brain isnt as quick as you young folk. I did my MCSE a long time ago for NT. Now I am updating it to MCSA 2003 then moving to 2008. So I decided to start with XP test.

Im finding some of the questions rediculouson other practice test exams I have taken (not here). Placing situations which simply dont apply to real world situations, word trickery, and sentence manipulation.

For example:
I had one question about backups and one of the last sentences was about "making a backup copy of the backup every wednesday". And effectively they had 2 correct answers because they didnt specify how was the copy of the backup made. Of course they meant using the actual backup utility to make a backup of the backup not simply copying it over to a different location... so I missed the question.

Another question was concerning an IP issue in a workgroup setup with 5 PCs + with an internet connection. Effectively they had 2 answers. One PC was not talking to the internet and it could have been the DHCP failed to yield an IP because it was 169.254.x.y (APIPA assigned and nothing in my books talks about this making the subnet mask 255.255.255.0) connected to the workgroup or the subnet mask was wrong 255.255.0.0. So Im sitting here "ok no one sets up a small network, and neither would APIPA probably, with that subnet mask so I would check the subnet mask 1st". Nope the answer was DHCP.

This is very frustrating.

Or questions about how to manipulate a series of menu items on some utility thats used rarely and normally any admin would have to look up or click by discovery to figure it out like Hyperterminal.

Please tell me the read tests are not designed on this flawed system of knowledge gathering where they used trick questions instead of actual critical thinking to resolve if someone actually knows their stuff. There is certainly more knowledge to know now than when I got my MCSE for NT.

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dynamik

winky51 wrote: »

This is very frustrating.

Welcome to MS exams (and TE

)

lowfokus

winky51 wrote: »

Please tell me the read tests are not designed on this flawed system of knowledge gathering where they used trick questions instead of actual critical thinking to resolve if someone actually knows their stuff. There is certainly more knowledge to know now than when I got my MCSE for NT.

I just passed the 070-270 yesterday, by a slim margin. It isn't the IT knowledge, that will fail you, it's the trick questions. Do yourself a favor and learn how to take the test by taking more practice exams than you think you need. I don't have professional experience with domains, so I setup 2k3 server at my house, got some old desktops people thought were garbage, and spent a month setting up my own domain. Doing unattended installs, learning about Local Group Policy, dynamic disks, etc. I still had trouble with some of the questions, as there were seemingly two possible answers.

The way I read the tests is such that the least amount of effort answer is probably the correct choice most of the time. Especially when it comes to options being installed by default or not. If it's not default and there is a step not mentioned in the question you'd have to do to make one of the questions work, go with the other answer you think is right.
I'm pretty good at networking so I didn't need to focus on that so much, but they did throw curves about DNS, and proxies.
Microsoft tests....bleh. I feel comfortable knowing that even someone with experience would have trouble passing these without studying them. I didn't get satisfaction out of the Net+ or A+ exams. It felt as though anyone who read a book for two hours could have passed those exams. It's definitely harder to pass the tricky MS ones, but mentally rewarding when you see that "Congratulations" pop up at the end of the test. Good luck, and study hard!

ronzilla

I know how you feel. The part that is driving me crazy is remote support and installations which I feel no company uses these methods. but they are a big bulk of the test from what I hear. I am going to take the exam this weekend or the weekend after. I don't know why I am bothering studying for something that won't help me but I guess I need an elective. Feels like colllege all over again.

LucretiaBorgia

I have the same impression of all these exams. I am forced by work and it's MS Gold Accreditation to take them, though. What possible value they can have, or application for me work, I have no idea.
Still, I'm plugging away at the mock exams, twice a day for the next few weeks. Is this worth it? Are the questions on here anything like the ones in the real exam?

winky51

Ive used remote support before. Where I login to a user's PC and take a look at information. Usually its been because they are in another building and to walk is a *****.

But usually its logon and run ipconfig, check event logs, and so on.

This will be the 3rd time I review my Exam Cram for this test.

dynamik

Give Transcender a shot if you want good practice exam questions. They're not cheap, but I'd rather buy one up front than pay for a retake.

LucretiaBorgia

dynamik wrote: »

Give Transcender a shot if you want good practice exam questions. They're not cheap, but I'd rather buy one up front than pay for a retake.

Well, to be honest, cost isn't an issue as work pay for the exams and retakes. I just need to know if the questions I'm banging my head on here are worth doing, as a good representation of the real exam?

Obdurate

Another question was concerning an IP issue in a workgroup setup with 5 PCs + with an internet connection. Effectively they had 2 answers. One PC was not talking to the internet and it could have been the DHCP failed to yield an IP because it was 169.254.x.y (APIPA assigned and nothing in my books talks about this making the subnet mask 255.255.255.0) connected to the workgroup or the subnet mask was wrong 255.255.0.0. So Im sitting here "ok no one sets up a small network, and neither would APIPA probably, with that subnet mask so I would check the subnet mask 1st". Nope the answer was DHCP.

I can relate - I find myself over thinking all the practice exam questions; slowly I am finding out that the best answers are usually the most primative and easiest to use.

Although now that I am looking closely at your question I am guessing it is talking about about ICS. Now I have never worked with ICS so this is only a guess -- I know that the computer hosting the ICS also acts as a mini-DHCP server for any other computer that wants to use the shared internet connection. If one of the computers can not reach the mini-DHCP server (perhaps because of a firewall) then you would get that 169.254.x.y

Anyone out there say "yah" or "nah" to my thinking?

~Obdurate~