70-680 in four days?

LTParis

So I wanted to start to get my certs out of the way, so I decided on the easiest one, the 70-680. However I don't know how many chances I will get to take the test and not have it cut into work time since I should be starting my new gig anytime soon, possibly Monday. So I was thinking to schedule the test for Friday.

So far just taking the Measure Up tests I am scoring 70%. I have some various weakness with a couple command line items, but so far my self testing seems to be pretty even so far. I had planned to take some more practice tests tomorrow and start to bone up on my weak spots.

So is it feasible to study up for 4 days and take a test? Am I setting my ambitions too high? For reference I am a 14 year IT guy, used W7 for the past few months but in a private setting. Working for the fed.gov has not given me any pro experience with deployments.

earweed

70-680 "easiest" out of what set of exams??
From what I've heard it's a fairly difficult exam. How long have you been studying it so far and with what resources? You can get adequate experience on the deployment areas just by having a virtual lab set up and practicing different things.

TheShadow

Four days eh? Well I did it in six with only what was on Microsoft's site so I won't say you can't do it. However in the last two months in this forum I count six "I passed" threads and four "I failed" threads so that might give you reason for pause.

LTParis

earweed wrote: »

70-680 "easiest" out of what set of exams??
From what I've heard it's a fairly difficult exam. How long have you been studying it so far and with what resources? You can get adequate experience on the deployment areas just by having a virtual lab set up and practicing different things.

I am on a MCITP:EA track. So far my studying has been brief, been doing some Measure Up tests on both the 70-680 and 70-642.

TheShadow wrote: »

Four days eh? Well I did it in six with only what was on Microsoft's site so I won't say you can't do it. However in the last two months in this forum I count six "I passed" threads and four "I failed" threads so that might give you reason for pause.

Very good point.

veritas_libertas

LTParis wrote: »

So I wanted to start to get my certs out of the way, so I decided on the easiest one, the 70-680.

Uh, I am not so sure about that. I also reallllllllly doubt you can pass the 70-680 in four days.

LTParis

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Uh, I am not so sure about that. I also reallllllllly doubt you can pass the 70-680 in four days.

What would you consider the easiest in the MCITP:EA track? While my 4-day hope might be a bit fleeting, I can't see the W7 exam being harder than a 2K8 exam unless MS has changed things up.

veritas_libertas

LTParis wrote: »

What would you consider the easiest in the MCITP:EA track? While my 4-day hope might be a bit fleeting, I can't see the W7 exam being harder than a 2K8 exam unless MS has changed things up.

Nothing wrong with being helpful, but Win7 is a whole lot more than understanding the GUI, it's: Deployment, Local Security Policies, and Command Line.

The easiest of the track (at least in mind) would be the 70-640.

earweed

LTParis wrote: »

What would you consider the easiest in the MCITP:EA track? While my 4-day hope might be a bit fleeting, I can't see the W7 exam being harder than a 2K8 exam unless MS has changed things up.

Our point is more about the 4 days. I also think whoever the character posting links above and speaking ?spanish? is trying to show that if you can pass it in 4 days it would only be through brain ****. All those links that look like *********.com are filtered out braindumps.
If you had said you had been stuying the MS Pres book or Sybex and had had W7 experience in say a help desk atmosphere or have been in an AD environment doing deployments and such it might be possible.
The point we're making is that the Windows 7 exam is very difficult (there are no easy MS exams to my knowledge) and requires studying and labbing.

kiki1579

LTParis wrote: »

So I wanted to start to get my certs out of the way, so I decided on the easiest one, the 70-680.

Must be a newbie!!!!

Seriosuly, if you are working for the fed's, get the Sec+ out of the way first. The 2K8 certs were fairly easy IMO, but I had the VM environment setup and did the labs in the book.

LTParis wrote: »

So far just taking the Measure Up tests I am scoring 70%. I have some various weakness with a couple command line items, but so far my self testing seems to be pretty even so far.

Doing just Measureup tests won't cut it, you need a 70-680 book (either Sybex or MS Press) along with a VM setup on your PC at home. The more hands on, the better. I seem to have a good run with PrepLogic.

LTParis wrote: »

So is it feasible to study up for 4 days and take a test? ..

Only....if you like braindumps in 4 days. It's more reasonable in a month or two.
BTW please read up on Microsoft retake policies, that should give you your answers on retaking the exams, and spending $125 everytime to retake it. Thus, studying for longer than 4 days would be recommended.

LTParis wrote: »

Working for the fed.gov has not given me any pro experience with deployments..

Yeah I think the fed just switched over to Vista, so doing 7 your own in a VM environment is the only way to go.

LTParis

kiki1579 wrote: »

Seriosuly, if you are working for the fed's, get the Sec+ out of the way first. The 2K8 certs were fairly easy IMO, but I had the VM environment setup and did the labs in the book.

Surprisingly at my new job they are not asking for the S+ exam. I was thinking of doing that first originally but it's a bit more expensive (paying out of pocket) and I have a discount to take the MS test.

kiki1579 wrote: »

Doing just Measureup tests won't cut it, you need a 70-680 book (either Sybex or MS Press) along with a VM setup on your PC at home. The more hands on, the better. I seem to have a good run with PrepLogic.

I should have mentioned that I have the MS Press book on 70-680 and everything else in the MCITP:EA track.

kiki1579 wrote: »

Only....if you like braindumps in 4 days. It's more reasonable in a month or two. BTW please read up on Microsoft retake policies, that should give you your answers on retaking the exams, and spending $125 everytime to retake it. Thus, studying for longer than 4 days would be recommended.

I was afraid this would take months.

earweed

Probably a month or 2 if you're able to commit the time to stuying it. 2 months with no work experience with it, You would be well advised, as the above poster said, to set up a virtual lab and do the exercises in the book. Be forewarned, the book has errors which you will find and correct the hard way (by reading associated technet articles)
Good luck in your studies.

Claymoore

This is a Windows client exam not the bar exam - 2 months is overkill. It is more certainly more challenging than the Vista exam, but that's not saying much. I passed the beta exam less than a week after I passed an Exchange 2007 exam, and I didn't bother to install Windows 7 until 2 months after that. With some Windows 7 experience and targeted studying, you could pass this rather quickly. Previous Windows client exam experience would really help, both with the exam format and the material.

700 is the passing score, but that does not equal 70% correct on the exam, so 70% on a practice test may not be as good as you think. Besides, once you start taking practice exams multiple times they become less effective as an assessment tool.

Rather than focus on how long you have studied or what score you are getting on a practice exam, look over the objectives and ask if you could deliver them today. Could you build an image or deploy Branch Cache? If not, what would it take to be ready? Depending on where or when you take the exam, you might have to take the 83-680 which is mostly based around live VM simulations.

earweed

Claymoore wrote: »

This is a Windows client exam not the bar exam - 2 months is overkill. It is more certainly more challenging than the Vista exam, but that's not saying much. I passed the beta exam less than a week after I passed an Exchange 2007 exam, and I didn't bother to install Windows 7 until 2 months after that. With some Windows 7 experience and targeted studying, you could pass this rather quickly. Previous Windows client exam experience would really help, both with the exam format and the material.

700 is the passing score, but that does not equal 70% correct on the exam, so 70% on a practice test may not be as good as you think. Besides, once you start taking practice exams multiple times they become less effective as an assessment tool.

Rather than focus on how long you have studied or what score you are getting on a practice exam, look over the objectives and ask if you could deliver them today. Could you build an image or deploy Branch Cache? If not, what would it take to be ready? Depending on where or when you take the exam, you might have to take the 83-680 which is mostly based around live VM simulations.

If there's an 83-680 in the near future I'd rather wait for that. From the studying I've done so far on W7 I'd hate to have to face a large no. of multiple choice questions.

Hyper-Me

I agree with Claymoore. If you have any reasonable amount of Windows Client experience then devoting 3 hours a day for 4 days to cover the material should be sufficient.

If you are starting from scratch, a couple-three weeks would be more accurate.

petedude

Claymoore wrote: »

This is a Windows client exam not the bar exam - 2 months is overkill. .

Depends on how fast a candidate can learn the material, how much time they have available to study and on how much lab time they have to put into it. I can envision two months spent reading a book over lunch if that's all the time available for a period.

impelse

I don't know but I almost got 3 month and I bealive if I sit tomorrow this exam I would fail. I am reviewing everything, trying to understand, flash cards, some practice exams and tyr by my self some configurations, and still I do not bealived that I would sit next saturday.

Definetly THIS IS NOT AN EASY EXAM

earweed

impelse wrote: »

I don't know but I almost got 3 month and I bealive if I sit tomorrow this exam I would fail. I am reviewing everything, trying to understand, flash cards, some practice exams and tyr by my self some configurations, and still I do not bealived that I would sit next saturday.

Definetly THIS IS NOT AN EASY EXAM

I agree. An earlierposter noted the ratio of pass/fail threads for the 70-680 here on TE. Over in the WGU community they have been doing worse than those on TE. Some people may be able to do this test with a few weeks study but others may require a lot more.

LTParis

My schedule just got messed up with starting up a new contract so now I will only be able to take a test on the weekends. Oh well I am about 1/3 through the MS Press book and I'll just take my time reading up on it.

Devilsbane

LTParis wrote: »

My schedule just got messed up with starting up a new contract so now I will only be able to take a test on the weekends. Oh well I am about 1/3 through the MS Press book and I'll just take my time reading up on it.

Good luck finding a prometric testing center on a weekend. The closest to me is a 6 hour drive, so I will be leaving work to drive there, arrive around midnight and sleep, Get up early and do some last minute studying before taking the test (Last time is like noon or 1). Take the long test and look forward to a long drive home. I can't imagine how much that drive of shame home would be after a failed exam...

6 hours to think how you should have done something different.

Micernest

So guys i wanted to take this exams as an elective for my MCSE certification cos i thought it will be easier but after reading through the forum i think i should go with Exchange Server 07. What do you think? Win7 or Exchange?

veritas_libertas

Micernest wrote: »

So guys i wanted to take this exams as an elective for my MCSE certification cos i thought it will be easier but after reading through the forum i think i should go with Exchange Server 07. What do you think? Win7 or Exchange?

I highly doubt that Exchange is easier than Windows 7.

krusty83uk

veritas_libertas wrote: »

I highly doubt that Exchange is easier than Windows 7.

Feedback I heard from people that have sat both exams is the 70-680 is more challenging compared to the exchange exam.

wayers22

In my opinion, you should study for the exam that will benefit you the most. Not necessarily which one is the 'easiest'.

impelse

Yes.

Normally I study base where I need to improve