Couple of questions about MCITP:SA (70-640 specifically)

dexterryu

So my company is going for MS Gold competency(we have till the end of April to maintain our gold partnership level) and I've been assigned to get my MCITP:SA. I was planning on doing this anyway and I've began to prepare for it. My company has a subscription to both CBTNuggets and some practice teststo help us prepare.

Since I've not taken any MS Exams in a long time (NT4 was the last time) I was hoping you guys could review my exam prep plan and perhaps throw me some tips. So here is my study plan. I've set up a VMLab with a couple of 2k8 R2 domain controllers and a windows 7 client.

Watch all the CBTNuggets for the exam (70-640 first). Then go through all the labs for in the MS Press book for the exam. Followed by that, I'll run through a couple of practice tests. Then go back and re-watch/re-lab the areas of weekness. At the moment I'm about 1/3rd through the videos and will probably finish them next week.

Normally I'd think I'd be OK with this but in my research on this forum and on the MS technet forums I've seen some rumblings of the exam being updated with R2 and none of my study materials have coverage on that. So if anyone has some good links or if anyone who's taken it recently can recommend some things to study up on it would be much appriciated.

As far as actual work experience goes... I know my way around AD but am pretty rusty (until changing jobs about 6 months ago I was primarily focused on Cisco VoIP). I'm hoping to get 70-640 done by halloween and the 642 before the holidays.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any tips/advice.

troyt93955

I am in the exact same boat, my company offerd to buy the CBT for me, but i am affraid that I will be waising money.

za3bour

Welcome to TE, I've got my MCITP-SA last week so I'm still fresh I think you have all the resources needed for the exams personally I thought that 70-640 and 70-642 were not difficult but they need a lot of study and to be prepared BUT I've done them before the R2 shift so I think now they will reflect R2 as announced by MS.

You definitely need to lab with R2 like you're doing now but I recommend that you get a book about R2 there are two good ones Mastering R2 and R2 Unleached both are good resources.

The reason for this is that there are a lot of terms that have changed and there are new features added by R2 .

As for 70-646 this particular exam I thought was hard mainly because I wasn't prepared for R2 questions but still I got many of them and all the questions mentioned R2 servers but the answer itself wasn't necessary R2 related so it was a confusing issue.

I do the same strategy minus the CBT I lab a lot and read every book twice I recommend that you get the Sybex books if you can (for all exams) they do contain some extra info that is not mentioned in MS book. I usually read each book twice lab a lot then do the practice exams and I take notes all the time so one day before the exam I just read my notes.

One last tip, make sure you have a big meal before you head to the center I wish you good luck and I'm sure other members have other info for you.

Here is a doc about changes in Windows 2008 R2

Download details: Changes in Functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2

marcels

I use the CBTNuggets and think that they are great. I remember having to watch NT4 videos and going insane with the boring presenters, I actually found myself giggling at James Conrad's stories.

I passed the 70-640 last month, there were a few R2 questions that had me worried, but I went into the exam with no knowledge that any R2 questions would feature. Like za3bour's suggested use R2 when you build your labs.

earweed

Also since you have AD experience youy may want to change the order of exams and do the 642 first. A lot of people on here have done that and have gotten good results.
Good luck with your studies!

dexterryu

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Wow Za3bour, that's a lot of reading. I'm hoping not to have to read all that much (not that I mind it, but I'm just a terribly slow reader) and I've got until the end of April to get these 3 exams passed... no way I could read all 1200 pages of those books once, no less twice . At the moment, I plan to use the books to supplement the videos in area's of weakness that my practice tests identify.

I thought about doing the 70-642 first, but it's covering material that I'm a bit more comfortable with. I've just did Net + a couple of weeks and work quite a bit with Cisco stuff so I'm pretty solid with subnetting and TCP/IP. So my plan is to get the one that I think will be hardest for me done first. I'm not sure where the 646 stands, but my MCITP:SA co-worker said that's the easiest one of the bunch.

At the moment I'm at exactly the 50% mark through the videos. I'm going to finish them up sometime this weekend. Then it's lab time (in addition to me following along real time with the vids on my VM).

I also got some other good news from work... they purchases a bunch of exam vouchers for us to use and each have a free 2nd chance with them as well. That lessens the stress a little bit.

za3bour

Well I like to be confident about each exam I have so by reading a lot I benefit more I'm sure you can do these exams by April actually I think you will do it faster than this.

It doesn't really matter how much you read, it's the labbing that matters more because once you've tried it yourself whether it's a command or a setup or whatever it is it will be stick in your memory.

Good luck for you, if you have any question please feel free to ask, there are lot of members here that would love to help (including me)

dexterryu

Just figure'd I'd post a quick update. Finished the CBT series last sunday and have been going through the labs of from the 640 MS press book.

That's been going much slower than I anticipated (plan to finish chapters 10-13 today). Was a busy work week so I didn't get as much time to dedicate.

I also feel like I'm going to have to hunker down and read the chapters/lessons on DNS, RODC, FSMO, and Certificates. We'll see as I've the practice questions I've tried have been destroying me.

The goal now is to finish this first test by mid-nov (2 weeks longer than I anticipated).

earweed

Good luck with your studies. Be sure to learn certificate services well as the test covers them pretty heavily and they get revisited on subsequent tests.

dexterryu

How big a part are AD LDS and ADFS (v2)?

I know the very basic 10000 ft overview of these, but not much of the details as of yet.

za3bour

dexterryu wrote: »

How big a part are AD LDS and ADFS (v2)?

I know the very basic 10000 ft overview of these, but not much of the details as of yet.

There is not much about them in the books as well I don't think it will be a problem for you

dexterryu

Quick update...

I've been finished with the materials and labs for about a week and a half now. I've been going through the practice tests provided with the MS Press 70-640 book. I started around 70% and I'm now regularly scoring at or above 90%.

My exam is scheduled for next Wednesday. You guys think I'm ready based on the test scores? My buddy who's got his MCITP:SA said that he felt the included Measure UP tests were actually harder than the exam. If that is so, I feel pretty comfortable.

My only other worry at this point would be some R2 questions that I haven't been able to practice test on.

As always, I appreciate the input of this board.

marcels

Yea, I'd say your ready. I was only getting around 80% in the mock exams and passed.

For the R2 questions just try an understand the terms and have a basic understanding, that way you at least know what are the wrong answers and improve your odds if your not 100% sure.

Good luck, Let us know how you do.

LCA

I sat 640 about 3 weeks ago, I found the two toughest topics were certificates and group policy. The questions on those two topics were very technical. That said a good working knowledge of all of AD is essential to success in this exam.

Of all the exams I've done so far AD was a topic that I loved so I really enjoyed both studying and doing the actual exam. For study I read the active directory reskit and certificates book by Brian Komar. The bulk of my reading was a huge diet of the active directory stuff in the Technet Library.

And of course many weeks of labbing stuff on VM's and actual machines.

dexterryu

marcels wrote: »

Yea, I'd say your ready. I was only getting around 80% in the mock exams and passed.

For the R2 questions just try an understand the terms and have a basic understanding, that way you at least know what are the wrong answers and improve your odds if your not 100% sure.

Good luck, Let us know how you do.

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to keep working on the practice tests until my exam next week. I've even scheduled tuesday(day before) as a cram day to make sure I re-watch the videos on certificate services, DNS, and Group policy... and will then go through even more mock exams/tech net.