Failed 70-284. What the....
S@N
Member Posts: 8 ■□□□□□□□□□
Righto, so this is my fifth MS exam. The 270, 290, 291 & 293 I found very easy. I scored around 90% on all, and completed them all in about 40 mins. Only study material was the MS press kit.
For the 284, I used the Press Kit, ExamCram2, as well as other resources from Elementk (the website I train through)... I made up cluster servers. Multiple server environments, Address lists, Contacts, users the lot. I've also been working with exchange 2003 for the past 3 years, as the administrator for a medium sized business. I've spent the last three months pretty much devoting all my spare time to this exam, I work full time (and on call 24/7) and am a parent so it's not easy.
I thought I had all this stuff down. I was pretty confident going in, but the exam was brutal. The questions were excessively verbose, there were lots of diagrams, poorly worded choices. A few questions I wouldn't have done ANYTHING they suggested.
So many questions on ISA integration when the study material barely touched on it. (ISA 2006?!? Has the 2003 exam been upgraded? Am I using old study material?)
Lots on 5.5 integration, which was tough for me as I couldn't obtain a copy of 5.5, so I had to resort to reading everything I could on it.
Lots of question on connectors. I thought I was pretty good in this department, but they seemed to have a lot of conditions and tricks.
Looking at the fail sheet, I failed pretty much evenly across the board. As this if my first fail I'm taking it pretty hard. I feel like the last 3 months have been a huge waste. Since it's so evenly spread I'm not even sure where I should start from to pick up results. I was looking forward to a holiday at the end of the year, now I feel like I need to take time off just to head to a library.
I'm frustrated and disappointed, but mostly I'm lost as to how to do better.
/end rant.
EDIT: As this is the last once before MCSA, I dont want to just give up, but am pretty disheartened at this point.
For the 284, I used the Press Kit, ExamCram2, as well as other resources from Elementk (the website I train through)... I made up cluster servers. Multiple server environments, Address lists, Contacts, users the lot. I've also been working with exchange 2003 for the past 3 years, as the administrator for a medium sized business. I've spent the last three months pretty much devoting all my spare time to this exam, I work full time (and on call 24/7) and am a parent so it's not easy.
I thought I had all this stuff down. I was pretty confident going in, but the exam was brutal. The questions were excessively verbose, there were lots of diagrams, poorly worded choices. A few questions I wouldn't have done ANYTHING they suggested.
So many questions on ISA integration when the study material barely touched on it. (ISA 2006?!? Has the 2003 exam been upgraded? Am I using old study material?)
Lots on 5.5 integration, which was tough for me as I couldn't obtain a copy of 5.5, so I had to resort to reading everything I could on it.
Lots of question on connectors. I thought I was pretty good in this department, but they seemed to have a lot of conditions and tricks.
Looking at the fail sheet, I failed pretty much evenly across the board. As this if my first fail I'm taking it pretty hard. I feel like the last 3 months have been a huge waste. Since it's so evenly spread I'm not even sure where I should start from to pick up results. I was looking forward to a holiday at the end of the year, now I feel like I need to take time off just to head to a library.
I'm frustrated and disappointed, but mostly I'm lost as to how to do better.
/end rant.
EDIT: As this is the last once before MCSA, I dont want to just give up, but am pretty disheartened at this point.
When in doubt, GTFO
Comments
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Claymoore
Member Posts: 1,637
284 is a tough test and I failed it on my first attempt. The MSTK had poor reviews and I went with the Sybex study guide. I don't think the Sybex book alone was good enough and I bought the Exchange 2003 Resource Kit to review my weak areas. I passed 285 a couple weeks later and then passed 284 easily on a second shot a week after that. I was trying to sqeeze both in before one of the second shot offers expired and rushed my prep a bit. -
mikedisd2
Member Posts: 1,096 ■■■■■□□□□□
The 70-284 has no real good learning resources; even CBT Nuggets was fairly average on this one. You've failed once, so what? Go over the material again and resit the exam; you'll get a different set of questions and you'll have a different experience. I failed 270, 290, 291, 294 and CCENT the first time around. If you can do 293 in 40 minutes, you'll get this one sure enough.