70-646/7 - End of bootcamps ?

Obviously I am not allowed to say any specifics, but I noticed something with those exams. They finally made some good changes to these exams which we would all appreciate.

We have a customer who operates a bootcamp for Microsoft exams and we now provide a service in return for seats (approved by Microshaft and guaranteed no ****).

We have sent quite a few people who wanted to do the MCITP:SA and every single one of them failed the last exam.

I signed up for the exam myself as obviously they weren't allowed to discuss specifics (apart from 'I failed and it is a lot harder').

I already passed the SA and EA a while ago but I wanted to see what it is about - and damn - no wonder they all failed ....

Glad to see this kind of change though .. I hope this is being implemented in a lot more exams.

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cyberguypr

Are you talking about the testlets? You can definitely say more without violating the NDA.

jibbajabba

cyberguypr wrote: »

Are you talking about the testlets? You can definitely say more without violating the NDA.

Talking about Scenarios

Mojo_666

I can't see how you break NDA by telling us the exam format?

jibbajabba

Mojo_666 wrote: »

I can't see how you break NDA by telling us the exam format?

Basically in addition to multiple choice questions you now get a scenario of multiple pages which you need to read. You then are presented with a set of questions of which all answers might be right, but some answeres are better than others ...

TheShadow

Gomjaba wrote: »

Talking about Scenarios

Scenarios do not sound new, I believe that they existed in the msce 2003 security exams 298 and 299. Cratered a lot of people as I recall. Read the case study and do the testlet before moving to the next one. The case studies were loaded with traps if you did not pay attention. Some info was important other info was useless or had no bearing on the testlet.

jibbajabba

TheShadow wrote: »

Scenarios do not sound new, I believe that they existed in the msce 2003 security exams 298 and 299. Cratered a lot of people as I recall. Read the case study and do the testlet before moving to the next one. The case studies were loaded with traps if you did not pay attention. Some info was important other info was useless or had no bearing on the testlet.

Not saying they're new... But certainly new for the MCITP ones

Mojo_666

TheShadow wrote: »

Scenarios do not sound new, I believe that they existed in the msce 2003 security exams 298 and 299. Cratered a lot of people as I recall. Read the case study and do the testlet before moving to the next one. The case studies were loaded with traps if you did not pay attention. Some info was important other info was useless or had no bearing on the testlet.

It sounds like the 2003 track design exams in general.

earweed

This is new to the MCITP exams. Probably in response to a lot of people finding the Pro exams easy. MS had a proven method to make the exams harder and they are using it.
Hopefully their new approach doesn't come up and kick my arse.

Claymoore

Gomjaba wrote: »

I signed up for the exam myself as obviously they weren't allowed to discuss specifics (apart from 'I failed and it is a lot harder').

I already passed the SA and EA a while ago but I wanted to see what it is about - and damn - no wonder they all failed ....

If you already have the EA and SA, how were you allowed to register and take the 646 and 647 exams again?

I took the 647 a couple of years ago and it was one of the easiest MS exams I have taken. I'm all for making exams appropriately difficult, but changing the 646/7 to design exams like the 297/8 and 285 is a terrible idea. More labs are the answer, not more case studies.

jibbajabba

Claymoore wrote: »

If you already have the EA and SA, how were you allowed to register and take the 646 and 647 exams again?

You're not. I wasn't aware of it to be honest and it turned out neither was the bird on the phone at Prometric who gladly took my 100% voucher.

After three days result 'pending' it dropped to cancelled

with the original still sitting on 'passed'

LOL - just notice something else. On the 'passed' one apparently I registered Sept. 19, 2009 but passed Oct. 15, 2008 ... Interesting ..

Anyway - back to topic .. I really hope they get even more difficult, even if it means failing once or twice, but at least it puts some value back onto your resume.

Having said that - I am more a vSphere guy now and maybe Exchange - I don't even want to work in big 2008 AD environments - would swap that for a vSphere server any day

What I don't like with those scenario / case studies is that you really have to answer what Microsoft wants you to - not necessarily what's best practise in the real world.

But yea - I'd love to see more labs .. I intend to sit 662/3 Feb. and Mar. and I really hope they do a LOT of labs rather than stupid click and next

Edit: Just tried to register online again and indeed, you get the message that you can't re-sit. Random ...