70-686 similar to 70-680

My_Brain_Hurts

I've done 70-680 and am now studying 70-686. I'm halfway through the CBT Nuggets videos and it all seems awfully familiar.

So much of the material I am reading seems to have already been covered by 780, and perhaps in more depth. I even find myself disagreeing with the instructor on points! (e.g. imagex vs dism)

Is it just the course, or is so much of it repeated?

QHalo

70-680/85/86 cover Windows 7 from pretty much all aspects, 70-681 falls in there too though. You will notice overlap.

My_Brain_Hurts

QHalo wrote: »

70-680/85/86 cover Windows 7 from pretty much all aspects, 70-681 falls in there too though. You will notice overlap.

Well, sure I expected some overlap, but I've done half the Nuggets course and so far the only topics that are different from 680 are IEAK and GPO Processing. All the rest have been covered by 680 before and in similar (or greater) depth.

I dunno, maybe the course suddenly veers away in the second half? At the moment, I feel I could almost get a passing mark in the exam without even reading the rest of the course material.

Devilsbane

My_Brain_Hurts wrote: »

I dunno, maybe the course suddenly veers away in the second half? At the moment, I feel I could almost get a passing mark in the exam without even reading the rest of the course material.

This isn't new though. When I was studying for the 70-270 (implementing XP) I took some 70-271 (supporting users and troubleshooting on XP) and scored like 80%.

I haven't had the time to take the 271 or 272 yet, but I'm planning on busting through the nuggets in about a week and taking the test.

MentholMoose

There is a lot of overlap on these two exams. I took 686 first and basically didn't have to study for the 680. The 680 exam at that time was primarily deployment stuff that was covered on 686.

My_Brain_Hurts

MentholMoose wrote: »

There is a lot of overlap on these two exams. I took 686 first and basically didn't have to study for the 680. The 680 exam at that time was primarily deployment stuff that was covered on 686.

It does seem an odd mix/division of topics in the study material and the exams:

For example, in my 680 exam, I encountered 2 questions that were only included in the study guide for 686, not 680 (I checked when I got home).

Now I am 3/4 of the way through studying 686, I am yet to find anything significant that was not included in the 680 study guide. It's all a bit odd, really.

MentholMoose

My_Brain_Hurts wrote: »

For example, in my 680 exam, I encountered 2 questions that were only included in the study guide for 686, not 680 (I checked when I got home).

Do you mean the MS Press guide for 680? If so, your observation seems understandable given the poor feedback it has received here.

My_Brain_Hurts

MentholMoose wrote: »

Do you mean the MS Press guide for 680? If so, your observation seems understandable given the poor feedback it has received here.

Yes.

I was (very) aware that it was poorly written and full of syntactical errors, but for at least 2 questions, the command/tool was not even mentioned in that book. (I am not going to break NDA by being more specific)

Fortunately, I had used them in the real world, so I could answer the questions, but having them entirely absent from the official guide is just not fair.