70-680 Failed

Scored 682. How long do I have to wait to retake?

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NOLAJ wrote: »

Scored 682. How long do I have to wait to retake?

sorry to hear you didnt pass.. what did u try to do differently this time??

I believe you have to wait 14 days to retake.

edit:

here is a link: Microsoft Certification Exam Policies

earweed

After first try it's 24 hours. Each subsequent try is 14 days. After 5 fails it is a year unless you can get special permission from MS to let you retake it.

NOLAJ

badboyeee wrote: »

sorry to hear you didnt pass.. what did u try to do differently this time??

I actually changed 3 answers I had marked for review. 2 of which, I have confirmed, I should have left them as they were.

badboyeee

NOLAJ wrote: »

I actually changed 3 answers I had marked for review. 2 of which, I have confirmed, I should have left them as they were.

People usually say stick with your first choice unless you are absolutely sure..

How about for study method and materials?

NOLAJ

CBT Nuggets, MS Press Book. Some labbing, should have done more.

Psoasman

Sorry to hear you didn't pass, probably 1 question away.

badboyeee

NOLAJ wrote: »

CBT Nuggets, MS Press Book. Some labbing, should have done more.

Hmmm you should try just start studying for your EDA7 exam, I've heard on here that it has helped prepare for 70-680. Maybe use Darril Gibson's 70-685/686 book?

NOLAJ

I actually ordered it a couple of days ago.

Anyone that has read it, how is the book?

Dandoz

I failed the same test this week with the same score. How about that?

I was laid off as a desktop tech in the beginning of the year in a mostly-Mac production environment. So I'm collecting unemployment and spending most of my day reading and doing the practice tests with two practice machines I built. (I've been using the OEM version of Home Premium I purchased.) I was spending some time installing and configuring Windows 2008 Server -- which I hope to go back to after I get through the Desktop exams.

I've registered for another test in two weeks. I relied mostly on the Sybex book and Skillport training (through my temp agency.) I'm re-reading everything I can to make sure I catch where I forgot things. I didn't purchase the MS book -- does anyone recommend that as a necessity? (I have the 2008 Server Kit, of course...)

The Skillport training is actually very thorough, but I found the in-depth details it provided, such as the intricate differences between the different type of logs, were not reflected as something I needed as much as situational awareness on the tests.

I thought the main thing I lacked in my resources was as much information on the various cmd line commands. For instance, I think my understanding of how Windows 7 firewall works was adequate, but I was perplexed by the syntax of some of the questions asking me to change settings with netsh.

I also went back and marked questions for review, which I know I got wrong. In my case, I wasn't sure of any of the answers in those, so I can't say it made a difference.

NOLAJ

The MS Press Book, although riddled with errors, helped me a lot.

parttimetechie

For those of you who have taken the exam and not passed, what have you found to be the most difficult aspect of it? I've got the Sybex book, but I feel like I only use the Home user functions and not much of the Deployment or Monitoring tools.

themagicone

Do NOT use the "check for review" button. The 70-680 test is highly adaptive. It will adapt the test around question you put for review. It will fail you. Also... the test adjusts to your answers on the beginning of the test. The test is designed to fail you before you start.

Piers

themagicone wrote: »

Do NOT use the "check for review" button. The 70-680 test is highly adaptive. It will adapt the test around question you put for review. It will fail you. Also... the test adjusts to your answers on the beginning of the test. The test is designed to fail you before you start.

if so, I'm going to 'check for review' all the questions I'm 100% sure of

the questions should be set by the time you see #1, you can review all the questions before you place a single check mark iirc

Essendon

themagicone wrote: »

Do NOT use the "check for review" button. The 70-680 test is highly adaptive. It will adapt the test around question you put for review. It will fail you. Also... the test adjusts to your answers on the beginning of the test. The test is designed to fail you before you start.

Wow - no one's said that before. It's widely believed that Microsoft's exams are not adaptive. I dont usually read the disclaimer that pops up before each test, but maybe it says the tests are not adaptive. Adaptive or not, you should be prepared well enough to take on any questions.

Claymoore

themagicone wrote: »

Do NOT use the "check for review" button. The 70-680 test is highly adaptive. It will adapt the test around question you put for review. It will fail you. Also... the test adjusts to your answers on the beginning of the test. The test is designed to fail you before you start.

And I suppose filling out the survey at the beginning to rank your strengths and weaknesses affects the questions as well?

Adaptive exams don't allow you to go back and review - that would invalidate their adaptive nature. Since you can go back and review either marked or unmarked questions, the test is not adaptive.

Microsoft did use adaptive tests during the NT4 days, but they were part of an overall adaptive testing solution. Different candidates could get a straight multiple choice exam, an exam with simulations, or an adaptive exam. The adaptive exams would ask you a series of baseline questions then begin to adapt based on the sucess of increasingly difficult questions. It was rumored that the Novell exams would adapt to pick on weaknesses, but the MS exams would switch among similarly difficult questions between topics without focusing too much in one area. You would be asked questions until a set question limit was reached or the test concluded you passed or failed.

I wish MS would bring back adaptive exams. The Networking Essentials exam was one of the easiest exams I ever took. I was asked the minimum number of questions and only took me 12 minutes to complete - including the survey at the beginning. I was glad to take the adaptive version of the exam rather than have to slog through 55 questions about missing coax terminators.

alokin123

it looks like MS is trying to implement new question types:
Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Introducing a New Item Type on Certification Exams - Born to Learn - Born To Learn - Born to Learn

ConradJ

parttimetechie wrote: »

For those of you who have taken the exam and not passed, what have you found to be the most difficult aspect of it? I've got the Sybex book, but I feel like I only use the Home user functions and not much of the Deployment or Monitoring tools.

I failed mine on deployment i.e. VHDs and that fun stuff. I have not used any of it in a working environment so I tend to struggle to remember which app does what - I learn by doing, not by reading.
Unfortunate, but just shows I need to do more labbing I guess.

TheSuperRuski

You should try Don Poultons book. It helped me immensely. That, paired with all of your other materials and the knowledge you have obtained since you took the test, should put you ahead of the curve. Good luck

NOLAJ

Darril Gibsons 685/686 book arrived today. Time to dive in!

ally_uk

Train Signal And MS Press book and errata and a lab set up with Server 2008 R2 and Win 7 is all you need you should smash this exam with that

themagicone

Well as far as I know the test is adaptive. That is what I've been told. Also, the WGU course mentor has presentation on it. In it he discusses how the test adapts from the answers on the survey and if you click the the review button. I may be wrong but I was just going on what I've been told by many sources.

From the power point by course mentor:

Microsoft likes to have a little “survey” before the exam starts
Answer ALL questions as middle of the road experience
It is believed that Microsoft will adapt the exam if you say you know too much or too little
DO NOT…DO NOT mark your questions for review on the test
Mark them on the erase board provided and just skip the question completely as the test may adapt to you if you mark the question for review
Microsoft sees this as you not knowing the material!!!

NOLAJ

TS: Windows 7, Configuring

The last paragraph on the page says it right there. hmmmmm, still no excuse for failing it for me.

badboyeee

NOLAJ wrote: »

TS: Windows 7, Configuring

The last paragraph on the page says it right there. hmmmmm, still no excuse for failing it for me.

Here's the quote from that webpage:

Note This preparation guide is subject to change at any time without prior notice and at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Microsoft exams might include adaptive testing technology and simulation items. Microsoft does not identify the format in which exams are presented. Please use this preparation guide to prepare for the exam, regardless of its format.

Claymoore

themagicone wrote: »

Well as far as I know the test is adaptive. That is what I've been told. Also, the WGU course mentor has presentation on it. In it he discusses how the test adapts from the answers on the survey and if you click the the review button. I may be wrong but I was just going on what I've been told by many sources.

From the power point by course mentor:

Microsoft likes to have a little “survey” before the exam starts
Answer ALL questions as middle of the road experience
It is believed that Microsoft will adapt the exam if you say you know too much or too little
DO NOT…DO NOT mark your questions for review on the test
Mark them on the erase board provided and just skip the question completely as the test may adapt to you if you mark the question for review
Microsoft sees this as you not knowing the material!!!

Your course mentor is wrong. Microsoft has not used adaptive tests in years.

Most tests include 5 or so unscored questions. I don't know for sure why the questions are there, but I always thought they were new questions that MS was beta testing for future releases of the exam. I can believe that MS would give you more unscored questions in an area that you marked a strength so they could get a better feel for the relative difficulty of the question. You would see more questions on a topic, but the percentage of scored questions would still be in line with the exam requirements.

I have taken 35 Microsoft exams if you count the passes and failures. At an average of 55 questions per test, that's 1925 questions. Of those I can only remember a few - mostly those that I know I got right due to some recent experience, and those I got wrong that somehow I figured out right after the test. I also competed in national trivia competitions both in high school and college. Again, I can only remember a few questions out of thousands, those that had some significance when I got them right or wrong.

If you take the 640 exam (for example) and mark certificates as a legitimate weakness during the survey and you come out of the test feeling like it drilled you on ADCS, you might blame the survey. But if you think back to the test and remember the 7 questions you were asked because they were hard and you struggled, you would see that 7 is 13% of 55 - which is the 13% of the objectives that are focused on ADCS. The survey had nothing to do with it. You remember the questions because they were hard, meanwhile you forgot about the 7 questions you had on recovery because you thought they were easy.

And just to mess with you further, the exam scores are rationalized so 700 does not equal 70%. In fact you can pass some exams by only correctly answering 50% of the questions.
Ten Things We Can?t Tell You - Born to Learn - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
The Truth About Scoring: 700 Does NOT Equal 70% - Born to Learn - Born To Learn - Born to Learn

N2IT

I know on my SQL exam I put I basically had 0 exposure to XML and my first 7 questions were XML related lol.

It's probably a coincidence, but I am going to try the reverse strategy next I take a MS exam.

Claymoore

N2IT wrote: »

I know on my SQL exam I put I basically had 0 exposure to XML and my first 7 questions were XML related lol.

It's probably a coincidence, but I am going to try the reverse strategy next I take a MS exam.

TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Database Development:
Working with XML Data (12 percent)
55 questions * .12 = 6.6 questions

This preparation guide is subject to change at any time without prior notice and at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Microsoft exams might include adaptive testing technology and simulation items. Microsoft does not identify the format in which exams are presented. Please use this preparation guide to prepare for the exam, regardless of its format

Adaptive testing is not the same thing as an adaptive test. Adaptive testing includes question formats such as simultations, drag and drop, multiple answer, scenarios, etc. - basically anything besides pure single answer multiple choice. An adaptive test would change questions based on the correct/incorrect results of previous questions. You cannot go back and review questions in an adaptive test.

The mark for review feature is there for your convenience. You could mark them all if you want. Answering the survey honestly can only improve the quality of the exam. When Microsoft reviews the reported candidate strengths vs the results of questions in the category, they can add/drop/change questions to make the exam better represent the required workplace skills.

Instead of spending a few hours trying to figure out how to game the exam, you could have read a couple of chapters. Guess which activity would improve your chances of passing the exam?

NOLAJ

Touche!!

Psoasman

It is frustrating to fail an exam, especially multiple times. But, if your current methods are not working, then another way is needed. I failed the 680 the first time by a few questions, because there were some questions that had 2 good answers. I got some material and did heavy labbing with an emphasis on the server side and passed the next time
You just need to know how M$ wants it done. That involves reading their material, looking over exam objectives, and labbing.
As far as the surveys go, if you could modify the exam by simply choosing various answers, M$ would shut that down ASAP.

Dandoz

I passed the 70-680 test on Wednesday, after failing it two weeks ago.

Whoever is saying the FUD about not marking for review because of the adaptive nature of the test, yadda -- it's nonsense. I recognized many of the same questions that appeared on both tests, and I marked different ones for review.

I used the Sybex book and Skillport training. The Sybex book is fairly light, has errors, but was 75% of what I needed. Skillport helped a great deal, but didn't improve much, conceptually from the Sybex -- despite going into far more detail about the workings of Windows 7.

Frustratingly, I found a lot of the question had to do with things that were hard to simulate, such as creating particular LGPO through AD DS. Yes, it definitely helps to have dabbled in Windows Server and Active Directories before.

I passed the second time because Microsoft's technet helped answer questions I couldn't figure out.

Some questions seemed frankly unfair. There was a question about running a program to figure out unverified drivers. ALL the material I have used have me memorizing using Sigverif.exe as the program to use from the cmd line, however it was not an option.

Definitely know your cmd line questions.

valen

Dandoz wrote: »

The Sybex book is fairly light, has errors, but was 75% of what I needed. Skillport helped a great deal, but didn't improve much, conceptually from the Sybex -- despite going into far more detail about the workings of Windows 7.

I'm starting to be pretty disappointed with Sybex materials