Aiming for MCSE, do 297 or 298?

theitpro

Been reading some posts and it seems 297 is way harder.

hyperrawr9000

I am having trouble deciding between these as well. Ive seen people say both are easy and both are hard. Judging from my attempts at studying for them so far, both are also rather boring.

Asif Dasl

I've seen many fail 297 so I am going 298 myself...

Cthu1hu

When I went this route I went for the 298. That test I can comment on, its a different format. Basically the answers are there, in the case study, combine what you know and look for what you need in the case study. The key trick is to read the questions first. Using that method made it a lot easier. If i were to do it again I would choose 298.

S@N

I was having a similar problem, pretty much this is my last exam for MCSE, and security is probably my weakest area, so I picked security in hopes of improving.

However I'm 1/3 of the way through the MS Press kit (what I've used for all my exams in the past) and I don't feel like I've learned anything. At all.

The lady that wrote it seems to just waffle on incoherently with very little structure, and aside from being boring as hell, nothing is sinking in. I tend to learn things by doing, and so far there's very little doing and extremely large amounts of text.

What else are you guys using? I only use the MS-Press kit because it's part of the online course that I payed for . I think I might actually have to buy some separate material this time because the MS-press kit is preparing me like the troops were prepared for the beach head at Normandy.

Devilsbane

Both the 297 and the 298 are in that case study format.

I did the 298, and it is the hardest one I've ever taken. Picking up a book for it just wasn't enough. Most of the material is already known, if you have passed all of the other exams then you have touched all of this stuff. The hard part is going from being knowledgable about a topic to understanding a topic.

If I asked you to explain to me IPSec, I have no doubts that I could. But if I give you a listing of my requirements and then ask how it should be configured, you are probably going to do a doubletake.

Have you ever heard of blooms taxonomy? Check it out here Bloom's Taxonomy The basic principal is that there are different levels of knowledge. Basic knowledge is pure memorization. Anybody can remember something like RDP uses port 3389. This is why Comptia exams are a lot easier, they focus in the knowledge area. Microsoft takes a step up on that, and the design exam even more.

A normal Microsoft exam is in the bottom 3-4 layers. The design exams have a little bit in each layer.

vicz

S@N wrote: »

I was having a similar problem, pretty much this is my last exam for MCSE, and security is probably my weakest area, so I picked security in hopes of improving.

However I'm 1/3 of the way through the MS Press kit (what I've used for all my exams in the past) and I don't feel like I've learned anything. At all.

The lady that wrote it seems to just waffle on incoherently with very little structure, and aside from being boring as hell, nothing is sinking in. I tend to learn things by doing, and so far there's very little doing and extremely large amounts of text.

What else are you guys using? I only use the MS-Press kit because it's part of the online course that I payed for . I think I might actually have to buy some separate material this time because the MS-press kit is preparing me like the troops were prepared for the beach head at Normandy.

Same view on that book, i read the first chapter on CA hierarchy & was like wtf....luckily i started watching the CBT nuggets series and at least it goes a long way in explaining the topic. I supplement the books with these vids & it has gotten me this far so fingers crossed this info starts sticking