643 overlap with 646 exam

Jander1023

Hello all,

I am currently studying for the 646 exam. There seems to be a lot of overlap of the 643 exam on the 646. I haven't taken the 643 yet but I have the book. I want to avoid reading the entire book but would like to read some of it to help with the 646. Any recommendations from people with the 646 and 643 exams completed would be greatly appreciated.

Povilas

Yes, lots of topics are covered both in 646 and 643. In 643 they are covered in depth while in 646 touches only surface of topics like IIS and RDS, but also covers topics that are not in 643. So, if you take 640, 642 and 643 first, then you can skip certain topics for 646 and probably pass. But this advice is not valid if you planing to take exams in different order - it's very doubtful that you would pass 643 using only 646 book.

alokin123

i studied for 70-646 and 70-643 at the same time and i found one helped the other and in fact i reckon some of the questions i got on the 70-646 exam could easily have been on the 70-643 and vice versa.
You will find the same overlap between 70-640 and 70-647. I did those to exams about a week apart

Jander1023

What I'm really hoping for is that somebody that has already completed both certification exams can tell me, "Just read two or three chapters from the 643 book and that will really help on the 646 exam." Because I'd hate to have to read the entire book. Reading just a few select chapters would take less time, plus I could focus more on a smaller amount of data.

Anyway, I plan on taking the 643 in July after the 646 in June. I've already completed the 640 and 642. I feel good about the material but the application server info is def my weakest area. I'd hate to fail the 646 exam because I didn't read a few chapters from a book I already own!

earweed

Several people here have taken both tests and I remember some of their postings about the 646. Za3bour posted quite a bit about it but I can't find his old post. The 646 is now structured with scenarios and multiple choice questions (like the 647) and it does contain quite a bit of info from the 643. I was considering taking the 646 but due to time and life getting in the way I just don't have time for it.
You could probably PM za3bour and he may give you more info on what it would be helpful for you to study from the 643 book. One thing to consider is that the 646 test, like the 647, is more of a "why and when would you use this technology/ approach" than a "how do I use this technology". This is not to say that the test wont ak some questions on how to use a technology. The 647 asked a particular question about one technology (not covered in the book) and asked a how to implement it question. I had to go the google route to find the answer later and found that I had missed the question.
Don't forget that it now contains R2 technology and the tests may also ask questions about other MS technologies, such as forefront, which are not necessarily Server 2008 R2 technologies.

Jander1023

earweed wrote: »

Several people here have taken both tests and I remember some of their postings about the 646. Za3bour posted quite a bit about it but I can't find his old post. The 646 is now structured with scenarios and multiple choice questions (like the 647) and it does contain quite a bit of info from the 643. I was considering taking the 646 but due to time and life getting in the way I just don't have time for it.
You could probably PM za3bour and he may give you more info on what it would be helpful for you to study from the 643 book. One thing to consider is that the 646 test, like the 647, is more of a "why and when would you use this technology/ approach" than a "how do I use this technology". This is not to say that the test wont ak some questions on how to use a technology. The 647 asked a particular question about one technology (not covered in the book) and asked a how to implement it question. I had to go the google route to find the answer later and found that I had missed the question.
Don't forget that it now contains R2 technology and the tests may also ask questions about other MS technologies, such as forefront, which are not necessarily Server 2008 R2 technologies.

Yeah, I remember some of those threads by Zabour but couldn't find them either. Grrrr! Maybe I'll just read the entire 643 book. It's only about 500 pages. I could prob knock it out over a long weekend.