70-298 is scheduled...

Shadly1

I committed to June 29th and I bought a second shot. It was another $18 to add that to a single voucher purchase. Totally worth it.

Nervous about this one. Nervous about all of them but this one is somewhat unfamiliar territory. I am confident in what I know, I'm just a little sketchy about how to figure out the questions and how to weed out the important stuff from all the filler words in the case studies. I'm really worried about running out of time on the testlets.

I read the Self-Paced Training Kit and feel pretty good about that. Not too much new information there. A few odds and ends. I watched all the videos for the MS 2830B course. Took me all of a day. Now I'm doing MeasureUp. If I could get comfortable with this format, I should be OK.

Devilsbane

Good luck! You will certainly need it on this monsterous test. I don't know what advice I can give you other than don't get discouraged. I was quite convinced that I had failed when I was in the 3rd testlet. Kept going just to try and learn as much as I could for next time. Time is an issue on this.

It is extremely difficult to filter out things. I assume for each case study they have dozens of possible questions. For example, the case study will say something about how their wireless should be protected but then you don't actually have a question involving wireless in that testlet.

I used a mixed approach. Some of them I previewed questions on and others I just read through everything and took notes first. I'm not sure which approach worked better. Transcenders helped prepare me for the format, but not as much as they typically do.

Shadly1

I'm just going to jot down everything I'm unclear on and brush up on the topic. It's not the end of the world if I don't pass on the first shot. It would be nice though. MeasureUp has case study format questions so a week or so of that ought to toughen me up. I haven't tried the timed mode yet but I'd imagine it's pretty close to reality once the clock goes up.

Psoasman

Good luck! Bring back the pass!

Shadly1

Well I just wasted $18 on a second shot voucher... because I passed the first time!!! Now I'm going to take a nap and earn some money. In that order

Devilsbane

Shadly1 wrote: »

Well I just wasted $18 on a second shot voucher... because I passed the first time!!! Now I'm going to take a nap and earn some money. In that order

Congrats! You are a better man than I. What was the score?

Shadly1

Nailed this one. I got an 833. I think that's been the magic number around here lately.

Shadly1

Hey, where do I go now? I don't see a forum or even any posts about the 70-649

Devilsbane

Shadly1 wrote: »

Hey, where do I go now? I don't see a forum or even any posts about the 70-649

The MCTS and MCITP boards aren't layed out very well. Maybe in the coming months when the XP/2003 exams start to fall the MCSA/E, Security, and MCDST boards will be consolidated and the new stuff expanded.

In the meantime, there looks to be 3 areas. Windows Vista, Windows 7, and then everything else. I believe 649 will fall into the everything else category. MCTS / MCITP on Windows 2008 General - TechExams.net IT Certification Forums

I have a post over there that you might find interesting about upgrading. http://www.techexams.net/forums/mcts-mcitp-windows-2008-general/62302-upgrade-mcse-mcitp-ea-sa.html If not, it is just a shameless plug

Cthu1hu

Congrats on the pass!! What is it with that 833 score? Must be the top score if I, Devilsbane and now you have gotten it haha.

Devilsbane

CthulthuDawn wrote: »

Congrats on the pass!! What is it with that 833 score? Must be the top score if I, Devilsbane and now you have gotten it haha.

My 833 was on the 299 though. 298 was a perfect 700.

Shadly1

My test experience was actually a pretty good one. I am really liking the testlet format and I'm glad I'm going to get more of them. My little system seemed to do the trick. I would bring up the first question, read the case study, then answer all the questions in the testlet, then go back and "correct" any ones that can be disproven in the case study with the rest of my time. The case study adds so much information to it that they pretty much give you the answer written a couple of different ways. That was always a big pet peave of mine with the regular style of testing... vague questions. The answer could be this or could be this, which one is righter? It takes me 10-12 minutes to read the case studies and jot down a full page of important factoids. I found that for the testlets that were around 16 minutes, time was tight but doable. For the ones that were like 20 minutes or more... that was a lot of time. Gave me a chance to close my eyes and breathe to calm my anxiety a little. Testlets with low numbers of questions really took me about the same amount of time to do as testlets with high numbers of questions. Maybe only 2 minutes difference tops. It was nice to be able to focus on bite size chunks as opposed to the test as a whole. I found myself not doing "time math" throughout the test. Instead, I was telling myself the percentages I think I got for each testlet. "That was a solid 90%" or "Totally nailed that one!"

Shadly1

CthulthuDawn wrote: »

Congrats on the pass!! What is it with that 833 score? Must be the top score if I, Devilsbane and now you have gotten it haha.

Makes up for my last 2 700s.

Shadly1

Devilsbane wrote: »

The MCTS and MCITP boards aren't layed out very well. Maybe in the coming months when the XP/2003 exams start to fall the MCSA/E, Security, and MCDST boards will be consolidated and the new stuff expanded.

In the meantime, there looks to be 3 areas. Windows Vista, Windows 7, and then everything else. I believe 649 will fall into the everything else category. MCTS / MCITP on Windows 2008 General - TechExams.net IT Certification Forums

I have a post over there that you might find interesting about upgrading. http://www.techexams.net/forums/mcts-mcitp-windows-2008-general/62302-upgrade-mcse-mcitp-ea-sa.html If not, it is just a shameless plug

Your posts are actually the only ones I could find... and they're asking the same questions I have

Cthu1hu

Shadly1 wrote: »

Your posts are actually the only ones I could find... and they're asking the same questions I have

Haha same here!

Devilsbane wrote: »

My 833 was on the 299 though. 298 was a perfect 700.

833 was my 299 score and 298 I did 784.

Shadly1

I printed my cert today so now it's officially official.

Psoasman

Congrats on the pass!

Dakinggamer87

Congrats on pass!!

DragonNOA1

Shadly1 wrote: »

I printed my cert today so now it's officially official.

Congrads! And I'm glad the format was to your liking as many people do not seem to enjoy it very much I am still smiling about my MCSE even weeks after passing so keep on enjoying that new cert.

Devilsbane

Shadly1 wrote: »

I printed my cert today so now it's officially official.

I downloaded it to see it, but I paid for the real thing. I've been holding out for awhile so that I could save money since they charge $9.99 for the first and $.99 for each extra. So I have 2 MCSE:S, a MCSE, MCSA:S, and MCDST coming.

They were supposed to have arrived last week, so I think I have some complaining to do.

Johnny Johnson

Congratulations on the pass and your new MCSE!

This test will be coming up for me in 2 or 3 weeks. I'm getting ready to start the Transcender today. I see what you're talking about as far as the case studies go. This is definitely a different format than the other exams.

Would you recommend reading the case study first and jotting down any info you think is important, or reading the questions first and then going to the case study to find the possible answers?