MCTS 70-681 Questions... Please Help!

jlikover

Hey All,

I am registered to take the MCTS 70-681 Deploying Windows 7 Exam next week and have a couple of questions.

1.) Is there anywhere I could get sample test questions specifically for 70-681? I've been google-ing but all I have came up with our the DEMO exams through different websites which only offer 8 or 9 questions. Is it worth paying the $60 or so bucks to have their practice exams/questions which they gaurantee you'll pass or your money back?

-people have mentioned that I just look at 70-680 practice exams but much of the configuring doesn't seem applicable (IE, Power Settings, etc.)-

2.) I am also trying to set-up a virtual environment using VMWare Player but am not really sure where to start. I want to practice deploying using all the different tools. I know I can install the 90-Day Enterprise Trial on one machine but how would I get Win 7 on a "Client" computer to deploy an image to for free?

Any help, tips and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated... I recently graduated college and having never taken a certification exam, not really sure what to expect!

Claymoore

jlikover wrote: »

Hey All,

I am registered to take the MCTS 70-681 Deploying Windows 7 Exam next week and have a couple of questions.

1.) Is there anywhere I could get sample test questions specifically for 70-681? I've been google-ing but all I have came up with our the DEMO exams through different websites which only offer 8 or 9 questions. Is it worth paying the $60 or so bucks to have their practice exams/questions which they gaurantee you'll pass or your money back?

-people have mentioned that I just look at 70-680 practice exams but much of the configuring doesn't seem applicable (IE, Power Settings, etc.)-

If you can find practice questions for the 686 exam, those would work well for the 681. Deployment is only one section of the 680, while deployment is the majority of the 686 and 681 exams. I found the 681 deployment questions to be more challenging than the 686, but it would be a good start.

As to whether practice exams are worth the money or are a useful study tool, that is another discussion entirely. I rarely use them, but someone taking their first certification exam would find them helpful as a way to prep for the exam format.

jlikover wrote: »

2.) I am also trying to set-up a virtual environment using VMWare Player but am not really sure where to start. I want to practice deploying using all the different tools. I know I can install the 90-Day Enterprise Trial on one machine but how would I get Win 7 on a "Client" computer to deploy an image to for free?

Any help, tips and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated... I recently graduated college and having never taken a certification exam, not really sure what to expect!

If you are going to take more than one certification exam, then it is worth building a real lab. One purpose-built workstation with plenty of RAM would allow you to run a real server hypervisor (I prefer Hyper-V) and multiple guests - pretty much everything you would need for this exam and many others. Adding a second server would allow you to run the Microsoft iSCSI target software and you could lab clustering and failover scenarios. Money spent building your lab is more effective as a training investment than money spent on practice questions.

For 681, you at least need one 2008R2 server to host WDS and MDT and a couple of guest workstations to practice the deployments. You really should build out a second server with SCCM to lab some OSD deployments as well.

rmaster1

Thanks for this information Claymoore! I started studying for the 686 today and thought about going for the 681 too as they seem to have a lot of overlap. I'm hoping to study for both at the same time and take them one after another. Aside from the Office stuff in 681 are they fairly similar or am I fooling myself?

Claymoore

rmaster1 wrote: »

Thanks for this information Claymoore! I started studying for the 686 today and thought about going for the 681 too as they seem to have a lot of overlap. I'm hoping to study for both at the same time and take them one after another. Aside from the Office stuff in 681 are they fairly similar or am I fooling myself?

You aren't fooling yourself, there is quite a bit of overlap. I took the 681 when it was in beta, took 686 the same day, and passed both. The 681 deployment questions are more in-depth than the 686, but there is about an 80% overlap in topics with the other 20% either Office 2010 deployment or group policy management depending on the exam.

Honestly I would not bother taking the 681 unless you work for an MS partner and need the cert to deliver deployment planning services engagements. Yes, the 681 counts as a client exam towards the EA, but the 680 is a better-rounded Win7 cert and the 681 does not count towards the EDA. Since you already have the 680 you don't need an EA client exam. You would be better served spending money on other exams in the EA track.

rmaster1

I'm taking the 686 to get the EDA for work as I'll be heading up a fairly large Win 7 deployment in the next year. I get a bonus if I pass 4 certs this year, so the 681 is purely for financial gain to be honest. I hate to admit it, but I see it as the easiest test to pass after the 686 solely because of the large overlap. My biggest concern with the 681 is the lack of study materials available. As always, thanks for your advice, it's very helpful!

jyrki.arpiainen

Little late for this but i comment anyway.

I have thinking whether studying more deployment stuff and passing 681 would do good to my nonexistent career...
About practice tests; ONLY good/legal one i could find was from ucertify.com -and i downloaded their demo.

Though i am labbing stuff (and even documenting my practices in to my webpage so that everyone can see that i have done that, instead of dumping) i still want to use practice tests as final thing before taking exams.

It's been my formula of success 12 times for now.
1. Read the book if available
2. Practice stuff with virtual /real machines
3. Videos. When i'm so full of reading that i can't take it anymore - i'll watch some video lectures. I noticed that my brains can still be feeded with information flow from videos in that phase! :P

4. After i have seen some progress i'll start testing myself with practice exams in study mode. I don't do this right from the beginning (this is important) because then i'll end up remembering answers before actually knowing material, and then test becomes useless.

So far i have done pretty well, just few fails. But i have prepared myself few months per each exam. Couple ones 70-299 and 70-649 took whole year.
Security one took so long because i was busy at work that time. I passed it right away after i was fired -and had time.. . .

Anyhow. I like practice test's. They're good to set mental state ready for exams.