Microsoft making the exam harder after multiple attempts.

jmasterj206

That is what my course mentor is telling me. I would think all the questions come out of a pool. I'm sure they are trying to weed people out, but do they really make them more difficult?

method115

Do you mean they are making the exam harder after you fail the first time?

I've just started studying for the 70-640 I'm about half way through the MS press books. Honestly a lot of the stuff I read on this forum is discouraging to say the least. The test seems very hard and apparently involves a lot of tricky questions.

As someone who just finished getting his CCNA it sucks to read stuff like that. The thing I loved about the CCNA test is that it didn't involve a lot of tricky stuff. Even the questions were pretty much clear and concise and didn't try to trick you into picking a wrong answer.

I'm going to make sure I study long and hard for this test I have train-signal and CBT videos ready after I'm done reading. I'm going to make sure I know this stuff inside and out. My job pays for my certs but only if I pass and I can't afford not to.

Psoasman

I'm sure the questions come out of a pool and I suspect they change up the questions often. I also think the overly long, wordy questions are one way they try to prevent people from taking the exams and selling the questions.
I doubt they are purposely making them more difficult, but it would be impossible to prove, if they were.

bdub

They dont make them more difficult on second/third etc... tries. I failed the 70-291 exam 2 times and the second time I took it I had almost all of the exact same questions, there were some new ones but many of them were the same from the first time. The thing that got me was that I rescheduled after failing, went to take it but then was turned away as Prometric was having trouble with their IT exam system or something. So then I had to reschedule again. Anyway, I failed it that second time even though many of the questions were the same. I decided to hold off on taking it a third time and take the Security+ exam and take a break from MS exams.
When I went to take the 291 exam again, the questions were all different from what I could tell, but I would not say they were any harder than the first 2 times.
This leads me to believe it is just a pool of questions, and that they probably change the pool up every so many months to keep people from using brain ****.
Their tests are adaptive though, so if you get a hard question right, they will give you more difficult questions, or more questions on that subject.

Krunchi

No like the other guys have stated I'm sure the questions come from a pool I had to retake 623 and about half of the questions were from the previous exam 3 weeks before.

blargoe

Your "course mentor" is wrong. They do not track your fails in order to give you harder questions the next time.

erpadmin

After my 70-640 experience, I'm inclined to agree with what's been said. Test seemed easier when I dumbed down my experience and worked through the adaptive strategy the same course mentor laid out for me (skipping questions). My only mistake with the 640 was treating it the way I would with a CompTIA exam.

Believe it or not, sometimes the answer is right in front of you when you minus some of the fluff in the questions. I've been working through the 643 now and I'm hoping to take it (and passing, knock on wood) next Saturday.

Arysta

I'd find it hard to believe those low-tech Prometric computers do anything more than pull questions from a pool in an absolutely random way. I also don't believe they're adaptive in any way, but I know I'll get a ton of argument on that front.

erpadmin

Arysta wrote: »

I also don't believe they're adaptive in any way, but I know I'll get a ton of argument on that front.

I don't know about a ton...but how about getting at least a half a pound of argument? Definitely not a lot, though.

All I can tell you is based on my experiences....I'm more inclined to just modify my test-taking to deal with the "Microsoft Way. "

Ebele

erpadmin wrote: »

Believe it or not, sometimes the answer is right in front of you when you minus some of the fluff in the questions. I've been working through the 643 now and I'm hoping to take it (and passing, knock on wood) next Saturday.

Most of the answers are just sticking out if you know what you are looking out for. The rest are so similar and twisted that you need 5yrs experience to tell the difference between the answers. Also, the exam needs you to have some experience or spend a year reading and labbing