Starting MCITP:EA - Advice on study material

bv0r

Hello,

I intend to start my path towards my first Microsoft certification shortly, MCITP:EA to be exact and was wondering a couple of things:

-Has anyone ever passed using the MS Press books alone? I intend to use practice tests from MeasureUp and Transcenders.

-For those who think the above is not sufficient enough, how about with the addition of using CBT Nuggets?

I have worked as an IT Support Tech working on servers albeit mainly 2003. In my latest job, I work on Windows 2008 almost daily however limited to things such as IIS and COMs.

I am by no means trying to take this certification lightly and realize the hill that I have ahead of me and in no ways am I looking for a short cut. Just merely looking to optimize my time due to my hectic work schedule. I have already prepared a few VMs and intend to practice in labs of my own.

Thank you.

Essendon

The MS Press books are not enough on their own, you'll need to supplement with TechNet, CBT Nuggets, Server 2008 R2 Unleashed or Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2. If you can get your hands on all these, you should be set. Ensure you lab as much as you can, reading alone will probably not suffice.

Good luck!

chinino

bv0r,

I am trying to do the same thing, I think that setting up a lab at home or at work will do lots of help with it. As they say, "there is no substitute for experience." But, I think there is always a personal bit in it, and by this I mean that if you absorb a lot while reading and watching videos, you might be able to pass. Of course, immersing yourself in the material, as recommended by Essendon, is the best way.

Krunchi

Use Server 2008 R2 Unleashed with the MS Press books and maybe some technet and you should be good.

method115

I'm using Mspress books with CBT nuggets. Anything I want some more information on I go to r2 unleashed. I only have unleashed in electronic form so I try to use it last.

bv0r

Thank you for all of your input. I will definitely look into supplementing my studies with Unleashed as well.

Just trying to gauge people's studying habits, for those who have used a books from MS Press etc... Do you read the books front to back trying to absorb everything? Or merely only follow the outline provided by MS as to what you will be tested on?

mcitp_guru

When studied for my certs, I used the microsoft self-paced traning kits and the training material/videos/practice exams that testout.com offer. These alone were enough for me to pass all of them first try.

method115

bv0r wrote: »

Thank you for all of your input. I will definitely look into supplementing my studies with Unleashed as well.

Just trying to gauge people's studying habits, for those who have used a books from MS Press etc... Do you read the books front to back trying to absorb everything? Or merely only follow the outline provided by MS as to what you will be tested on?

I always start my studies in any cert by reading everything front to back and just remembering what I can without much information. I also do the labs at the end of each chapter.

Then I take the syllabus and start in one section and study just that section for instance I did ADCS first. So I labbed it as much as possible, watched the CBT nuggets video (ADCS nuggets only), then read the ADCS portion of the unleashed book. I do this for each section in the syllabus.

After I'm done with that I go back through the syllabus again and I'll most likely reread the MS press book if not I'll just go for the test and reread the chapters that I need to work on.

ounelly70

When I got my certifications, what helped me the most was hands on training. A lot of this can be attributed to work, but then there are a lot of things that you just dont see everyday that you'll be tested on.

If you can setup a test environment on a vm and work along with your study material, it would help tremendously. I know it did for me. Once I felt confident, I signed up for a boot camp where I then found out I was no where near ready from studying on my own.

It was a two week course that basically focused on all the test subjects and really went into detail on each one. Theres hands on labs for each subject that you are tested on and I had a very large amount of people taking the course with me that I could study with. Boot camps are different depending on where you go- I went with the best one I could find near me (ced solutions in ATL). Its intense, but very very worth it. Its still one of the best experiences I've had in any kind of a classroom setting and I still keep in touch with some of the other guys that were in the class with me. There were guys from all over the states there, which kind of blew my mind - I would have thought it would be mostly local people, but my class was largely made up of government it employees that needed to update their certs - and hey if CED is good enough for them, its more than good enough for me

Anyway - good luck!