Failed 70-685

I took the 70-685 yesterday and failed with a 650. I have only been studying for about 2 weeks on this exam so I may have jumped the gun a bit, but I do have to say that Microsoft really needs to make some changes to the exam. To be clear, it was my fault that I failed the exam, and I know that, I am aware that people pass the exam as is every day, but I do think that these exams can be unecessarily convuluded at times to a point where its just confusing. Anyways, I digress, I have booked a retake for next week, hopefully I will be better prepared then...

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Psoasman

You are pretty close. Probably 3-4 questions away. I'd brush up on the weak areas and you should be good to go.

btw: Awesome avatar

bugzy3188

Thanks. I am going to brush up on my VPN knowledge, It is kind of out of scope for this exam, but as I have realized, you can't be expected to trouble shoot something if you don't have a comprehensive knowledge of it.

Here is a list of the areas that I had trouble with BTW incase anyone is interested:

VPN
Dierect Access
Wireless related questions
Certificates/CA/Authentication in general

Also, a list of terms that I plan on studying (Some I am familiar with already, but need to be more so)

IPV6
Radius Server
CMAK
RSAT
Turedo
6to4
ISATAP

Those are just a few that come to mind right away. For those who are just beginning their Cert paths much like myself I will offer my humble advice. Study for the exam until you feel like you are ready, when you reach that point, study the following exam in the series if applicable and if you plan on taking it. I found that when studying the 70-685, the questions on the 70-680 suddenly made a lot more sense. When I passed the 70-680 I had no clue whether I was going to pass or not, I felt confident but I didn't understand the fundamentals of some of the material. Because the Microsoft exams require such a wide range of knowledge I would recommend studying until you are comfortable with both exams, then try the 70-680, Then I would spend a week fine tuning that 70-685 knowledge and take that as well. This advice could only be relevant to the 70-680 and 70-685, but I plan on using this method for the 70-640, 70-642, and 70-647 as well.

Sorry for the novel but I figured I would try and help others learn from my failure...

Psoasman

I'd set up a lab with Server 2008 R2 and go through some areas that gave you trouble. Direct access will be hard to lab. Microsoft does have a set of videos you can watch to see it in action. You might try going to vistaclues - Tony Northrup's site. He has a demo setting up wireless NAP.

bugzy3188

Psoasman wrote: »

I'd set up a lab with Server 2008 R2 and go through some areas that gave you trouble. Direct access will be hard to lab. Microsoft does have a set of videos you can watch to see it in action. You might try going to vistaclues - Tony Northrup's site. He has a demo setting up wireless NAP.

Thanks for the info, i will definately be checking that out, I wasn't sure how I was going to go about brushing up on Direct Access so that is a huge help. I have been creating an imaginary domain on paper all day at work today, with as many GPOs' and policies that I can think of from my studies. I am also going to try to configure as many different types of servers as I can that are within my scope, even if I can't put them in to action it might help just to configure them.

bugzy3188

Ok so here is what I got for a virtual domain so far, I am just spit balling off of the top of my head here so suggestions are welcome

3 OUs', we will call them Sales, Marketing, and Admins

Sales runs x86 machines, Admin and marketing run x64
Sales will have some wireless machines, all machines will have Bitlocker enabled, with Backup, Event forwarding will be set up for all machines, with an event trigger for failed log ins, each machine will be configured for system restore.

GPOs'
(All)=Everyone excluding Admins
All unnecessary services must be disabled (All)
Deny access to Modify Windows Firewall and Defender settings (All)
force USB drive encryption (All)
Block Bing.com(All)
Allow Bing.com(Sales)
All Apps and Drivers must be digitally signed(All)

I will also attempt to configure the following types of servers, if possible,
NAT, NAP, DNS, DHCP, RADIUS, and WSUS

Notes: I am going to try and configure wireless profiles, including one for guest laptops but I am not sure if that is possible. All of this is off of the top of my head and I know how to do less than half of it, I will be researching and deploying everything that I have listed. If anyone has any suggestions or comments, I could really use some ideas for GPOs'....anything input would be helpful..

Psoasman

Looks pretty good. I think the key to the Windows 7 client exams is labbing and more labbing. They expect you to have some server knowledge / experience, too, it seems.

One of the things I did was to download the exam objectives and lab through all of them, at least the ones I could. I would watch videos on the ones I couldn't lab out well, like Direct Access, Federation services, etc.

ksmith0001

I failed 685 on Saturday. I scored a 545. I thought I passed it. But to my surprise, I failed it horribly. The test was a bit confusing, but that is not an excuse passing. Do anyone have any tips?

Domestic

ksmith0001 wrote: »

I failed 685 on Saturday. I scored a 545. I thought I passed it. But to my surprise, I failed it horribly. The test was a bit confusing, but that is not an excuse passing. Do anyone have any tips?

This was similar to my experience taking it today. Did you get the print out that shows which areas you scored lowest in?

Buckles

ksmith0001 wrote: »

I failed 685 on Saturday. I scored a 545. I thought I passed it. But to my surprise, I failed it horribly. The test was a bit confusing, but that is not an excuse passing. Do anyone have any tips?

I've failed this exam a number of times. I refuse to give up though... I know I'm capable of passing but you're all right... it is a cofusing exam! You can think you've passed only to get a mark spat out that kicks you in the butt and makes you feel like crap. I've gone back to trying to understand GPO/Server administration in more depth. Understanding the relationship between w2k8 and w7 is key. Build off that.. and Lab, lab, lab.

ksmith0001

Yes I scored low in the following areas" Identifying cause and resolving security issues and identifying cause of and resolving networking issues.

ksmith0001

I passed it this Saturday with a 900. Thanks guys for your wisdom.

Domestic

Well done ksmith.

Buckles

Bugzy... how are you going with your study? I'm guessing you've sat the exam by now?