Passed 70-640 yesterday

Was not a great score but I will take any pass. there are so many traps in this test I am glad it is over and done! on to the 70-646

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Comments

Lunchbocks

Congrats. BTW, what do you mean by traps?

Keener

Congrats! This is on my radar. How did you prepare and how long did it take you to prepare? 1st attempt at the test?

netsysllc

Sadly it was my 3rd attempt. There are just so many topics on this test it is a bit too much. I would do better on a practical exam than having to memorize this much stuff.

kj0

netsysllc wrote: »

I would do better on a practical exam than having to memorize this much stuff.

My issue as well. I'm fretting that I will definitely fail the first to get an idea of what i am needing to do to accomplish.

Congrats on the pass though..

Wilson502

@kj0, I ran into this today as well.

Psoasman

Congrats on passing, it's definitely a tough exam.

tpb100

I just got through this exam myself a few days back. Booked it a week earlier than I should have done to have something for a job interview the following day. I was weak on Certificate Services for large enterprises, especially the 2008 R2 which wasn't covered in my books.

I thought the exam was a bit poor to be honest, I didn't enjoy it at all. I originally thought the MeasureUp practice exams I bought were OK but not always well written, but compared to some of the Microsoft ones they were a work of art. If I wasn't in an actual Prometric Test centre I would have thought I was being swindled.

I can only assume that each test is randomly put together with an appropriate percentage of questions from each category. A few questions in I got hit by a question that I don't think is directly covered on the syllabus (I didn't see any mention of it and don't remember reading about it any books). I know MS state that the exam can cover stuff outside the syllabus so I put it down to that. Answered it and knew I'd probably got it wrong as it wasn't even an educated guess, never needed to use it as a Sys Admin, in fact I didn't even know it was possible. Next question, same subject, again answered knowing I'd probably got it wrong. Next question... yep the same subject/command. Couldn't believe it, I was ready to hang myself, I'd lost at least 6% on a subject not even mentioned. A couple of normal questions then... Another question of the same command/subject... 8% lost on this one small subject. However this one included a screenshot of the command being run and an error message, from there I was able to workout a bit of how the command works and what it does and it gave me enough info to go back and answer the first question. Next question, the exact same subject and command again! However out of the four possible answers 3 I knew couldn't be right. The final logical choice gave more insight into the subject and also related directly to the second question, went back and got that right. Now from all the information I got from 5 questions and a screen shot I could go to the third question and answer it correctly

. Came home and read up on the subject to confirm I was right. I now have it burned into memory from trauma how to do something trivial that I'll almost certainly never need to do again

I scored OK in most subjects areas but only got 50% in certificates (like I said, I needed another week for the R2 and the more large enterprise stuff). Without getting a high score in the subject area of the 5 questions mentioned above I would have failed. Funny how things work out. Honestly by the 7-8th question on the exam my moral was through the floor and really thought I'd been done over by true randomisation. I think these tests need more of an iPod randomisation. Not going to complain to MS though, not now I've got the pass.

Starting the 70-642 study today, guess I need to find out what's changed in 2008 R2 as my 70-640 exam seemed to be very R2 centric and my books are all for 2008.

Lunchbocks

Great write-up, thanks. I had the same experience with Windows NT 4.0 Workstation. I knew for sure I had failed and had questions on things I had never heard of. When I realized I had passed, I was shocked...happy, but shocked.

fta123

TBP100
Are you saying there were questions for both Server 2008 and server 2008R2?... or just questions refering in specific for Server 2008 R2

CompuTron99

fta123 wrote: »

TBP100
Are you saying there were questions for both Server 2008 and server 2008R2?... or just questions refering in specific for Server 2008 R2

I would guess that any 2008 questions covered items that were in both 2008 and 2008 R2.

From what tpb100 mentioned, this seems to be a very adaptive exam.

What happens when you skip a question to look at again later?

tpb100

fta123 wrote: »

TBP100
Are you saying there were questions for both Server 2008 and server 2008R2?... or just questions refering in specific for Server 2008 R2

If you look at the syllabus, the bulk of it is Windows 2008 with a few new features added to 2008 R2. I felt, but could be wrong, that there were perhaps a few more questions on 2008 R2 than there are additional features in 2008 R2. It could be MS ensuring you earn the R2 suffix to the qualification. Basically if you know 2008 I think you could pass the exam so long as you're strong in all areas. If you're weak in any one area (like I am with enterprise certificates) then the extra 2008 R2 questions may tip you over to a fail. I've only taken this exam once, so it could just have been my pool of questions. I think it was the R2 certificate questions that really dropped my certificate score to less than 50%.

There are 2008 R2 items that are very quick and easy to learn and I suspect will most likely appear because they are useful day to day functions, such as the Active Directory Recycle Bin, maybe offline domain join (djoin). There are other new features that I only picked up a few commands and probably dodge a bullet by not getting any questions on them, such as the plethora of Active Directory PowerShell commands that are now in R2. There are so many AD PowerShell commands now, I suspect MS will probably test us on the most common used features. At least I'd hope so. As if I didn't have enough issues trying to remember all the dnscmd and certutil parameters. Am I the only person who thinks memorising command parameters is just trivia knowledge. If you're sat at a server how long does it take to type dnscmd /? or Google dnscmd? It takes 2 seconds, why memorise that stuff, MS have written very good GUIs that cover 95% of day to day tasks. It's almost as bad as remembering port numbers, something else that takes 2 seconds to find out what it is. If I'm writing firewall rules, I always double check anyway.

Dakinggamer87

Congrats on pass!!

Keener

I definitely appreciate all the input. I am going to take the SSCP next month and then MCSA Server 2008. Not sure which test to start with, but having an idea of the detail of knowledge I will need will be beneficial.