70-647 kicked me in the face yesterday

jmritenour

That was sad. I've read through the MS Press book, the MS It academy materials (provided by WGU), Darril Gibson's college textbook, and even the Syngress book, though it was geared toward R1. All that, lots of labbing, reading the IPD guides, and trouncing selftestsoftware's 70-647 exams, and I still walked out with a fail.

Long story short, I spent a lot of my prep time focusing on the functional levels of AD (actually built a forest on 2000, then migrated in stages to 2003, then 200, the ins and outs of autonomy & isolation in AD, group policy precedence, and domain restructuring. Of those, group policy was the only one that came up frequently. I honestly felt like I studied for a completely different test.

So I'm going to give it another go sometime in November. I think this time I'm pretty much going to stick to TechNet as my primary resource. I'm entertaining the thought of ponying up for LabSim if I can get the student rate, but wanted to ask if anyone's used it for 70-647 before I shell money out of pocket for it.

Psoasman

I'm sorry to hear that. I've heard its a tough exam.

aaronchristenson

It is a tough exam, I took it 3 times and have not passed it. I was really close the last time. I have moved on to the 2012 exams because I would also need the Windows 7 exam to finish the EA. I only need 3 exams to upgrade to 2012.

earweed

I used the Labsim for that test and it helped. I just studied and labbed so much for it and it's hard to say what helped the most. There was a lot from 743 on mine and having taken and studied for that exam 4 times to pass it (right when they did the R2 change) probably helped. The Syngress text was a joke but the 2 R2 books I had available at the time (unleashed and Mastering) along with the R1 version of MS text (scenarios helped).
Good luck!

jmritenour

Mine was pretty heavy on 640 content - especially the more obscure stuff like AD FS & AD RMS, and how they integrate into other MS products. Another problem is the 640 stuff is mostly stuff I'm familiar with - I didn't study too hard for it the first time around, and I just kind of glazed over it this time around. I really need to go back and revisit some of it, as we as some 642 content in regards to NPS & NAP.

I might plunk down the money for LabSim. We've got another baby on the way, so I'm not thrilled about shelling out more money out of pocket, but if it's helpful for this exam, it might be worth it.

Ch@rl!3m0ng

Dont want to break NDA so wont say what was covered on mine. However It is a hard exam. I used technet the ms pressbook the sticky on here and alot of labs. I basically downloaded exchange and SQL along with a few other MS products and set them all up in a domain. Then played around with them along with revisiting some/most of the labs had set up for the other exams. Keep at it.

jmritenour

Round 2 is tomorrow at 12:30. Tomorrow, the results are going to be much different, I think.

X10MMX

Good Luck... I have mine booked for next Tuesday...

jmritenour

This time, it was me who did the kicking. 70-647 is done with a 900. Major changes to my strategy: read the questions in the case study first, then go back and ready the info. It was much easier to just cherry pick the relevant info this way. And I also went with my gut - I know most of the time your first instinct is right, but I definitely tend to get wishy washy on areas I feel I'm not as strong in.

This was probably also my last MS exam, at least for the foreseeable future. The way they've handled the transition from MCSE to MCITP and back to MCSE has really left a bad taste in my mouth. I think I'm going to stay focused on my VMware certs for now.

aaronchristenson

Very Well Done. If I were to take this exam again I would still need the Windows 7 exam and then my upgrade path to 2012 would be the same as it is now. I have decided just to move on to the 70-417 exam.

Essendon

Nicely done! That's not an easy test, took me 3 tries too. You onto the VCAP or something now?

Psoasman

Congrats, that's a nice score.

jmritenour

Essendon wrote: »

Nicely done! That's not an easy test, took me 3 tries too. You onto the VCAP or something now?

Yep, that's the plan - I'm taking the rest of this year off, then I'm going to start working on VCAP-DCD & DCA next year, after I rebuild/upgrade my lab in January.