Passed 70-291, too easy to call it the beast!

Three days ago I passed the 70-291 exam with a score of 875.
It took me about a month and a half to prepare, and on average, I spent about one hour on weekdays and four hours on weekends. In the middle of preparation, I didn't feel like reading and labbing, so I took about a week or two off.
Here is the breakdown of my score:
IP Addressing - 100%
DNS - 100%
Network Security - about 75%
RRAS - about 85%
Network Infrastructure - 100%.

My weakest area (not surprised here) was IPSec. To understand all the necessary details, I would at least spend a week playing with different scenarios in my lab, but I didn't have time and interest to do it. I also scored 85% on RRAS, probably due to a few questions related to Demand-dial routing. Who needs it anyway?

I used the official MS Press book (skimmed it in the last week before the test), but it was the original edition. A lot of reviewers on Amazon claim that it's bad, but I don't think so. After completely reading 70-291 by Craig Zacker, I felt like it wouldn't be enough. Sure, MS Press book had a lot of things Zacker didn't even mention. I also bought O'Reilly guide to MCSE exams (about 100 pages are devoted to 291), and it was a waste of time. I skimmed it on the way to the test center, and it had a 100 pages of definitions and basic concepts. The last source I used was TestOut. They have great labs and the material doesn't make me want to sleep.

Most of the questions were about configuring IP addresses. I also had a few questions on WSUS, Security Templates, GPO (I thought it was tested in 294?), and command-line tools.

My next goal is 70-680, after which I'll work on 648 and 646.

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Comments

Dakinggamer87

Congrats on pass!!

ptilsen

Congrats! Looks like you're on track to have dual MCSAs and an MCITP before it retires. Great job.

sratakhin

Thank you. Yes, this is my plan. After that, I'll probably start preparing for VCP. I just read a few chapters in Lowe's book and there is not much that I don't already know.

mishy

Congrats on the pass. I am going to be facing the beast soon, I think you found it easy because you have CCNA, Net+ and Sec+ but for some us 291 is the real intro to networking. I did my Network + a long time ago so I can consider everything forgotten by now.

sratakhin

Thank you. Yes, a lot of stuff on 291 covered what I already knew. The few areas that I didn't have extensive experience with were IPSec, DNS and RRAS.