70-640 Failed

Booey1989

Hi All!

I Failed my 70-640 exam today for the second time, I got 643 + 644 in the exams,

I am really gutted to be honest, because in the areas I failed on in the first exam I excelled in the second exam and vice versa,

I think when I studied for the second exam I did not touch up on the areas I was strong in on the first exam, and I should of gone over EVEYTHING again!

Does anyone have any training tips? Good practice exam site? MS exams labs! Or just general advise because I would like to say it might be 3^rd time lucky for me!

Any advice would be appreciated!!

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Comments

nycid

Sorry about the fail....

I'm taking mine tomorrow any tips?

Booey1989

i had 5 question on FSMO roles that i was unsure about so make sure you know them, and there was quite a lot of DNS stuff, just take your time and make sure you understand what the questions is asking becasue there are some quietsions that have a list of 9 answers.

good luck tomorrow!

Chev Chellios

Sorry to hear that dude, I'm in the same boat, failed my 70-640 this morning, what a bastard exam!!! There is so much material to go through its a tough one thats for sure. Not sure what to do about re-sitting as I need to get the 642 and 646 nailed as well and feeling a bit down with it at the moment as I was feeling confident on the lead up and prep for this one!

nosoup4u

Sorry to hear that, I failed my first attempt last month.

Taking my second next week, I feel more confidant but it really took a while to get my head right afterwords.

Chev Chellios

nosoup4u, good luck with the resit! Know what you mean, I feel proper shitty after failing this morning, never failed an exam before and its proper messing me up, just gotta work on weak areas and try again I guess!

nycid

Yeah FSMO and DNS i am OK with my biggest isue seems to be with certs...

thanks for the heads up. Hopefully you have a free 2nd shot?

Booey1989

that was like me i was not to bothered on the first on becasue i was so close, but then when i took it again i failed with the same score! just need to revise more! such a hard exam i think! nah i didnt get a free one £99 and exam

Chev Chellios

Hey dude, how is the preparing going, when are you taking the exam again? After failing last week I really don't want to do the resit but know I need to get it in at some point after going through what I can! It certainly is a hard exam and there is so much material to go through too that they can test you on!

TheCudder

I think seeing so many of these "Failed 70-640" threads is why I've never been able to sit down and go hard at studying for this exam since I took a break about a year ago to knock Sec + out.

MrSharp

sometimes it takes a kick up the backside to get you going again

my kick was finding out the exchange 2007 exams got retired

there are second shot offers going atm

kingrob

I failed this exam for the THIRD time today!

And I was really confident that I have passed it, but when I clicked on "End Review", it told me I got 340/1000! WTF??

Feels to me like either :

1. Microsoft is forcing me to study for Server 2012
2. Microsoft is forcing me to buy new books .... R2 variety
3. VUE exam centre is making a killing out of me

I really felt sure I passed this exam and have totally lost confidence in VUE exam centres.

Lexluethar

Sorry to hear about the fails - realize you guys aren't in the boat alone. MS has really made their exams MUCH more difficult than just a few years ago.

To kingrob - don't give up. Realize that you have to truly understand the material to pass these exams. Just going through practice exams isn't enough. MS says you should be in a Server Admin role for 6 months to a year before taking these exams. I know that isn't the case for most people taking it, but MS is expecting your knowledge of this stuff to be on that level.

cruwl

kingrob wrote: »

2. Microsoft is forcing me to buy new books .... R2 variety

This right here maybe your biggest issue. If you are not using R2 study material you are setting your self up for failure. quite a bit of changes came into R2 and that is what MS will test you over.

kingrob

cruwl wrote: »

This right here maybe your biggest issue. If you are not using R2 study material you are setting your self up for failure. quite a bit of changes came into R2 and that is what MS will test you over.

I doubt it.

Have downloaded the Microsoft 200 page document that highlights all the changes between 2008 and 2008 R2.

Didn't get anything in the exam that I didn't know about.

The scariest thing is that I'm still without my results. When I wrote yesterday, the VUE exam centre gave the lame excuse that their print server is offline and they can't print my results. WTF?

I'm still waiting for my results & you would have thought they would have a backup in place if something like that happens.

Just feels really suspect to me. I know I've passed the exam.

Lexluethar

Didn't you see your results when you clicked finish? I get a review period every time then a big page that shows what you scored. Did you see that page?

As for the changes, there are some large additions to the R2 material. Branch Cache, Direct Access just to name a few.

Mkhan47

this post is making me cack in my pants!!! my exams on next Monday :S

Saundie

It's an absolute beast of an exam, so you shouldn't feel too downbeat about failing it. I have failed it twice, and despite working as a server administrator for years, I just don't have the hands on experience of most of the technology. Things like RMS and FS are a nightmare to get to grips with when you've never seen them in a production environment, and they made up a fairly sizeable chunk of the exam. As Lexluethar said, you really do need to understands how the technology works. I failed 70-659 twice before finally getting to grips with the technology and learning it to the level required to pass, and so I am doing the same again with 70-640 before trying again. You've got to "lab it up" as they say, and see it all working for yourself.

Don't be too disheartened over your previous failures, and concentrate on filling the gaps in your knowledge before you make another attempt. You'll get there if you're determined enough!

kingrob

Thanks Saundie, will book an exam date again and start studying + test labs again.

Saundie

Just to make you feel better; I failed it yesterday for the third time, with a score of 605. I'm pretty frustrated with it now!

Chev Chellios

Sorry to hear that Saundie, I failed it first time, got to get a resit it but frankly I am s***ing myself as am limited with time to study and don't want to go for it again just for the sake of it and fail- then again if don't book it in then I will just not bother! Did you find your strong and weak areas similar to previously, also how did the questions stack up with previous attempts, was there much overlap or totally different?

Saundie

That's exactly how I felt about it, so I decided to book it and then force myself to study. Unfortunately that didn't go as well as I planned, as I've forgotten a lot more than I thought. I struggled on the RMS and FS stuff, but not as badly as last time. Rather annoyingly I've lost my results, so I can't recall which areas I was weakest in exactly. I haven't learned any of the command line stuff for managing AD DS, DNS or CS so that'll be my first point of call.

I am not going to give up like I did last time though, because then all of the studying is for nothing. I've already booked a retake for the 16th of May, which should be enough time to go through the book and look at the command line stuff. I'm not sure how much the NDA permits us to share, but I think it's okay to say that I got some questions from my previous attempts on this latest attempt.

Chev Chellios

Nice one mate, get it in again and smash it next time. Let me know how it goes as my resit is the 24th May, trying to work out the best approach really as knowing me I will do bugger all then try to do stuff the last week, lol. Not sure what we're allowed to say regarding the NDA but the cmd stuff definately worth a recap I reckon- my question was more vague in terms of stuff coming up again but from my last one I know RMS/FS etc were my weakest areas so know where I need to focus more energy- my worry though is I will focus on my weak areas and they wont come up or I'll be weak in areas I previously was strong in but didn't bother to recap for the resit, lol. I admire anyone who puts everything into studying for these but its a fine balance between work, family stuff, studying and having a semblance of a life!

majatt

I don't know what it is about this exam. I've gotten my bachelors, masters and pmp; never failed a thing and I failed this exam the second time today. The first time my prep was lacking but this time I created a full AD environment with trusts, a two tier PKI, federation services etc. I used two books, Measureup Exam Cram without R2 and Sybex Server 2008 R2 complete study guide. Went through the CBT nuggets series twice incl. R2 update videos.

I got 68something the first time (late last year) and 681 today with 'Strong' in all the sections.

I'm also an actual admin, I was a domain admin in a small company before and now I administer an OU a large company now.

I feel as though 20-30% of the questions come from absolutely nowhere (the phrasing of the question doesn't indicate to me what would be the 'right' choice) and/or reference some hyper specific scenario I've never encountered, is there a book I should buy or a practice exam I should take that can provide better preparation?

Saundie

I had another go at it on Thursday last week, and failed it again - got 681. I thought I had cracked it this time, I really did. I have booked attempt number 5 for mid-June. I'm just glad the failures don't show up on your transcript, because it's getting embarrassing now!

mrhaun03

Good luck on the exam. I just started studying this week for the exam and reading these types of posts are very intimidating. I already know I'm going to really need to read up on roles and FS.

Can anyone compare it to the Server 2003 exam? I passed that without too much study time, but I know a lot has changed since then.

DazzlingGenius

This thread makes me very nervous!

I have not scheduled my exam yet and after reading this thread I think I'll just reread the material again before doing so. I am pretty bad at taking tests so I am already nervous but now more so. I have never taken a cert test before but I wanted to knock out a few for the resume since I don't have a degree, just experience. After reading about this test I'm thinking maybe I should ease in with a different cert

Good Luck next month Saundie!

Saundie

Thanks DazzlingGenius. If you have experience with AD in a larger environment then you probably won't find it as much of a struggle as I am. Most of the companies I deal with have just an SBS box and 5-20 users, so I don't get to look at most of the features AD offers. I also made the mistake of relying on the TrainSignal videos the first time I took the exam, not realising that it would be packed with references to specific commands and their syntax.

Chev Chellios

Sorry to hear that Saundie, if it's any consolation I failed this exam for the 2nd time on Friday, it really has done me in. I beasted the revision, measure up practice tests and labs but still not enough- clsoe to jsut saying f**k it now as I've spent so much of my free time preparing for this and I'm beginning to wonder why I bother. As others have mentioned I too have had the good luck to never fail any exams at school or uni yet this one really is a tough one to crack and I'm dreading retaking it again! Failing it once was bad enough but this second time has broken me mentally, lol. Fair play to you for keeping at it mate and going for another resit, give me a shout if you want to throw any ideas/study around might help for motivation! lol

Saundie

I am going to give it my best shot when I resit it on the 14th, but I have to admit that my confidence has been shaken considerably by so many failures. I know that I didn't study properly the first couple of times, but I put in much more effort last time. I guess that shows in how close I got to passing, but it's still demoralising. My employer has been kind enough to allow me to use the office at the weekend to study, so I'm going to spend the next couple of weekends just ploughing through the book and labs again, and just hope that it sticks this time. I know this isn't the most helpful attitude to take, but I am tired of this subject and I want to move on to 70-642 and 70-646.

I suppose I have a problem with the way the exams themselves are pitched, because to me some of questions are almost punitive. I don't see why you need to learn the syntax for the parameter for every command, given that they all have a help feature and internet access is all-pervasive these days. Surely knowing which command should be used in any given circumstance is far more important than testing your ability to regurgitate commands on demand. Beyond the common "ipconfig /flushdns" sort of stuff, I always refer to the help when building up a command. Perhaps I'm in error, and maybe people really do still commit all this stuff to memory?

Chev Chellios

Mate I understand how you feel, I've had enough already too. It's even worse having to explain to work that you failed the damn thing! I am going to take a break for a bit as got loads of fun and cool things to do in June and quite frankly I am fed up of studying and labbing 24/7 after work and missing out on family and social life! Need a few weeks of chilling then hit it again and hope the break does me good. Good luck with your studying weekends dude, really hope you smash that bloody exam and give me hope too, lol