70-640 Failed

Lexluethar

I'm with you Saudie. I've failed the 642 multiple times, i'm sitting the exam for the last time tomorrow.

They are going out of their way to make the exam unnecessarily difficult. There are definitely questions and topics that are vague or require you to remember every single nook and cranny of the OS. I know they are trying to make these exams more 'valid' and make cheating harder - but all they are doing is pushing valid test takers to look into cheating because of how difficult these exams are.

I feel you though, i'm missing out on family and free time because every night between 8 and 11 i'm doing labs, reading or reading online tech articles about the exam topics.

Good luck to you!

dan9385

Hi guys,

I've just seen this thread and thought I'd post a reply. I took the 70-640 exam yesterday for the second time and failed it with a score of 548. The first time I took it I scored 657. It's one thing to fail it a second time, but to get a lower score as well is a massive kick in the teeth. According to the score report, my weak areas are DNS and ADCS. These were the same as before, but I felt pretty confident this time round and thought I'd done OK as I'd been hammering the prep tests and labs in these areas in the mean time.

I don't know what it is but the actual test seems nothing like the prep tests. I've used the MeasureUp and Transcender tests and I've been scoring 80-90% on those tests which has proved adequate in the past.

I got a lot of questions on DNS particularly to do with zone delegation and replication, ADCS - there was a general theme of allowing a particular group the ability to issue smart card certificates, ADRMS - one I remember was asking about which file to modify to allow ADRMS to work with Windows Mobile 6 devices... WTF!?

In a lot of cases I feel that they don't give you enough information in the question to determine what the correct answer is. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the question was actually asking before I could choose a suitable answer. I got 3 groups of 5 "series" questions where the answers are the same but the questions were obviously different. There were 10 possible answers, A-J, which made trying to figure out correct answers by process of elimination impossible!

I got one question asking how to create a new UPN suffix. The obvious answer to that in my mind is via Active Directory Domains and Trusts, yet that wasn't one of the answers! I think the correct answer was one of the PowerShell cmdlets. I really don't see the point in memorising multiple lengthy shell / PowerShell commands to do this kind of task when it can very easily be done via the UI. Maybe if the question was asking how to do it on Server Core then fair enough, but Server Core wasn't mentioned.

Another question I had was about importing users from a CSV file using PowerShell. It wanted you to choose the correct syntax from the 4 possible answers.

I also got a lot of questions asking which mmc snap-in you would use for a given task. I find this particularly frustrating as most of the examples in the MS Press book take you via Server Manager and you generally don't touch the individual snap-in's when learning.

It just seems like they're making the test deliberately difficult for no good reason.

I really don't know where to go from here as I've exhausted all the DNS and ADCS questions I've got access to in my prep tests and I'm answering those correctly. Guess it's just a case of sticking at it and trying to choose the answers that Microsoft have deemed correct for their cryptic style of questioning! :S

Peterm44

Like the comment above I got the question about Windows Mobile 6 devices on Friday and I was surprised by that. I found that they have similar questions with the same groups of answers on GPO's, CS and DNS. I failed the first time around as I wasnt 100% sure then a similar question would pop up 5 times in a row.

I would recommend reviewing CS, DNS and GPO's. Understanding the FSMO roles will go a long way too as I had 3 questions on what were domain based/forest based etc. Mid 600's isnt far off so keep at it, next time around I got 815 after feeling the same way.

Good Luck!

Chev Chellios

Thank you guys above for saying that as it's exactly what I thought- the tests are deliberately there to trip us up that's for sure- particularly the massive multi choice ones where the question is vague and a couple of the options are definately valid but there isn't enough info in the question to narrow them down further!

Mishra

kingrob wrote: »

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.

I guess you call this a Pearson Vue exam center but I assume you are registering through Prometric?

Saundie

Failed it again this morning! I got absolutely hammered with questions on CS and DNS replication, most of which aren't in the Microsoft Press book. I guess I need to rethink my study strategy because it's clearly not working. Maybe I need to spend more time playing with things in the labs and on Technet learning the syntax for commands, because that's what they seem to focus on in the exam.

I am deeply frustrated with it right now!

kingrob

I've been saying it all along - it seems this is one big money making scheme from the testing centers.

Honestly don't know why Microsoft is hell-bent on asking these stupid PowerShell commands, as it's 2013 and we have moved from the command line to a GUI. FFS!!

Almost like Microsoft is trying to remake Windows Server into a Linux type clone.

Microsoft, if you're reading this - just stop with it. OK?

Asif Dasl

LOL, they are going back to the command line so you can automate servers like you can with linux. It's actually a good thing, it will speed up configuring mulitple servers if you take the time to learn powershell. BTW the exam centers make very little off the total exam cost - most of it goes to Microsoft/Cisco/VMware/whoever...