70-640 Fail

Hey guys,
So then, after feeling confident and prepped up I sat my 70-640 today and got my ass handed to me, failed with 620 so pretty damn gutted. I thought I had done enough prep, I'd worked through the official MS training kit (R2) and done all the labs, I was hitting good scores in Measure up practice exams and using tech net for further info. I'm feeling peed off and disappointed with myself as I want/need to get a re-sit booked in plus get the 642 and 646 squared away by the end of May (ideally as have the 2nd shot vouchers) and it's looking like a big ask now. Just wondered what advice you guys would give, should I concentrate on this and the resit this one then do the others or try and make a start towards the other 2 and re-sit this later on? Work are pushing for me to get the MCSA 2008 and there is a promotion and payrise in it as incentive but they are not prepared to give me any time to do this prep in 'work time' due to time and staffing restrictions plus all the firefighting we end up doing. With the 70-640 prep I was trying to get an hour to an hour and a half done per night and a bit more at weekends though it is tough round family committments and everything else to do much more, would people recommend a different approach or carry on as I am?

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nycid

i would stick with it 700 is not that far off....

cruwl

620 is not getting your ass handed to you. You're really close, keep at it!

Was there any area you did really well in? and which ones did you do not so well in?
Was this your first, or 2nd shot at it? Do you have a free 2nd shot left?

Chev Chellios

Thanks nycid and cruwl. I've never failed an exam before of any description so it really pissed me off today and felt like a proper whooping, lol. I've got a second shot for this exam, now I've calmed down a bit I think I might try and resit it next month to give me some time to go through the material again then I can concentrate on the other exams after. The main bit that I struggled with today was the sheer amount of questions on CS enterprise, FS and RMS and they are my weakest area- the ones I spent less time on preparing as it happens

I genuinely expected to see more on DNS, AD configuring, GPO and such like and they were the bits I really hammered in my prep.......

Chitownjedi

Chev Chellios wrote: »

Thanks nycid and cruwl. I've never failed an exam before of any description so it really pissed me off today and felt like a proper whooping, lol. I've got a second shot for this exam, now I've calmed down a bit I think I might try and resit it next month to give me some time to go through the material again then I can concentrate on the other exams after. The main bit that I struggled with today was the sheer amount of questions on CS enterprise, FS and RMS and they are my weakest area- the ones I spent less time on preparing as it happens I genuinely expected to see more on DNS, AD configuring, GPO and such like and they were the bits I really hammered in my prep.......

Where there you go.. go over your comfort zone a good pass, and double up on what you struggled... you should have it then!

Essendon

You said you did all the labs in the MS Press book, but did you lab everything else up? Lab the eff out of everything mate. The MS Press books arent ever going to be enough on their own. Lab up everything you read on TechNet.

Chev Chellios

Thanks guys, going to lab the eff out of everything again to make sure for next time, just a matter of time

Essendon

I like the attitude there mate, keep it like that and you'll go places.

Saundie

Chev Chellios wrote: »

The main bit that I struggled with today was the sheer amount of questions on CS enterprise, FS and RMS and they are my weakest area- the ones I spent less time on preparing as it happens I genuinely expected to see more on DNS, AD configuring, GPO and such like and they were the bits I really hammered in my prep.......

I had exactly the same experience when I sat the exam; I figured that the bulk of it would be the same areas that you did, as I consider them to be the bulk of what AD is used for. I got burned badly, getting 640 or so on my first attempt, and just over 600 on my second. The sheer number of questions on FS and CS I got made me think that somebody was actually manipulating the questions I was receiving in real time, to highlight my deficiencies in those areas.

The mistake I made was giving up after my second try; now I've forgotten almost everything I read in the book, and so I would pretty much have to start all over again. Your approach seems reasonable to me; give yourself a bit of time to regain your composure, go over FS/RMS/CS and lab the crap out of it, and keep plugging away at it.

LaduLaser

This matches my experience of MS/Prometric exams. They ask a lot of questions on stuff that weren't even in the official books. It's like the certs are there to give a recepit to someone who has worked on the covered techs as a consultant for years and in different environments, rather than encourage new people to learn something new, i.e. the vendor-specific technologies.

So what to do? The best thing is of course to attend a course, but that takes the kind of money that you usually will only find in your employer's pocket, and your current employer doesn't seem to want to let that kind of cash go into your further education. Try and get ahold of someone who has passed the exam recently, they can probably give you some good advice (and they tend to prefer to give them face-to-face, so no documentation of any possible breaches of contract exists). Also, find books published by others than the vendors themselves or their associates. When it comes to 70-640 I can only find a book from Ucertify, hope it helps:

ISBN13:
9781616910006

cruwl

As some one who went through exactly what you did, Failed the first time with a 640ish score. and got banged up pretty bad by CS and FS/RMS/LDS.

I cant recommend the transcender test enough. After I Failed the first time I read the chapters on CS and FS/RMS/LDS from 3 different books.
Took the transcender, still sucked in those areas. Went to technet read up some more, Labbed up some more.
Took the practice test again and was starting to see good improvement in those areas.

I think I took the transcender 3 times total before I did my retake.

Thats just my 2 cents, and even after all that my worst sections on my retake were still CS, FS/RMS/LDS.

Chev Chellios

Thanks for all the good and useful feedback guys it is appreciated. I am glad that others noticed a similar pattern and as Saundie mentioned it was like I was getting panned on the CS stuff realtime. For you guys who have been in a smilar position, how long did you give it to take the re-sit as it seems difficult to judge, too soon and I won't have enough time to go over things in depth but too long and it's like you start from scratch as forget things over time. Also I'm finding the MS official books really boring and the thought of re-reading them is not inspiring.... Mark Minasi's mastering Server 2008 book looks more interesting, would anyone recommend it as additional reading material as I'm contemplating buying it?

earweed

Chev Chellios wrote: »

Thanks for all the good and useful feedback guys it is appreciated. I am glad that others noticed a similar pattern and as Saundie mentioned it was like I was getting panned on the CS stuff realtime. For you guys who have been in a smilar position, how long did you give it to take the re-sit as it seems difficult to judge, too soon and I won't have enough time to go over things in depth but too long and it's like you start from scratch as forget things over time. Also I'm finding the MS official books really boring and the thought of re-reading them is not inspiring.... Mark Minasi's mastering Server 2008 book looks more interesting, would anyone recommend it as additional reading material as I'm contemplating buying it?

If getting the Mastering Server 2008 make sure it includes R2

Chev Chellios

Sorry mate, meant to say the R2 version

earweed

The mastering book was really good and well written. I had to use it, as well as the unleashed book since the MS Press books 2nd edition containing R2 weren't released yet but the tests were upgraded already.