Quality of MCTIP:SA mspress books

Dracula28

I have to say the quality of these books is quite low. The 640 book was good until the Ruest's chapters, which were written in a quite confusing manner, and were more of a reference to the various tools available in Server 2008/R2 to carry out the different tasks, than providing actual knowledge on the technology (DNS, AD CS etc.).

The 642 book is severly lacking on information. If you take the DHCP chapter for example, there is no info on Relay agents, BOOTP, backup and restore of the DHCP database +++++

Compared to their 2003 counterparts (290 and 291 mspress books) they are downright poor. I don't think I will invest in the mspress 2012 books, as there doesn't seem to be much of a quality control at mspress anymore. The 680 book is another example, it was ridden with errors.

I don't mind using two sources for an exam, but when you have to resort to using 3, 4 or even 5 sources, it just gets that much harder to acutally pass the exam. You have to use the mspress book, Technet, cbt videos (trainsignal/cbt nuggets etc.) , perhaps the Sybex book and practice exams.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm truly hating studying for 642, because of how poor the mspress book is.

Xyro

Good luck finding anything of true quality anymore.

I've found the quality of technical books as a whole has been severely degraded in the past 10 years. They are riddled with both technical & grammatical errors. Sometimes it takes me quite some time trying to figure out what they are even trying to say because the grammatical usage is so poor!

I hope publishers begin to eventually do something about this; however, I expect it to only get worse before it gets better, if it ever does improve at all.

sratakhin

I'm currently studying for the 70-642 exam and using the MS Press 2nd edition book. It's ok and I didn't really find any glaring typos. As far as missing information... Buy at least two books for every MS exam and you'll be fine.

ptilsen

I used only the MS Press books for my MCTS exams and didn't have any issues. I actually used the first edition for the 70-648 book, because there is no second edition. I used that plus Technet plus the free Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 PDF, and of course practice exams (always practice exams).

I don't remember any major issues with 70-680.

Of course, I don't remember the 290 and 291 materials at all, so maybe they were better. The only exam I've been tempted to buy a second book for was 70-643, because the MS Press book was indeed a bit lacking and the test itself was difficult.

ITMonkey

Sometimes I have issues with Microsoft's books also. As pointed out, the 2nd edition books of the 70-64x series of exams have few(er) errors. Also, some authors do a better job than others in adding value.

I too will purchase a couple books covering the certification material, and I rely heavily on TechNet. You mentioned DHCP ... here is a TechNet DHCP portal page to several in-depth material. Most of it is still Server 2008 R2 themed, although one can begin to see features of Server 2012 included.

Furthermore, spend some time in the DHCP Developer's blog. You'll have to go back a couple years at least; those guys are spending more time blogging about Server 2012 and PowerShell and DHCP.

Dracula28

Thanks for the feedback guys. I am using the following study material for this exam, the mspress book, a 3 exams in one book from sybex, Mastering Server 2008R2, CBT Nuggets and Technet.

I wish the Mspress book was a bit more thorough, so I could have just used the rest to fill in the blanks, then actually having to read full chapters.

ptilsen

That's honestly a lot of study material. What is your practice exam material? I've found a read-through of the book followed by practice exam will generally highlight the relevant gaps in the book. The Transcender practice exams will even link to the Technet article on the topic when you get one wrong. I really think you'll get more out of your time if you just identify your gap areas and read the corresponding Technet articles. I know they're really dry compared to the other books, but there is nothing -- and I mean nothing -- that is in the exams that isn't on Technet, and Technet is at least less material than any of the books.

One type of gotcha question that comes to mind that you will only find answered on Technet is "What is the correct order to configure X?" In some cases, the order doesn't actually matter in practice, but the question will expect you to order it the same way it is on Technet. Just another reason I think you'll get more out of focused Technet readings than throwing all the study material you can find at yourself.

ITMonkey

@ptilsen has a good point. In fact, I have come across questions on the actual certification exams where one had to specify the order of tasks to be done. I passed the exams. I presume it is because I recalled what I had previously read in TechNet.

Reading the development team blogs on a certain role or component is enlightening too.

I'm sounding like a Microsoft shill, but I really believe the two best resources to passing a Microsoft Certification exam is to have a TechNet (product) Subscription (a annual fee) and reading the TechNet library (free).