Is this MTA Security Fundamentals as easy as it looks?

hoktauri

Hi, first time here. Was looking for an answer to a question and the forum came up, I couldn't find the answer so I'll go ahead and post it. I got an email from my old school a few days ago that they're doing free MTA certs next week, I signed up for 3 and got the study guides & prep test today, I tried Exam 98-367 first. Is the actual Security Fundamentals exam really this easy? I did the 35 question practice test in about 7 minutes 3 times with an average score of 90% without studying first. Granted I do have 10+ years in IT but it still feels way too easy and I don't want to bomb it next week, the study guides don't make it look very hard either.

I'm also going for Network Fundamentals and Windows Server Administration Fundamentals, since it's free why not? I'll try the practice tests tomorrow and get a feel for them.

nicktornetta

I havent taken the MTA Security Fundamentals, but I have taken the Networking Fundamentals one as part of my WGU degree. I passed the actual exam in about 10 mins or so.

I think you are on the right track, trying out the pretests to see for sure. If you are doing 85%+ on all of them, take them all in the same day so you can knock them out.

hoktauri

I took 4 MTA exams today and passed them all in about an hour and a half, here's my breakdown:

Security Fundamentals - Easiest of the bunch, had free access to MeasureUp's practice tests and they more or less matched up. Some wording differences that can trip you up if you're trying to blast through it and not paying attention, took about 10 minutes for 35 questions. Mainly centered on types of attacks & generic defenses (RADIUS, honeypots)

Networking Fundamentals - Fairly easy, again had access to the practice tests. This time at least in my experience the practice tests had a lot of questions about ISDN and other older technologies that did not pop up in the official test. There was a few IPv6 questions but fairly basic ones like loopback addresses, one or two OSI stack questions that were fairly easy to figure out as well. Again took about 15 minutes for 35 questions.

Windows Operating System Fundamentals - This one turned out the be the hardest and I'm glad I had the practice tests. About half the test dealt with easy Windows functions and half with remote administration, virtualization, scripting and other corporate level tasks. Since my experience is in home and small business I probably would have failed going in without and prep. The practice test also was 50 question test and 80% to pass (others 35/70%), the actual exam was 36 & I think 70% but not sure since I got over 80. Took about 20 minutes then took a break to talk to some old teachers and claim another free voucher.

Windows Server Fundamentals - I took this one since I had time and there were still free vouchers so I could get the MTA IT title. I did get a practice test for and ended up getting the highest score out of all 4 on this one. For me it was a lot of basic Windows questions along with basic Server questions, it really seems like half the questions from this should have been switched with the Windows exam. Took about 20 minutes again for 36 questions.

A good chunk of the time used in the exams was waiting for the next question to load. Certiport uses ActiveX and there were questions that I was waiting longer for it to load than it took me to answer them. After passing 4 I was tired of taking tests so I did not attempt the DB Admin MTA but I don't think I would have passed, one of the people I talked too said there was a good bit of Oracle questions mixed in.

Finally, the Microsoft study guides given out for this were pretty much useless. Overly vague and did not touch on what was really covered in the tests. I blew threw the study guides and thought I could pass every MTA easily, started taking the practice tests and learned differently.

I hope this helps someone, I'm waiting on offical notification from Microsoft that I passed them. Hope I can use these to get more money so I can afford to take some others.

Ivanjam

@hoktauri - don't waste your own money and time on MTA certification. It's good that you got the training material and vouchers free for those exams but, unless you plan to attend WGU, the other MTA's are pretty useless. You mentioned that you had 10 years of IT experience - I don't know if you have more advanced MS certification like the MCSA but if you don't, then my advice is to get those instead of the MTA's (unless you are getting them free again).

eansdad

If it is anything like the OS MTA then yes ... It is that easy

MSP-IT

I had a poor attitude towards the Windows OS fundamentals through WGU; let's just say that my goal was to finish the exam as fast as possible. I sat and passed the MTA in roughly 8 minutes, scored somewhere in the high 70's. In hindsight, the probably wasn't the smartest idea, but at least I passed. So, like the above comment mentioned, if it's anything like the OS MTA, then yes.

hoktauri

Aside from the 4 I just got I have no certifications, never needed them and until I found out I could get my associate's degree for free through the pell grant I didn't have a degree either. I would like to get more certifications but they aren't cheap and there always seems to be something else that is a higher priority.