70-643: Ain't no picnic

MeatCatalogue

Just passed the 70-643 this morning with my lowest score ever: 800. Good enough to pass but anyone who is trying to get the EA cert before expiration, be aware: this is the tough one. At least for me. And I even took the 83-640!

IIS isn't hard but memorizing all the GPOs for RD session hosts, all the nooks and crannies of sharepoint foundation 2010, all 26 options of diskpart, fileshare clustering (i've never seen this once professionally) is just one mega pain.

Maybe I got "unlucky" and pulled a particularly difficult set of questions, but when I clicked submit results I gave myself a 50/50 on seeing "congratulations". Glad I got it but damn, it wasn't easy!

Essendon

Congrats mate! Wait for the 647, did me head in 3 times. Is this your next one or is 646 up next?

MeatCatalogue

Essendon wrote: »

Congrats mate! Wait for the 647, did me head in 3 times. Is this your next one or is 646 up next?

Thanks! I'm actually going to do the windows 7 exam next since the 643 has a lot of the same topics as the Windows 7 - Diskpart, WDS, etc. It looks super easy compared to the server exams, and hey, I use windows 7 every day.. so i'll probably knock it out in a week or two. Which of the "elective" exams did you take?

70-647 I have read isn't too difficult, though it is said that 646 is tough. Don't know! Everything expires July 31 so might as well get an easy one out of the way and give myself a month or more for the 70-647 in case it is as difficult as you say.

Essendon

Dont want to sound discouraging, but dont take the client exams (especially the Win 7 ones) lightly. The 680 is known to pack a punch. Of course, if you put the time and effort in, it's not difficult. I did the 620 as the elective towards the MCSA: Messaging, that counted towards the EA too. Easiest exam ever, I went in with like an hour's prep and winged it.

Thing about the 646 is it's (640 + 642)'s design bits. The 647 on the other hand is (640 + 642 + 643)'s design bits. I had a free voucher I got hold of after I passed the 647 and decided to take a swing at the 646. Almost passed it with no prep. Not saying it was easy, but was easier than the 647. YMMV though, every exam's different. Good luck with whatever you do!

MeatCatalogue

Essendon wrote: »

Dont want to sound discouraging, but dont take the client exams (especially the Win 7 ones) lightly. The 680 is known to pack a punch. Of course, if you put the time and effort in, it's not difficult. I did the 620 as the elective towards the MCSA: Messaging, that counted towards the EA too. Easiest exam ever, I went in with like an hour's prep and winged it.

Thing about the 646 is it's (640 + 642)'s design bits. The 647 on the other hand is (640 + 642 + 643)'s design bits. I had a free voucher I got hold of after I passed the 647 and decided to take a swing at the 646. Almost passed it with no prep. Not saying it was easy, but was easier than the 647. YMMV though, every exam's different. Good luck with whatever you do!

Well I took 2 practice exams and scored 82% on first and 87% on second. But yeah im not going to go spend $150 just to wing it. I'll at least read through the parts of the MS Press book where I think i'm weakest. My biggest concern is the 70-647 and leaving myself enough time to pass it. Even though I work with AD on a daily basis, I took my 83-640 over 3 years ago so all the esoteric parts of that exam are long gone from my brain.

sacredboy

Is anybody who took this 70-643 exam recently?