Studying for MCSA

Dinesh90 · September 2016

Hello Everyone!

I just started to study for my MCSA a few months ago and have my first exam on Friday

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Just wondering for anyone who recently took it, did you have previous experience as a SysAdmin and if so how long?

I find the wording of this exam very tricky and I'm just asking if I can at least rely on my real world experience to help me pass this exam or i just need to study the moves to learn the M$ way.

AndersonSmith · September 2016

Hello, I had several years as a SysAdmin and several years before that as a PC tech before I took the exams. Don't rely solely on your experience to help you pass the exam, you NEED to study and lab out all of the objectives. Powershell is also a very big part of the exams so you'll want to make sure you're very familiar with the cmdlets for the objectives of each test. Basically, learn how to do something in the GUI and then learn how to do it in Powershell. These are fairly difficult exams even for people like us with experience. Good luck!

Louie1277 · September 2016

That is very true... Powershell at first didn't like but now that I been studying for the exam it's much easier to understand and learn.

Day is getting closer and closer for my exam...

AndersonSmith · September 2016

I was in the same boat Louie. I wasn't a fan of Powershell until I was forced to start learning it for my exams and now I love it. Good luck on your upcoming exam, you got it!

Dinesh90 · September 2016

Thanks for the advice Anderson.

Louie1277: Good luck!! Try not to stress, For these exams, you need to be as calm as possible.

I currently have two lab setup one at home and one at work and are doing everything I see in the book the GUI/CLI way.

I've been watching the following videos and they help a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKWqPrqG4yyRl8JGRCzbwr5riYScPYkjL

poolmanjim · September 2016

I've worked in IT for the better part of 8 years now, about half help desk and half as a Sysadmin or SysEngineer. I was able to use some of my experience to the portions of the test that I had experience. However, there the "This is how we do it in the real world" mentality and the "Microsoft wants me to say its this because they are delusional but I'm taking their test so their right" mentality. Some of the material on the tests asks questions that would never be reasonable questions in the real world. Some of this is intentional to make you think of how the technology works, some of it is Microsoft's delusion.

Also, all the SysAdmin experience in the world will not cover 100% of topics. I know SysAdmins who have never even touched DirectAccess or Hyper-V and others who know less about AD then they should be willing to admit.

Dinesh90 · September 2016

Thanks for the reply guys,

I'll be hitting the books hard!

Lexluethar · September 2016

I finished my MCSA last year for 2008. It comprises of three exams, one I took and passed before I had sys admin experience but I labbed a ton. The last two I had just started my system administrator job. It's not a requirement but definitely helps. I think on their exam site ms says 2 years experience for the exams which is pretty accurate imo.

Any system administrator experience though won't cover all topics covered by the exam, it just helps with the basics and allows you to focus on new material.

Also powershell will make your life way easier once you land a system administrator job.

Good luck!

Studying for MCSA

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