70-643 on Tuesday Sep 21, 2010

Well I was thinking about rescheduling the exam (again) but decided that since I get a free second shot through WGU the worst that can happen is I get a really tough practice test and waste a 3 hour round trip on Tuesday.
My main reason for being really nervous now is finding out just a few days ago that the exam will cover Server 2008 R2. I spent part of the last few days reading from the three chapters (hopefully I hit all the bases) of the ebook for R2 that I got from MS last month as part of their MCP flash.
Doing some more practice tests and reviewing the flashcards from Transcender (which are not that great IMHO) and hoping my study strategy will pay off.
Wish me luck!

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Comments

willhi1979

Sorry to hear you failed. It's pretty bad that they changed the tests so quickly, you think they'd announce it weeks beforehand

earweed

They did, sort of. There was a post in the Microsoft Learning Community forum that someone here happened to see and posted about it. That was last week though that we here at TE found out about it.
The guy at that forum answered my post and said that the new questions are ungraded betas and that I just missed too many of the regular questions. When they are all labeled Server 2008 R2 then you don't know what questions are 2008 or 2008 R2. I had quite a few questions that I was going between 2 answers that could have been right and must have picked the wrong answer.
It was a 65 question test and I had about 35 questions marked for review by the time I got to the end. I reviewed all questions and then answered the ones I'd marked. It was a hard test but if I hadn't spent the time I did studying R2 in those last days I might have done better. I probably would have passed if all the questions had been graded. IDK if they were or not as Microsoft learning had just told the WGU course mentor last week that R2 wouldn't be on the test at all and since the skills measured had been changed we are responsible for what's on them.

earweed

I'm starting at square 1 and since a lot of my study will be review it should be ok. I'm planning to resit the exam in about 3 weeks.
So far I've
1. made a study plan
2.ordered a 2k8 R2 book (Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2)
3. dowloaded an enterprise eval of 28k R2 and created 4 VMs on my lab comp (that's a total of 4 Enterprise R2, 1 standard R2, and a client Windows 7 that I now have to work with)

The first section of my studying is deploying servers and I'm evaluating my weak areas (storage is my weakest area) so that I know what to really hammer on.

Zillatech

earweed wrote: »

With this one collection of technet articles I could have passed that exam..guaranteed
Changes in Functionality from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 R2

Thanks for the link, I am studying for the 70-643 now and just finished the updated Train Signal Course. It leaves many things out compared to the updated Microsoft "Skills Measured" web page. I have also compared it to the CBT Nuggets course and they are missing some new "R2" items as well although their 70-643 Course is much closer and more complete than the TS Video in regards to the Exam "Skills Measured".

"SharePoint" in particular is very weak in Train Signal and it seems to have the most updates overall but the entire 70-643 Exam looks to have many updates.

earweed

Zillatech wrote: »

Thanks for the link, I am studying for the 70-643 now and just finished the updated Train Signal Course. It leaves many things out compared to the updated Microsoft "Skills Measured" web page. I have also compared it to the CBT Nuggets course and they are missing some new "R2" items as well although their 70-643 Course is much closer and more complete than the TS Video in regards to the Exam "Skills Measured".

"SharePoint" in particular is very weak in Train Signal and it seems to have the most updates overall but the entire 70-643 Exam looks to have many updates.

I couldn't really find any good "this is just what's different" articles about Sharepoint Foundation 2010 so I just bolded the whole thing. From what I can tell so far there are a few (some very minor) changes in every area between sharepoint 3,0 and Sharepoint Foudations 2010.

Sabalo

I just want to say thanks for this thread. A Prometric weirdness prevented me from taking the test last Friday. I scheduled for Sunday and did some last minute internet skimming and hey, what do you know? I find out that a whole bunch of new stuff was added. A bit of last minute scurrying Sat and early Sun and I managed a pass on my 643.

Thanks again. On to that final 70-647.

earweed

Congrats on the pass and welcome to TE!

Sabalo

Thanks! Being out here in the middle of nowhere, I have little else to do but study when I am not working.

za3bour

Sabalo wrote: »

I just want to say thanks for this thread. A Prometric weirdness prevented me from taking the test last Friday. I scheduled for Sunday and did some last minute internet skimming and hey, what do you know? I find out that a whole bunch of new stuff was added. A bit of last minute scurrying Sat and early Sun and I managed a pass on my 643.

Thanks again. On to that final 70-647.

I had a problem too last Thursday so it seems they had problems all around the global.

Sabalo

za3bour wrote: »

I had a problem too last Thursday so it seems they had problems all around the global.

Out here, it is hard to tell if the issue is a Prometric issue or a local connection issue.

Jander1023

Haha! It's nice to see so many computer nerds, even in the middle east!

==> No insult intended. I consider myself a computer nerd, first class. : )