WooHoo Passed 70-646 now MCITP-SA

I gotta celebrate this one in particular due to the difficulties I had here

http://www.techexams.net/forums/mcts-mcitp-windows-2008-general/58382-70-646-thursday-sep-23-2010-a.html

I finished the exam 30 minutes ago got 775/1000 I gotta say this is the hardest exam I've ever take and I will say why.

I hope I'm not violating NDA if I am please let me know

I had first 40 questions that I finished in around an hour the question were fair I would say some of them were really hard and some were really easy a typical Microsoft exam I would say. There were few R2 specific questions but all the questions mentioned R2 and mentioned it services there were no mention for TS for example and at questions all of them said Windows 2008 R2 which could be very misleading because the answer itself may not be related to R2.

After I finished the 40 questions there were 4 case studies all had 6-7 questions and at this every thing was R2 and if you are not familiar with it you will be screwed.

Here is were I lost my marks I think, even though at MS website R2 is not reflected at 646 but case studies were all about them. Some of the terms I have never heard about.

Anyhow, I'm glad I'm passed after around 2 months of studying, I'm happy with the score. An advice for every one is to install R2 and begin working with it there are lot of changes and features and many terms have changed.

Good luck to anyone talking this exam, my next is 643 and my goal is one month of studying I hope it's enough because I know R2 is included in it.

I'm one happy man now after two trips to Lebanon, one day off tomorrow and back to study on friday

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Comments

rogue2shadow

Yes yes!!! Congrats!

earweed

Congrats man! I knew you could do it!
Back to the R2 studies as now I can be fairly confident that not only will my test in 2 weeks have R2 but so will the 70-647.. Have you checked out some of the red bolded entries on the skills learned I posted in the 70-640,642, and 643 to see if those terms you didn't recognize are there?

krusty83uk

Congratulations!

neathneathneath

congrats

I did my 646 a couple of weeks ago and it was 40 straight questions.
Format of exam may have changed...............

Dracula28

Congrats on the pass.

LCA

Well done, you hung in there in what was obviously a tough exam and won.

za3bour

LCA wrote: »

Well done, you hung in there in what was obviously a tough exam and won.

Thanks a lot , yes it was tough i'm still exhausted

actually I arrived Damascus at 9:30 PM

za3bour

rogue2shadow wrote: »

Yes yes!!! Congrats!

Thanks Thanks

za3bour

earweed wrote: »

Congrats man! I knew you could do it!
Back to the R2 studies as now I can be fairly confident that not only will my test in 2 weeks have R2 but so will the 70-647.. Have you checked out some of the red bolded entries on the skills learned I posted in the 70-640,642, and 643 to see if those terms you didn't recognize are there?

Thanks man, Yes you are right I think from now on all exams will reflect R2 even 70-680. Yes the terms I'm mentiong are posted in your threads but since there was no mention for R2 at 70-646 page I assumed that I will not be tested upon then but I was wrong.

I learned from it, I ordered my Windows 2008 R2 unleached book and it will arrive in two weeks I had to pay extra to have them shipped quickly.

za3bour

Dracula28 wrote: »

Congrats on the pass.

Thanks a lot

za3bour

neathneathneath wrote: »

congrats

I did my 646 a couple of weeks ago and it was 40 straight questions.
Format of exam may have changed...............

I guess you were luckier

those case study questions were confusing.

Thanks

earweed

za3bour wrote: »

Thanks man, Yes you are right I think from now on all exams will reflect R2 even 70-680. Yes the terms I'm mentiong are posted in your threads but since there was no mention for R2 at 70-646 page I assumed that I will not be tested upon then but I was wrong.

I learned from it, I ordered my Windows 2008 R2 unleached book and it will arrive in two weeks I had to pay extra to have them shipped quickly.

I sent another email to microsoft learning today about the stuff they're pulling. If they don't change the skills measured they shouldn't be testing like they have. My last email basically gave a non-answer to my asking if they were going to change the 70-646/647 to reflect R2 and they basically didn't answer me but I got the idea that they just don't have a clue what they're doing and I better prepare for the worst.
I know the skills measured for the 646 and 647 are kind of generic and don't really have the detail of the other 3 skills measured but MS could at least update it to say that R2 may be on the test.

za3bour

earweed wrote: »

I sent another email to microsoft learning today about the stuff they're pulling. If they don't change the skills measured they shouldn't be testing like they have. My last email basically gave a non-answer to my asking if they were going to change the 70-646/647 to reflect R2 and they basically didn't answer me but I got the idea that they just don't have a clue what they're doing and I better prepare for the worst.
I know the skills measured for the 646 and 647 are kind of generic and don't really have the detail of the other 3 skills measured but MS could at least update it to say that R2 may be on the test.

Well since somone did my exam two weeks ago and it was only 40 question and no case studies then I'm sure it has changed for 70-646 and also 70-647 because both of them have info from other exams (640,2,3) and all these three now have R2 so it just make sense.

And since it is case studies now I think next step will be changing the whole format and include R2 as the original edition to test.

I did complain about this at the end of my exam, MS has a policy of not talking so I'm sure they will not answer you although they should.

I mean lets say that someone now want to study for 70-646 he will get the books check website and may not come to this forum. He will finish studying and think he's ready go to test center and I'm pretty sure he will fail very miserably because he will be tested on something he didn't learn.

They should inform us and they should update the books that's the only fair thing to do.

The only good thing about this is that we will learn R2 and that's good.

Jander1023

Congrats! Thx for all the info about the test. I am hoping to start on the 646 very soon. I'll make sure to cover all the R2 material.

Now I have to upgrade my computer to 64 bit. Ugh! I can do it with my dual-core, but I would like to get a quad-core. Unfortunately, the prices on those 775 socket chip-sets hasn't changed in many months. Maybe I'll just upgrade the memory to 8GB.

za3bour

Jander1023 wrote: »

Congrats! Thx for all the info about the test. I am hoping to start on the 646 very soon. I'll make sure to cover all the R2 material.

Now I have to upgrade my computer to 64 bit. Ugh! I can do it with my dual-core, but I would like to get a quad-core. Unfortunately, the prices on those 775 socket chip-sets hasn't changed in many months. Maybe I'll just upgrade the memory to 8GB.

Thanks a lot and good luck, I actually use my laptop it's a 2.2 i3 with 4GB memory and it's working really well

Jander1023

za3bour wrote: »

Thanks a lot and good luck, I actually use my laptop it's a 2.2 i3 with 4GB memory and it's working really well

I can get the 2.5Ghz quad-core for $140. It has 4MB L2 cache. I've been hoping the 12MB L2 cache processors would come down in price a bit; but they haven't. The same 2.5Ghz processor with 12MB L2 cache is almost twice the price. Grrrrr!

I could probably get by with only 4gigs of memory. But I'd like to setup some more complex lab scenarios, so I'll probably upgrade the memory also. Another 4gigs is around $90.

I was hoping to put this off until January, but I guess not.

za3bour

Jander1023 wrote: »

I can get the 2.5Ghz quad-core for $140. It has 4MB L2 cache. I've been hoping the 12MB L2 cache processors would come down in price a bit; but they haven't. The same 2.5Ghz processor with 12MB L2 cache is almost twice the price. Grrrrr!

I could probably get by with only 4gigs of memory. But I'd like to setup some more complex lab scenarios, so I'll probably upgrade the memory also. Another 4gigs is around $90.

I was hoping to put this off until January, but I guess not.

I think the upgrade worth paying 230$ since now u will have a very good PC to work with.

Jander1023

za3bour wrote: »

I think the upgrade worth paying 230$ since now u will have a very good PC to work with.

Yeah. My main desire to put this off until January was so the processor prices might come down a bit. I'd like a 12MB L2 cache processor. No major biggie.

Btw, where did you get your EE from? I originally attended college in pursuit of my EE. Unfortunately, I dropped out. They didn't offer a computer engineering degree at the time or I might have pursed that instead.

Man, I wish I knew then what I know now.

za3bour

Jander1023 wrote: »

Yeah. My main desire to put this off until January was so the processor prices might come down a bit. I'd like a 12MB L2 cache processor. No major biggie.

Btw, where did you get your EE from? I originally attended college in pursuit of my EE. Unfortunately, I dropped out. They didn't offer a computer engineering degree at the time or I might have pursed that instead.

Man, I wish I knew then what I know now.

I got it from Damascus University I graduated at 2003 it's 5 years degree but when I first admitted there was no Computer Engineering or Computer Science at Damascus University so I had to chose EE with a major in Power.

I have the diploma hanging in my bedroom, I've never worked though as an EE so basically I wasted 6 years of my life in it

mcse_696

Congratulation,
Did you use any training videos like Nuggets or Trainsignal?

za3bour

mcse_696 wrote: »

Congratulation,
Did you use any training videos like Nuggets or Trainsignal?

Thanks,

No I can't afford to, I used two books the MS self paced book and Sybex book both of them were good indeed but labbing is what will benefit most.

creamy_stew

That sucks!
However, do you really think a 30 minute drive is a hassle?
Did you mean 30 hour?

Is Damscus really that close to Beirut?

Actually, come to think of it, it can't really be 30 hours unless there are some hardcore customs/border things.

I live in Sweden, and I have 2 hours to the nearest testing center

za3bour

creamy_stew wrote: »

That sucks!
However, do you really think a 30 minute drive is a hassle?
Did you mean 30 hour?

Is Damscus really that close to Beirut?

Actually, come to think of it, it can't really be 30 hours unless there are some hardcore customs/border things.

I live in Sweden, and I have 2 hours to the nearest testing center

Hey

No I think you got me wrong, I said that I finished the exam in 30 minutes but I was still in Beirut

The distance actually is not that long but there are two main factors the first one is boarders because you have to stop twice and there is the traffic before you reach Beirut. I will tell you one example

Yesterday I had an Exam I left home at 8:00 to the station in order to take a taxi and of course you have to wait till there is 4 passengers so we waited till 9:00. We left Damascus at 9:00 and arrived to Beirut at 12:15 I was at the exam center at 12:30.

So it's around 4.5 hours since I left home and sometimes it takes more.

It's not that bad but the first exam I did in 2004 I was in Bellevue/WA - USA and it took me 15 minutes (walking) to get there it was way more comfortable than this. I know others are suffering too I'm not saying I'm the only one but I can't say it's easy not to mention it's actually costs a lot.

earweed

The testing center I usually use is over an hours drive. I found one closer but probably wont go back as I didn't like it as much. The testing area was cramped.

creamy_stew

za3bour wrote: »

Hey

No I think you got me wrong, I said that I finished the exam in 30 minutes but I was still in Beirut

The distance actually is not that long but there are two main factors the first one is boarders because you have to stop twice and there is the traffic before you reach Beirut. I will tell you one example

Yesterday I had an Exam I left home at 8:00 to the station in order to take a taxi and of course you have to wait till there is 4 passengers so we waited till 9:00. We left Damascus at 9:00 and arrived to Beirut at 12:15 I was at the exam center at 12:30.

So it's around 4.5 hours since I left home and sometimes it takes more.

It's not that bad but the first exam I did in 2004 I was in Bellevue/WA - USA and it took me 15 minutes (walking) to get there it was way more comfortable than this. I know others are suffering too I'm not saying I'm the only one but I can't say it's easy not to mention it's actually costs a lot.

Yeah, I figured I had misunderstood something

I would be awesome if my company paid for a hotel night, but since it's just 2h drive, they're probably gonna say "get up early" unless they need the cert asap. (I plan on using this to my advantage when I've finished studying 70-640; the I'm promptly going to forget about all things Windows again

)

I'm mostly a net guy

za3bour

creamy_stew wrote: »

Yeah, I figured I had misunderstood something
I would be awesome if my company paid for a hotel night, but since it's just 2h drive, they're probably gonna say "get up early" unless they need the cert asap. (I plan on using this to my advantage when I've finished studying 70-640; the I'm promptly going to forget about all things Windows again )

I'm mostly a net guy

Good luck for you