Anotyher Microsoft FAIL

I just got an email announcing that the 70-646 and 70-647 exams were being updated to reflect Server 2008 R2. It was from....

PROMETRIC

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Jander1023

za3bour wrote: »

So we have another failure from Prometric, it seems they don't talk to each other :S

Is it that hard to communicate ?

Haha! My company's IT department cannot communicate properly and we have less than 50 people! So it doesn't surprise me.

za3bour

Jander1023 wrote: »

Haha! My company's IT department cannot communicate properly and we have less than 50 people! So it doesn't surprise me.

But do you make money as much as Prometric do ?

Jander1023

za3bour wrote: »

But do you make money as much as Prometric do ?

I am unsure how much money Prometric makes. Our company makes money.

Edit: ==> I don't see enough of that money thou!

za3bour

DaRichMan wrote: »

Just came back from the exam and no questions abut R2.
Passed with 940 points

Congratulations for the great score

I think you was lucky since now it's official it does include R2, how many questions did you get ? how hard was the exam ? what material did you use?

and thanks

earweed

I wish MS would be consistent and also they would at least announce exam changes. It seems that some people are getting the R2 questions while others are not. Does MS have any criteria for deciding who has R2 on there exams or is it just random?
I've been seeing on the WGU community where different people may or may not have R2 on their exams and also the same thing here.
I emailed mcphelp last week and they weren't even aware of changes to the exam.
When I took the exam EVERY question phrased had mention of R2 and if it concerned a client had Windows 7.

za3bour

True all questions for me as well phrased R2 BUT they didn't necessarily include questions about specific R2 features which is I think more confusing.

RobertKaucher

za3bour wrote: »

True all questions for me as well phrased R2 BUT they didn't necessarily include questions about specific R2 features which is I think more confusing.

This is actually pretty typical in the psychology of test taking. The question says "You are the domain admin for Company X. Company X has a network with all Server 2008 R2 systems.." and the question goes on to ask about stub zones, a feature available since 2003 and the teest taker gets nervous because of the inclusion of the word R2.

When I was teaching classes for the MCSA I would cover this with students. I'd put a question on the board and word it in such a way that it looked like I was asking about DNS, but really the problem was clearly that the subnet maks was misconfigured. IF the question is not specifically mentioning Branch Cache or something like that, it probably has nothing to do with specifically R2 features.

LCA

RobertKaucher wrote: »

This is actually pretty typical in the psychology of test taking.

I'm with you 100% on this one Robert, MS are using the R2 thing partly to get inside exam candidates heads.

za3bour

LCA wrote: »

I'm with you 100% on this one Robert, MS are using the R2 thing partly to get inside exam candidates heads.

But this wasn't the case let's say a month ago ? would it hurt them to announce it ? I like and agree with what Robert said it's a good way to test.

But let's not forget that some questions were indeed R2 and all case studies were R2 as well and this particular info was not advertised (till this moment) on MS website. It was announced by Prometric but you can see that a member here did the exam today and it didn't include R2 so this is at least for me a huge failure/confusion

Devilsbane

RobertKaucher wrote: »

This is actually pretty typical in the psychology of test taking. The question says "You are the domain admin for Company X. Company X has a network with all Server 2008 R2 systems.." and the question goes on to ask about stub zones, a feature available since 2003 and the teest taker gets nervous because of the inclusion of the word R2.

When I was teaching classes for the MCSA I would cover this with students. I'd put a question on the board and word it in such a way that it looked like I was asking about DNS, but really the problem was clearly that the subnet maks was misconfigured. IF the question is not specifically mentioning Branch Cache or something like that, it probably has nothing to do with specifically R2 features.

One of the reasons that CompTIA exams are regarded as low level exams is becaue they directly ask you a question, which even a monkey could answer.

Microsoft chooses to see what you actually know, so they throw everything at you. How many Domains you have, their names, where they are located, all sorts of ip addresses, and whatever else they want. Then it typically leads into a problem, and then a question.

A strategy, that I don't use a lot, but can be very helpful, is to start at the bottom and work your way up. Skip all of the garbage and go down to the last line or so that actually asks the question. Also go down to the answers, find out what the possibilities are. If all of the answers are about something in DNS, then you can likely ignore anything dealing with DHCP in the question. Another thing you can try is to translate the paragraph of info into more of a programming logic using your "scratch paper". Domain=contoso.com ip=10.10.10.6 ect. You can also draw pictures in and do aarows and stuff so that you actually understand what that paragraph means. Comprehension is more than 50% of the test IMO.

za3bour

Devilsbane wrote: »

One of the reasons that CompTIA exams are regarded as low level exams is becaue they directly ask you a question, which even a monkey could answer.

Microsoft chooses to see what you actually know, so they throw everything at you. How many Domains you have, their names, where they are located, all sorts of ip addresses, and whatever else they want. Then it typically leads into a problem, and then a question.

A strategy, that I don't use a lot, but can be very helpful, is to start at the bottom and work your way up. Skip all of the garbage and go down to the last line or so that actually asks the question. Also go down to the answers, find out what the possibilities are. If all of the answers are about something in DNS, then you can likely ignore anything dealing with DHCP in the question. Another thing you can try is to translate the paragraph of info into more of a programming logic using your "scratch paper". Domain=contoso.com ip=10.10.10.6 ect. You can also draw pictures in and do aarows and stuff so that you actually understand what that paragraph means. Comprehension is more than 50% of the test IMO.

Man I use the same strategy and it is really working for me, sometime I get really confused with all the info they're throwing especially the domains/names do they have to name the domain whuydeewinesomething.com in order to test us ?

usually it's all in the last sentence I read it and understand exactly what they want then go up.

Jander1023

za3bour wrote: »

Man I use the same strategy and it is really working for me, sometime I get really confused with all the info they're throwing especially the domains/names do they have to name the domain whuydeewinesomething.com in order to test us ?

usually it's all in the last sentence I read it and understand exactly what they want then go up.

Ditto. I have found this to be a very useful strategy.

MentholMoose

Yes it's a good strategy. The first sentence is utterly useless on 99% of exam questions... seriously, if you are taking an MCITP exam, do you expect the question to start, "you manage an NT 4.0 domain with one PDC and two BDCs"? The second sentence is also useless on on probably 70% of questions. Over the course of an exam the wasted time and confusion can really add up. Just read the last couple sentences and skim through previous sentences for relevant info (if any).

Sabalo

Took this test just this morning (well, morning for me.)

Without saying what was on the test, I will say that using the Self-Study guide published by MS Press, combined with the occasional reference to Technet for clarification, helped me pass this test by a comfortable margin. I am out in the middle of nowhere, granted, but my testing center is technically listed as a New York testing center.

Your experience may vary. As you all know R2 at least a little, though, why not at least skim through the new features before you go in? You know that MS loves the new technology, so when they DO add R2 you can be sure that there will be questions on DirectAccess and Branchcache, yes?