70-290 this Friday!!

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As per the title I have my 70-290 exam booked for Friday. Over the past four weeks I have done the following ;

• Watched the 70-290 CBT Nuggets
• Read through the Sybex book and completed the quizzes at the end of each chapter
• Set up a virtual lab (1x DC, 1x Member Server (running TS & WSUS), 1x Client)

I've scored at least 80% for most modules, though one or two have dipped into the 70s. I'll be reading through the WSUS chapter (only SUS is covered in the Sybex book) in the MS Press book tomorrow lunch time, and then doing one of the mock exams from the Sybex book. I'll also be reading through the ExamCram2 book aswell over the next few days.

When I took my 70-270 I purchased a Transcender for it. I found the Transcender very useful in identifying areas of weakness and learning why my answers were wrong/right.

Although Transcender was very useful, I am tempted to save myself the £80 it costs and use the MS Readiness Review suite. Is this as good as Transcender in terms of breaking your answers down into objectives etc and is it as hard or harder than Transcender? I found the Transcender test for the 270 was harder than my actual exam, which helpded me a lot...

Anyway enough questions for one night.... I'm off to watch Spooks.

Cheers

MaXX

 

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Although Transcender is a competitor, I will say this: the MS Readiness Review suite is not even close to as good as what Transcender has to offer (particularly if Transcender is still using the content BosonJosh wrote). You typically get what you pay for... and what you'll get with the MS Readiness Review is a "freebie" MSPress puts in the back of a book.

 

What made you choose to read the 290 Sybex book instead of the MS Press book? (Just asking since you have both)
Oh and for the 290 I took 3 transcender exams, didn't score above 76% on any of them. They were definitely harder than the actual exam. Filled in a lot of blanks.
But yeah it is quite temping to save the 80 bucks, especially since you have the second shot.

 

I chose to use the Sybex book rather than the MSPress book because I read on a forum that the Sybex book was more comprehensive and better written. I had also used the Sybex for my 70-270 exam and found it very good. Having flicked through the MS Press book, it looks far better in terms of content coverage, layout and readability.

Out of interest, what did you end up scoring in the actual real exam. For the 270 I was getting late 70s/early 80s in Transcender and came out with 940 in the exam.

 

Wow nice score.
I ended up with a 857 on the 290.
I hear you on the readability of the MS Press books
I bought the core pack before I knew how dry they were. I did however use Sybex for my MCDST, what a difference, it was an absolute joy to read.
But I do like the extensive detail of the MS Press books at times.

 

Good luck for friday, enjoy 70-290 before you hit "The beast"

 

scored 980 on 290. The easiest exam that i took. used MSpress material.

Anyway good luck

 

Best of luck for friday mate

 

Good luck for Firday!!

I recently did the 290 and found Sybex much easier to read and digest than the MS Press book. I have both again for the 291 and finding the same!

I use the Transcender and it's very much like the 290 one in that it seemed to be much harder than the actual exam.

Let us know how you get on!!

 

Good luck. I didn't ever get more than 66% in the transcenders in 290. Very tough.

The exam was WAY easier.

 

Good luck Friday Maxx

 

I passed this one a few weeks ago. What I found was that while transender was slightly harder than the actual exam, this was only due the the answers being more difficult to eliminate wrong answers.

My technique during the exam was to write A B C D on the paper provided and read the question through, then read the answers. If required a re-read to ensure I have understood what they are asking and in many cases they state minimal administrative effort.

I then scored out what I thought were the wrong answers in turn, often leaving me with 2 possible correct answers and if from the 2 left, both work, decide which involve the least effort e.g. GPO as opposed to local per server setting.

I also found this method good for keeping you focused and if still not sure, re-read and re-evaluate the answers you at first eliminated.....as sometimes you may not have fully understood the question....least this was my experience.

Best of luck with the exam....as my Dad always used to say....take your time, read the question properly...

 

I've just spent the past hour or so doing one of the Transcender Exam Sims.

It was pretty hard going and I ended up with 67%, which would obviously result in a fail for the real thing.

Scores were ;

Managing and Implementing Disaster Recovery (36%)
Managing and Maintaining Access to Resources (57%)
Managing and Maintaining a Server Environment (73%)
Managing and Maintaining Physical and Logical Devices (83%)
Managing Users, Computers, and Groups (90%)

I'm going to place emphasis onto the two lowest scored areas over the next few days, and will read through the Transcender review/answers thoroughly.

Can anyone recommend any further reading on the areas I failed in?

Cheers

MaX

 

Personally when I sat this exam the most useful source of study was the MS Press book as the questions at end of each chapter was very near to the real exam.

Study the material and know the theory well, but if you feel you need more time I'd get the exam re-scheduled unless you've got the second shot voucher. Best wishes

 

Of your 2 weak areas, I got a lot of questions in the access to resources area, so you need to know the permissions well. I'd google permissions and look for what granular permissions make up the higher level Share and NTFS permissions. For example a combination of Traverse Folder, List Folder, Read Attributes, Read Extended Attributes, Create Files/Write Data, Create Folders/Apend Data, Write attributes, Write extended atrributes, delete subfolders and files, delete, read permissions, change permissions, change permissions, take ownership make up these higher level permissions. So the higher level permissions as you'll know are Write, Read, List Folder Contents, Read and Execute, Modify and Full Control. Know what granular permissions make up these higher level permissions as a lot of the questions will state, give the minimal level of permissions to achieve the given task.

For Disaster recovery, you could well get asked about the steps to recover a server which may include a simulation. So know about restoring a DC and differences between a DC and member server. Know that for a DC and returning system state that you restart server, press f8, select directory services restore mode etc....

Know the circumstances for using a given tool, safe more, last known good config and ASR, what makes up an ASR set and how to restore from one (restart with W2K3 cd, F2, asr floppy, restart).

Also, looks from your score you know about the various RAID levels, but I got a few on moving/replacing disks. So know the process for bringing new disks online. Know that only Raid-1 and 5 have redundancy, that is Mirror and 5 with parity.

Good luck

 

Well.... I used the ExamCram2 book to read up on Disaster Recovery, Managing Access to resources, Group Scopes and Domain Functional Levels.

Ironically, the Exam Cram book appeared to teach me more in far fewer pages than the Sybex book did.

I took another Transcender test last night and scored 73%.There were various simulations and questions. The Transcender included questions on both WSUS and SUS, and even included a SUS simulation. Although I knew very little about using SUS, I was able to find my way around it very easily.

I need to clarify my knowledge on GPOs, DFLs, and Group Scopes. Any recommendations for sources other than the Exam Cram book?

 

I'm just on my way into sunny Bristol to take my 70-290 now. If I pass this one I will be an MCSA so fingers crossed! I passed the 70-291 with a score of 905 a couple of weeks ago so I'm hoping this one will be a bit earier than that exam!

I've done a week's course and used the MS Press book for studying as well. I'll post later and let you know how I got on.

 

I find the MS Press Suite questions are much harder and nothing like the questions tested in the exams. I know because I used these Self-Paced Training Kits books for the exams. I Transcender are closed to the questions you find in the exams.

 

Good LUck

 

Passed with 840!! That's me an MCSA now. All I need to do now is find myself a job in IT and I'll be happy, not too bothered about what wages are though cos I've got a pension (mil). Found the exam quite easy in the end, finished it in 40 mins so I thought I'd done something wrong and failed.