My Concerns on MS 2003 Exams

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I have just got back from sitting the MS exam 70-293 and to be honest am beginning to feel the exams are been written with lots of trick questions and head scratch type questions. Go figure

Please, no pun intended but I noticed the exams in the MS 2003 range are a lot more tough to pass and rightly so too. I had over 8 simulations for the above exam and knew what was required as well as how to get the task done.

However, there were questions worded in line of which command would you use for this task and that I had to just second guess as didn't read it in the MS manuals etc.

I don't want to let any information out about the exact exam questions but feel Microsoft are making the 2003 exams more hard to pass to get people to sit the newer easier exams in Windows 2008.

This I believe is a marketing tactic that would also see organisations migrating to wins 2008 network infrastructure etc. Skills in this area would be needed to support this new generation of MS product range

I am not having a go at people that have recently sat or passed the MCITP exams, however the figures in terms of pass rates on wins 2008 when compared to MS 2003 exams speaks volumes.

It comes across as if am moaning but get the gist as it's not fair on hard working people like myself and many others to go through the books and labs in preparation only to get stuck when sitting the real exam.

The point am getting at is that the sylabus is clearly outlined but exam questions are those that make you sit there and scratch your head guessing half way through.

Two days ago I noticed selftest software that writes mock prep test materials were doing an offer on buying their product at 20% discount. Well seeing that they're one provider recommended by MS I whole heartedly bought the product 70-293 and 70-294 respectively.

But having sat the exam today I realised that the mock test was of no help whatsoever and feel somewhat cheated. I am not advocating cheating in any form but at least you'd of hoped the practice test would have some similarity with the real exam in some form of shape.

I have learnt my lesson as even the MeasureUP mock practice was no where near in terms of similarity. I do think MS changes the exam questions quite frequently to avoid dumpers from getting their hands on the real questions which is perfectly understandable.

Well from now on any other MS exam I sit I would just read technet articles till I have exhausted them all and then get more hands on lab done and finally book and sit the exam.

Please, do not get me wrong selftest and measureup are respectable company's just that their product is not of much help for one wanting to sit the actual exam in using it as a gauge etc.

The exam comprised of a lot of security stuff, group policies and lots of certificates, clustering and lots of drag and drop and simulations.

I hope I haven't given too much away, but the moral of the story is know everything there is to know about MS 2003 exams as you can be tested in any areas even the unlikely.

Finally, to be fair on MS I think they're trying to weed out the book knowledge people that don't have any concept of how to setup a network card to receive and correspond with network monitoring etc.

Moan and rant over, I passed, and think that makes me MCSA 2003 too, here I come 70-294

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I don't think they're making them harder to pass... the core content of the 2003 exams is the same as it always has been since the exams were released, so they've always been that hard.

If they are indeed harder to pass, I would guess that it is likely because of the writing and technical ability of those who wrote the 2003 exams for Microsoft... and the lack of ability of those who wrote the 2008 exams. Just a guess based on comments from a friend who had to deal with poor authors on his writing team around that time.

Congrats!

 

Moan and rant aside, at least you passed and that's really the most important thing here for you

So congratulations!

 

Well done mate!

 

Thanks everyone for your kind words

 

Actually I had a thought about this and I think that the older an exam gets the harder it becomes and thats because whilst the core concept of the OS remains the same the pool of available material get's larger and more thorough so subsequently the questions become more complex.

I would hazard a guess and say that when the next release of MS certifications come out (for the next set of OS's) that the questions for 2008 and Windows 7 will get harder whilst the initial group of questions for the new OS's would seem to be easier (because not too much is known about the OS and the question writers don't have the in-depth knowledge that they would have with Win 2008 or even 2003 now days).

As the others have said tho, well done for passing

 

Just because the pool gets larger doesn't mean the questions get harder. The concepts are still the same.

And you assume that the pool gets larger... but there are some exams that remain the same for years after initial release.

 

You would hope so wouldn't you? I sometimes get the feeling that they don't care tbh.

 

Mike, no I don't assume that the pool get's larger, I know it get's larger, why? because I talk to trainers who tell me that they see the 2003 track getting harder, they of all people should be more aware of it than most.

 

Do they update the exams to keep them current? Sometimes. But not to prevent NDA violations. Once the dumpers find out that the exam has changed, they'll have it dumped within 24 hours. So is it worth the cost of creating new exam questions every few MONTHS? I can promise you, that's not cheap.

 

They should... as should people who write practice exams for a living.

Sorry, Simon, I disagree, and I'm not relying on second-hand information. I've personally taken the exams several years apart, and I promise you, the track isn't getting harder.

 

Maybe it is and you are getting worse with old age?

 

If they're getting harder and I'm not noticing, wouldn't it be because I'm getting better?

That said, that's not the case... because they were the same questions.

 

You obviously haven't sat the N+ 2009 exam then. It's got more tricks in it than a Paul Daniels magic set.