MCDST Study Blog - 70-271

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Congrats

 

Hey, where's my scantily clad lady? lol.

It was well worth the stress, Twizz.

I'm a few pints of Staropramen down the road, so I'll definitely wait until tomorrow to post my 'Jerry Springer final thoughts'

But it was a bugger, I'll say that much for it.

 

Twizz...... now THAT'S a picture a lady likes to see

 

lol. That just reminds me of the episode of 'Two pints of lager and a packet of crispts...' with Donna... 'to me, to you...'

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Funny, but soooooooooooo so wrong.

 

Okay okay okay.

70-271. The exam I kept telling Zeb and Facebook that I wouldn't pass.

As you may have noticed from the "blog" the studies seemed to degenerate into me not posting chapter summaries, and whinging about how poorly prepared I felt.

This is possibly because I stopped reading all the book

In my true, impatient and bored sty-lie I started skim-reading parts of the book I though I already knew (because of my experience) or really lacked the motivation to read. This went on for about two weeks after I rescheduled my exam due to feeling 'unprepared', so I was obviously helping myself out!

Around a week before the exam this time, someone slapped me metaphorically round the face one morning and went "you haven't registered second shot and you really can't afford to whazz £88 up the wall on an exam" so I went back to the notes I had taken on the exam objective areas I thought I was weak on.

In the week preceeding the exam I crammed up on NTFS permissions and the standard pernickety details on upgrading to XP from A.N Other platform, as well as browsing the "key points" chapter summaries in the MS Press book.

Exam day itself, I was bricking it. I must have gone to the loo eight times in the four hours I was in town prior to the exam, I was that nervous. Mind you, four Venti Starbucks probably didn't assist matters any....

I booked my exam at QA IQ in the centre of Birmingham (just offSmallbrook Queensway) I was hesitant at first, hearing the mixed press on Prometric testing centres on here. I have to say, I was very impressed, and if you are even vaguely near Birmingham use this testing centre. I chose it above going to one in Coventry, and I was glad. Nice, light, pleasant. There is a seating area and drinks machines for if you rock in early and want to study a little more before going into the exam... overall, ten out of ten. Well, the PC I took the test on was a bit caggy, but it didn't ask me to upgrade it halfway through the exam so I'm not so fussed!!

Booking in was simple as a simple thing, and it turned out they'd had a cancellation so I got to go in a little early. She did ask if I wanted to study some more, but I'd spent the preceeding hours sat on a couch in Starbucks cramming, so I was more than ready to get the torture over and done with.

The exam itself wasn't anti-climactic I'd say, if I hadn't got any corporate experience I feel hand on heart that I certainly wouldn't have passed.

But the objectives all seemed to 'meld' into one another and despite the ranging topics covered in the book, the exam doesn't do it justice (trying to describe this without breaking the NDA). In short... C- could do better. They could make it a lot more challening and interesting, whilst not increasing the *difficulty* level at all. Just MO.

Also, having seen Microsoft's actual questions now, I'm seriously considering bashing an email off to them to recommend they withdraw their 'readiness review suite' from their 70-271 book.

The quality of the written material in the book is excellent; it was my own poor motivation that hindered my progress, but the book was still presented in such a way that what I read did stick and when I did pull my finger out, I did find it interesting.

The Readiness Review suite disc is paltry and pathetic in comparison, and I personally recommend that if you want to do test questions, buy Transcender or some other material - the questions in the suite on that disc are inappropriately long-winded, poorly worded, sometimes downright incorrect, and I found the use of the disc soul destroying in the extreme.

I know BM said something along the lines of "what do you expect for something free with a book?"

All I'll say in response to that is with my CCENT Cisco Press book, I get a 3 month Safari subscription and some test questions from Boson... with the kind of resources Microsoft have available to them, they could have made their accompanying disc a lot, lot better.

But, that all being said, I don't think 783 was a bad score given my almost apathetic slump in the middle of studying and the nervous wreck I was going in to the exam.

70-272 next.... yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

thanks for watching. You've been a great audience.

 

I stand corrected. Welcome back