Meyers AIO Essentials/Tech split:Accurate?

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So, does Meyers split in the book accurately reflect the split between 601 and 602?

I'm asking because I decided to concentrate on the essentials first (there's only so much flashcards my mind can contain at any one time) but I noticed in some practice Essentials exams I did today a few questions from the Tech part of Meyers tome.
Is there a real difference between what you need to know for 601 and 602 like Meyer depicts or is it purely a case of being prepared for anything in both exams?


(Yes, I know being prepared for anything would be the best bet, but that'll take me a couple of weeks more by my reckoning and almost certainly mean I'll have to do both after christmas)

 

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It is accurate in the sense that the exams overlap. Sometimes considerably. (It depends on the mix of questions that you get in *your* exam).

So to have the best chance of passing you really need to cover the whole thing.

Harry.

 

read the whole book, don't make the mistake some people do of splitting it into sections.

 

I'd have to agree with just learning the whole lot. If you start splitting topics etc its going to get very messy and alot of the stuff you'd be splitting is learnt alot easier when learned in one big lump rather then taking it apart.

Taking both exams after xmas isnt the worst thing that could happen, a few weeks here or there shouldn't really matter?

 

Agreed. I took the old objectives back in 2004, and it was much the same then; two exams, but you *may* have some overlapping questions.

Simon

 

Thanks folks.
Don't worry, I'm not splitting the book up, I gave it a good read through first just to fill in the gaps.

Unfortunately there is an awful lot of useless* information to learn so I was trying to find a way to minimise the amount of useless* knowledge I was carrying about in my head at one time.

I've found the relevant section in Meyers book and he refers to the split as "topics which clearly fit under the [individual] exam domains" so it's obviously not a black and white split.
If only I'd managed to find that when I looked for it last night





*useless in the sense of useless-because-I can-only-think-of-very-contrived-situations-where-I would-need-to know-these-things-NOW-rather-than-in-five-minutes-time-once-I'd-googled-for-the-info-on-a-nearby-computer-or-my-phone.

 

Some of those useless bits could be in your exam, I wont break any NDA rules but you may get questions in the exam on parts that you may feel are uselss. I did.

 

I know, that's why I said it was unfortunate. Brute memory is not my strong point.
C'est la vie. If you can't stand the heat ... etc.

 

Yeah... I'm the same. Sadly, it's always easier to test knowledge over understanding. (Do you know ACPI's talking about power? Check. Do you know how many partitions you can have on your HDD? Check. etc. ... Yes/No, Pass/Fail).
Testing knowledge is easy.

To check understanding, is harder. You really need an exam capable of guaging an answer for accuracy, relevance and completeness. And humans are about the only technology that can reliably do this atm. And they're expensive!

As such paper/computer exams will always favour memory folk, even if they're relatively DIMM ( sorry!)
Hence the whole braindump issue.


Same problem plagues the entire education system. It's the reason some of the best minds in schools do worst in exams. The reason exams often actually damage the education process. I've seen this first hand.

However, CompTIA does seem to do their best IMO. Their syllabus focusses a fair amount on understanding - and I think they try to make their questioning reflect this. While their questions are multiple choice, I don't think it's breaking my NDA to admit that some of the questions require you to think through the problem to understand what is happening before you can give an answer. Of course, I'd be surprised if they didn't have quite a lot of brute memory questions in there too. Knowledge is so much easier to test.

Microsoft are making some interesting moves with simulation in their tests. I've read that their end goal is to simulate environments just like ones you could face IRL- so you're presented with a problem, and how you solve it is up to you. If you can do it IRL, you can do it in the test... = pass.
Much better!