| Rex Tincher 2004-05-03, 1:34 pm |
| On Mon, 3 May 2004 12:19:19 +0100, "Will Hay" <willhay99@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>Can anyone tell me how many questions there are and how long the exam is.
>Basic information but I can't find it on the MS site. Also similar
>information about the 70-215 exam.
The Google Groups search is your friend:
--------------------------------
From 9 february 2004
Just passed the 70-210 Windows 2000 Professional exam.
Took it at a Prometric testing center (New Horizons in Fairborn, Ohio
USA). The test proctor knew what she was doing, the computer worked
fine, and there was no hassle. Cost $125.
I showed up the recommended 1/2 hour early and consequently started
the exam 1/2 hour early. (Why do they tell you to show up early,
anyhow?)
50 questions, non-adaptive. Was allowed 2.5 hours for the exam, plus
20 minutes before the test for the same old Prometric tutorial on how
to take a test, and another 20 minutes for comments after the test. I
finished with 10 minutes to spare after answering all the questions,
re-checking the few that I had doubts on, then going back again and
re-checking every single answer.
Two questions surprised me:
One question was an automated install over the network where you were
also required to automatically install the Recovery Console.
The other question about was using the ReportOnly option to test for
compatibility of a Win95 to Win2000 upgrade. (In the real world I
would use the check upgrade only option on Winnt32 instead, but the
exam deliberately mis-spelled that option on that answer choice.)
I'm pretty sure I missed both of those questions. Maybe missed 2 or 3
more.
I used the New Riders book "MCSE Windows 2000 Professional Training
Guide" by Barker & Harrison, plus the Transcender flash cards, the
Transcender practice tests, and two years of real world Windows 2000
experience to prepare for the test. Also used one braindump as a
practice test (many of the supposedly correct answers on it were
wrong).
Fans and foes of braindumps will be interested to learn that only two
of the exam questions appeared on the brain dump that I saw before the
exam. The Transcender practice tests were closer to the real
questions than the braindumps were.
I got sick last night and took the test with little sleep so it was
good that I over-prepared for it. (I was consistently getting
Transcender flash scores over 80% and sample test scores over 90% last
week.)
The hints for the day are:
1. Read the questions carefully. They are even trickier than the
Windows NT MCSE questions were.
2. You may know the best and the second-best way to accomplish
something, but some questions ask you to choose between 4 really bad
ways to accomplish it. So you have to choose the least-worst option.
3. After the exam I found some good sample questions at:
http://www.exam-zone.com/shop/sampl...10%20sample.pdf
I only saw one of these questions on my exam, but they are good
practice because they are similar to the test questions. I assume
that many of the sample answers are wrong but I haven't checked them.
--------------------
From 9 March 2004
Just passed 70-215 Windows 2000 Server with score of 970. (Passing
mark was 700.)
50 questions, non-adaptive, 150 minutes time limit. Prometric. Took
it at the New Horizons in Fairborn Ohio.
Spent the last hour reviewing answers. Was terrified during the
review when the test PC locked up for 30 seconds. It finally came
back to life by itself. Wasted another ten minutes on two after-test
surveys, one from Microsoft and one from Prometric.
The test was pretty much what I expected except for three questions.
One question involved DNS dynamic updates and DNS scavenging. It
would help if you at least know that those exist. Was also surprised
by questions about what to allow thru firewall for HTTPS and ping.
Lots of questions on RRAS, DNS, automated install. Plus the expected
questions on group policies, disk quotas, permissions, file
compression, file encryption using roaming profiles, recovering from
hard drive failures (including RAID5 with a hardware RAID controller),
DHCP, default gateways, driver signing, etc.
The scenarios were more reasonable than usual. Most questions had at
least one good answer choice. (On previous tests, usually I had to
choose the least-worst choice out of four really bad ways to fix a
problem.)
I prepared for the test with:
1. Two years of real-world Windows 2000 experience.
2. Windows 2000 Server class from a local community college
(Sinclair).
3. The 70-215 & 70-217 chapters from the O'Reilly book "MCSE In A
Nutshell" (Windows 2000 version).
4. Que book "MCSE Windows 2000 Server 70-215 Second Edition" by
Dennis Maione.
5. Used a braindump as a sample test. It was rated at 8/10 which
apparently meant that only 8 out of every 10 "correct" answers were
right. I can't believe that anybody really passes tests by memorizing
braindumps. Heck, I can't even believe that the *author* of the
braindump passed.
6. Transcender flash cards and practice exams. (The Transcender
flash cards for this test were pretty useless so don't spend much time
on them.)
Didn't see any test questions that had appeared on Transcender or
braindump, although most were similar. The real test was easier than
the Transcender practice tests! In retrospect, I was ready for this
test a week ago.
Your bonus this time is two book reviews:
The O'Reilly book "MCSE In A Nutshell" (Windows 2000 version) was
quite useful. I had trouble on practice tests, which all included
material from the 70-217 exam that wasn't *supposed* to be on the
70-215 exam. So I read the 70-217 chapter of O'Reilly and that helped
on the real test. If your networking knowledge is weak then you
should also read the 70-216 chapter before taking 70-215.
The Que book "MCSE Windows 2000 Server 70-215 Second Edition" was
uneven. Dennis Maione uses too many words. If you read slowly then
buy a different book. He tried to make up for his wordiness by
skimping on some topics. It had great info on print servers, good
info on backups, and clear step-by-step instructions for setting up
RRAS. But the discussion of security groups was practically
non-existent. The disk section was skimpy and sometimes wrong. Other
sections were OK. The book is worth buying for the real-world because
of the printing and RRAS sections. But you should buy a different
book if your objective is to pass tests.
--
"You can't tell the kids to stop the violence with the mothers running
around like this."
--- Mary Ann Smith, after her son was shot by a Million Mom Marcher
More details at: http://www.tincher.to/mmm.htm
|