Subj : Windows 2000 MCSE Upgrade Exam To : Lawrence Garvin From : Steve Quarrella Date : Sat Mar 31 2001 06:16 am lg> I got a special deal on the New Riders TCP/IP book so I lg> bought it... well after I passed the test.. I've not actually lg> opened the cover on that book. If this is the same book of which I'm thinking, even some of my Unix snob friends have said "Man, this is a good reference." Every time I have to do subnetting, or impress someone that I understand the concept, that book sets me straight again on the minutia. SQ>> Did the book help you to pass the exam? lg> Truthfully... I've got to say that of the four MCSE exams I Looks to me like you did the 4.0 track. I've already been there, and am eyeballing the 2000 track. As you may be aware, I only get one shot at the upgrade exam. If I pass, I'm a 2000 MCSE. If I don't pass, it's back to square one, so I need to walk into this one ready to disembowel whatever they throw at me. lg> took, after all was said and done, the books probably didn't lg> mean diddly squat to my exam performance. Hands on has been the most important thing for me, but I am aware that Microsoft asks questions that do not reflect much of what you do in the real world. I think one of the worst questions I encountered had to do with Personal Web Server on the NT4 Workstation exam. I'm certain that has its importance at the user level, but come on, guys: If I have to do a web server, at least tell me that using IIS is "the correct answer" (even if I hate the thing the more I work with it :). That's where the books come in handy. I've seen very knowledgeable people walk into these exams and fail them, because they're not acquainted with how Microsoft does things on their tests. lg> 1. I never cracked a book for Networking Essentials and I took a foot up the backside for the old Networking Basics exam, because the OSI model was completely new to me at the time. I noticed that the Networking Essentials exam was a little less grueling in that department, but if you didn't know where a certain device operated on the OSI model, you were in big trouble. Did you get a lot of token ring questions on your exam? To this day, I don't understand why Microsoft asked me about TR (and their questions WERE sneaky ones!). lg> and.. for THIS exam... I scored the absolute minimum possible lg> to pass the test. That's where the books fill in. When I did the '95 exam, I knew up front that it was a fairly tough exam, so I dropped the money on the Transcender, which helped -greatly- as a preparation tool. I like going into an exam with a "Nuke 'em from orbit, just to be sure" attitude, as I don't like riding that thin line. Especially when they ask you cheap questions that you can miss. I prefer to go in and get those "gimmes" and, if I'm going to fail, I want to fail on the tough questions. Of all the exams on the 4.0 track, only NT in the Enterprise got me to the point where I wondered "Am I going to pass this one?" lg> My perspective is that I'm very comfortable performing duties lg> in an NT Server environment.. but none of the books prepared lg> me adequately for the EXAM. To that end, I fault the EXAM for lg> failing to adequately represent real life deployments of the lg> operating system. Many of my NT study guides were equally useless, although they are GREAT reference guides. To this day, I still have the NT 3.51 TCP/IP official curriculum, and I won't part with it, given its usefulness in preparation. lg> Perhaps (though I won't hold my breath), Microsoft's newfound lg> committment to including 'work performance/experience' in lg> their examination methodologies will help to make the exams lg> more reflective of what we actually see on production systems lg> and less of what was 'theory' on the original NT4 exams. I'm all for that. --- * Origin: Il Vaticano * Argyle, TX (1:393/9005.13) .