Passed 70-298 "Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network"
February 22, 2008 5 Comments
This morning I took and passed Microsoft exam 70-298 “Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network”. Having not taken one of these scenario-style design exams before, I was a little cautious even though I was fairly confident of my knowledge of the material.
The first section had 11 questions which was great as I had made loads of notes from the provided fictional case studies, and I sailed through with loads of time to spare. Unfortunately the format of these exams is that the time for each part is independent, so you don’t get to carry any spare time to the next set of questions and use it there. I had a couple of shorter sections where I maybe spent too long reading the materials and answered the last question with seconds to spare.
Overall I found this style of exam to be right up my street; taking in lots of information in a very short time and then applying my technical knowledge to this to come up with solutions to the business issues. Despite the rushed time on a couple of questions I came away with my best score to date on a Microsoft MCP exam, and won’t need to use my second chance to take this.
How do you find these design exams compare to the ‘normal’ technical ones?
About Adam Vero
Mucho congrats on the pass, mate! I’m aiming to do that actual exam later this year so doubly well done. how did you find it technically?
I’m in two minds over the technical exams v the situational design ones. The tech ones you either know the answer or you don’t but you have to know the tiny details to make the pass a sure thing. The design ones you can get away with knowing the basic concepts but you’ve got to actually understand them as opposed to be able to regurgitate simple facts.
overall, i’ve found the design ones easier personally.
Congrats Adam!
Im still looking at the wrong end of those, will let you know when I get to them!
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I started writing a comment but it got out of hand so it became a whole new post here:
http://veroblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/why-it-design-skills-are-important-and-how-to-measure-them/
About how many questions were there total? Were there simulations on this exam? Seems theres no room for simulations as everything on the exam is conceptual, rather than practical. Theres so little information posted about the exam itself, its hard to tell what to expect. Ive been reviewing some test questions and answers and it seems more like a reading comprehension exercise than a technical test. I have been doing this job for awhile so maybe my experience speaks to your comments above, but now Im thinking this is going to be easy, rather than difficult. When Ive been stumped, I choose the Microsoft Answer, and it never fails. This is my last MCSE exam and its become quite obvious which answers they want me to give, regardless of whether Id ever actually choose a particular solution in real life.