I'm an MCSE 2000 and an MCDBA. I have security specialties in MCSA and
MCSE and I'm Security + certified. The lowest score I had on any of my
tests was a 784 and that was the only one on which I scored under 800.

I recently took an upgrade course for 2003 with a competent instructor,
and 11 other I.T. professionals who's experience ranged from working
for Microsoft, being a lead administrator for a network of 250 2003
servers, to several Dell server techs. I myself have been an
independent Network admin for various companies full time for 12 years.

Our entire class passed the 296 upgrade exam and only one person passed
292, and that with a 700. Every single one of us without exception felt
we knew the material and were confident in our answers. Half the class
re-took the test the next day and all 6 of us failed it again. We were
getting scores in 400's and 500's in spite of the fact that we knew the
material well.

How do you explain that an entire room of working professionals that
have together passed over 100 microsoft exams suddenly all fail the
same test and half of them twice, when we passed the harder of the two
upgrade tests 296?

Say what you want but I think there was a "technical error" in the
grading process. But since this is a private industry certification,
and not subject to any kind of impartial revue, we'll never know will
we? We don't even know what answers were supposedly "wrong".

I'd be careful before you start calling people idiots. I assure you
there were few idiots in the room with me that day.

I understand what you mean....


This is what we call paper mcse....

I am sure you know what you are doing and have loads of MS knowledge. But
exams are totally different with real life.


Exam is exam
Real life is real life....

Good Luck

@__@!














<shawnfain@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1103552242.982486.138320@c13g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...
> I'm an MCSE 2000 and an MCDBA. I have security specialties in MCSA and
> MCSE and I'm Security + certified. The lowest score I had on any of my
> tests was a 784 and that was the only one on which I scored under 800.
>
> I recently took an upgrade course for 2003 with a competent instructor,
> and 11 other I.T. professionals who's experience ranged from working
> for Microsoft, being a lead administrator for a network of 250 2003
> servers, to several Dell server techs. I myself have been an
> independent Network admin for various companies full time for 12 years.
>
> Our entire class passed the 296 upgrade exam and only one person passed
> 292, and that with a 700. Every single one of us without exception felt
> we knew the material and were confident in our answers. Half the class
> re-took the test the next day and all 6 of us failed it again. We were
> getting scores in 400's and 500's in spite of the fact that we knew the
> material well.
>
> How do you explain that an entire room of working professionals that
> have together passed over 100 microsoft exams suddenly all fail the
> same test and half of them twice, when we passed the harder of the two
> upgrade tests 296?
>
> Say what you want but I think there was a "technical error" in the
> grading process. But since this is a private industry certification,
> and not subject to any kind of impartial revue, we'll never know will
> we? We don't even know what answers were supposedly "wrong".
>
> I'd be careful before you start calling people idiots. I assure you
> there were few idiots in the room with me that day.
>

I too have my win2k MCSA & MCSE and also the MCDBA. But I bit the big brown burrito on 70-292. I scored a 550. Going in I felt very confident with DNS, stub zones, delegation etc. SUS, shadow copies, blah blah blah. ASR, EFS group policies and the kitchen sink. I have never failed and MCSE exam and I go back to the NT 4.0 MCSE+I.

I concur that there are definitely scoring issues with this exam.

Been certified since '97. NEVER failed a test as miserably as this one. And I've been working with Server 2003 from when it was still .NET Server, thank you.

BTW, I had only ever failed two. One of those was the very first exam I ever wrote!

Read white papers on Terminal Server. Went through every dialogue box for DNS and even memorized the default settings. Feeling very much better prepared...went back.

Was very confident at the end of the exam. Only four questions caused me any concern, and only one where I KNEW the answer was wrong but couldn't ascertain the correct one. Was anticipating a mark in the 800s to 900s.

The lowest of my sectional results was 75%, two at 80%, two at 90% and one at 100%.

My final score? 650. Now explain to me HOW each of my sections say I'm at 75% or better and yet my final score is below 70%. Microsoft's answer to me? The questions are weighted.

My question to Microsoft...if the questions are weighted, that should be reflected in the sectional results. If my knowledge is (at worst) 75%, how can the exam say I am at 65%. (By the way, I averaged the scores and the average of my results is 86%.)

Worse, there is no appeal processes that I can discover. You can appeal one question, but not the entire marking process. Even at university, there was an appeal process.

So how much is passing this exam going to cost me in the end? Do I have to answer all the questions perfectly just in order to pass?

I failed again today with a 550. I feel very frustrated and angry. I am 100% certain the questions are wieghted as Angelwing suggests. They have to be. I felt so confident I was going to pass when I finished the exam. I have a good grasp of the material covered in the test. I would like to find a way to voice my concerns to Microsoft. I really don't want to be a Linux admin. For now I'm going to change my tact. I am going to be taking 70-290 and 70-291. If you have your Win2k MCSE then you have passed 2 of the electives you need for the Ser 03 MCSA. But I'm still frightened because I understand 70-290 is now a 40 question exam after slimming down from 65 questions. This gives me pause for concern because 70-292 was a 59 question exam at the beginning of December before switching to the 40 question format. I understand with Microsoft is doing. They are going to make the MCSE and the MCSA certifications more valuable by weeding out the weak candidates.

I have just sat the 70-292 upgrade exam this morning and although I felt I had answered all the questions confidently, I received a score of 664!

I had a few problems with the machine I was testing on (Prometric test centre) and a test result was printed halfway through my exam (!) but another report did print at the end.

I have been working in IT for 11 years now and have NEVER failed an exam (I am MCSE 2000 and have other MCP's in Exchange, NT4 etc.). A colleague who is very experienced and holds many certifications also failed with 592.

Something must be going on here as both of us felt we knew the material well (after all we work with multiple sites running Server 2003 infrastructures and service in the region of 2500 people)! I did have one question which I was not sure about and that was how to programatically create users and groups using Visual Basic! Now forgive me if I'm wrong, that is not one of the study objectives!

Where do you go from here (apart from the obvious re-sitting of the exam and potentially failing again!).

Finally, I have used the score sheet and calculated the % I think should have been scored (using the bar graphs) and for both myself and my colleague, it's well over 70%!

Has anyone passed this exam since Jan 2005? I am MCSE
2000 and have 10 years IT and networking experience. I
have been using Windows Server 2003 almost 15 months and
have a good knowledge and hands-on skills with this
product.

I was prepared for the exam and sat for the exam on
18/02/05, I was so confident that I will pass the exam
and I believe that I did well, but guess what? I FAILED
with a score of 650 and passing score of 700. I have done
many Microsoft exams and never failed one, except this
one (70-292).
has anyone have any suggestion of what might went wrong
and what I can do to improve and pass the exam.

any suggestion welcome.

Regards,

Kevin

The reason we are failing the 70-292 exam is because there are questions in the exam that are weighted. In other words not all questions are graded equally. Some questions are worth more than others. Microsoft is going to make millions on this one. I have failed it twice now. So I'm re-thinking my approach. I looked at the exam requirements for MCSA on Server 2003. I have passed 70-210 and 70-228 for my Win2k certs. These 2 exams count towards an MCSA on Server 2003 if you pass 70-290 and 70-291. If 290 and 291 are not the F*ck'd up weighted exams then maybe I don't have to piss my hard earned dollars into the g*ddam wind. Yes I am bitter.

I took the test the other day and failed. I studied for this exam for over almost two months, going over sample questions and study guides. I felt confident (not arrogant) walking into the test. I thought the test would be 56 questions, and I was happy to see 40 questions. I thought that would be easier. I didn't rush the exam. I know I messed up on two of the interactive questions, a SUS question, a IIS question, and a GPO question. But I felt confident that I got more than half of the questions correct.

I was shocked to see I got a 550. I wasn't even close to the 700 passing mark. That's when I realized the test had to be weighted. In fact the score report said so (but after the fact) and it must be heavily weighed on DNS. The lousy report doesn't even breakdown the percentage areas, like the old report did. Talk about a scam.

Ironic thing... before my exam, the test administrator said a network administrator just took the same test, but failed. The Net-admin said he didn't study since he knew and worked with the stuff everyday (he must've been mad).

I was really worried about server environment questions (Network/System Monitors, threads etc) but I didn't get a single question. I felt like rushing to take the test again, but after reading the posts today, I'll wait two weeks. I lost three weekends studying for this exam, and it s__ks to take it again. It means I'll have to lose more weekends. I plan on going over the MCSA_MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit, it is extremly helpful. There are a few sections I need to go over (IIS, SUS, shadow copy, and of course DNS).

If you hear of anyone passing this exam, tell them to post their advice on how to end the madness that is 70-292

Later
- Octelnet

I have been in the IT field for 10 years I'm A+ MCSE NT, MCSE 2000 I have only failed 1 test for my certifications. I have continued to take and re-take this test and have continued to fail. my last test about 3 weeks ago I scored a 600 on my chart I had 3 perfects, 85-90, a 75 and a 50. I only scored a 600. If you do not pass ALL Sections you will fail the test. if you score 100 % on 5 and score under 65% on any of the sections you will fail. This is a upgrade test so you need to prove you know all sections of the test inorder to pass. It is not like the normal track were you can be strong in certain area's and you can lack knowledge in others and still pass. I have several other co-workers that had to take this test several times to pass. My next attempt will be 11/18/05. I'm expecting to pass this time around. I have been useing Testking ver. 69 and have studied all 700+ questions and reveiwed DNS, SUS, Term Services, and Server enviroment. We need to remember that the test is MS's way of doing the tasks, and there are several misleading questions on the test ( I found 4 on my last test, Very misleading)
REmember that it is 2003 and not 2000 test, you need to know the defaults settings of all configurations. I'll post how I do. Good luck to everyone else. if not we'll all file a classaction lawsuit against prometric, Vue and MS.

A couple months back.... and after several weeks of study and at least a year and a half of solid exposure to 2k3, I failed 70-292.

I have been certified MCSE since NT4. I also have my 2k MCSE. The only test I failed prior to 70-292 was 70-216; which was also a difficult test. I took that one a second time and passed in the 900s.

I took 70-292 again, and failed it. I scored in the high 500s; the second test only slightly better than the first.

On the first test, I felt I understood the material well. Previously I had read that the test was 56 questions, and then came to find my test was only 40 questions. I thought this was going to be a plus, apparently not. There was a DNS requirement that made no sense to me; it had cryptic text in it. Usually - not always - you can narrow the answer down to two choices, but I couldn’t. This particular scenario made sense.... the problem made sense... but the requirement was worded weird and the options for resolution were equally as puzzling. I could have thought of a solution to the problem, but none of the suggested answers were one of them.

Then about 2 more that i was unsure of... I eliminated several of the options and was down to a 50/50 choice. I find this to be a sort of norm with all their tests. There are always a couple of them that cause you to grit your teeth.

It's one thing to take a test and feel you might not have done so well at and fail it. It's a completely different thing to take a test you think you passed and get blindsided with a score in the 50 percentile.

I spent the next few months going over what I thought my weak points were as well as (what I think) are my strong points. It’s hard to tell, they don’t tell you where you’re lacking. My weak points - I think - mainly command line syntax (switches), EFS (file recovery), and scripting (AD automation). I would know what I'm missing better if I would receive some summary data after my tests. I only got the final score. <Insert frustration here>

After just two more months of studying – with my newly diversified study material - for what seems like forever, I fail it again; with only a fraction of a difference in my score.

Somehow I feel I would have done much better if i would have just taken the 290 and 291. I don't know.

After reading posts here - and on other forums - I feel it is true that a person can do well (overall) on the test, do poorly on a particular section, and fail the test entirely.

If this is the case - and I'm not certain that it is - I don't think it is a fair practice. If - back in the day - I were to ace most of the NT4 test, but fail because I bomb on the Novell questions... I would be upset. In the ten years I’ve been in IT, I have only worked in one Novell shop… and it was to migrate it to Microsoft. <stop digressing> I would be concerned that each section wouldn't contain an equal number of questions and that the group with fewer questions would be my ‘weak’ section. This would ultimately make the opportunity to fail more likely.

Now I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Take the 290 and 291… or torture myself again for the next couple of months and try again. I think I’ll try and take the 296, and come back to 292. When I was taking 2k tests, I took the 216 first and failed. I then passed the rest on my first shot, and came back to 216 and passed.

Not sure if this changes anything, just felt like venting! ;)


GOOD LUCK! (It’s required)

After I failed that test I felt like to most miserable and uncompetent person ever in my profession, but now I realize I am not the only one who has problems with this test.

Yesterday I took it and after feeling fairly confident that I was going to pass it and that I knew my stuff, I got b*tchslapped with a sub 500 score. On the overview of the score (the stupid little bars that don't tell you anything) it appeared that I should have passed. My estimate was that I was around 78% based on that chart. However the little disclaimer at the bottom made me realize that the questions are weighted. HEAVILY!!!

After some research online and based on the scores I had, it is safe to say that the DNS question carry a HUGE load. Basically you better get them right (ALL) or you will be on the verge of failing already.
My first 10 questions were all DNS and in retrospect, I could have quit after those ten because I had already failed. I think I got 6 of ten right (more on that later)

For my studying I used the examcram book (In retrospect it is a joke for this exam) and the Transcender practice exam (in retrospect not quite a joke, but not even close enough to pass this exam). I used these two source because that is how I got my MCSA and MCSE on w2k. Never failed me in the sense that they provided plenty information to pass the exam.

After looking on braindumps.com and mcsebraindumps.com I found a lot of people talking about the testking.com practice exams.
Since I needed new sources of study material I just purchased it and after a quick test run (just on DNS questions) I can tell you that I truly believe it will give me enough knowledge to pass the f*king exam the second time around. Besides the testrun had already 5 questions that were on the exam as well.
word for word...

so this is the conclusion: This is the weedwhacker exam. It will catch many people by surprise, even experienced professionals. Transcender is not good enough to get you to pass. Testking might be the answer (at least for me)
KNOW YOUR DNS stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It will make you or break you on this exam

good luck....I'll try again in a month after I go thru the testking stuff.

the little disclaimer at the BEGINNING of the test also mentioned that some of the questions are not worth any points and how no effect of the final score because they are sort of feedback questions to make the exam better in the future. No mention on how many and of course no clue which ones...

thus you effectively have less that 40 questions that total up to 1000 points

Just a quick question here... some of you are talking about score bars or displayed results for a specific category. Mine was administered by Vue, and I didn't get any category breakdown. It only displayed a point value. That’s it. No breakdown what so ever.

Does anyone know why this may be?

As promised I would update on my last test. for 70-292 i scored a 925 this was after 7 attempts. I used testking for my studing on my last attempt. once again as I stated in my last post THIS IS A UPGRADE TEST AND YOU HAVE TO PASS ALL SECTIONS OF THE TEST. you can score 100 on all but 1 section and get under 70 percent on that 1 section and still fail. DNS is big on this test know conditional forwarded vs stub zones, DNS partitions and replication. know the defaults on all settings of 2003 server and 2000 server. once I got a grasp on this the test was not that hard. the questions give you alot of anwsers if you know what to look for. use the practice tests this will give you the feel for the questions ( testking is the best by far spend the money to buy them it will pay off ) After i failed the 6th time I looked at my study material and they way I was studing. in 2 weeks I was able to post a 925. 3 weeks later on the first try I passed 70-296 with a 800. remember to focus on all sections you need to pass them all. if you have any questions let me know