Back on Course and a few Questions

I made the effort to go to College last night and I am glad I did and even the course contents does not seem as frightening as it did. I know I have a lot of catching up to do if I have any chance of passing but our Instructor says if I can catch up I have as good a chance as anyone and certainly last night's modules which included Server Monitoring and Disk Management seemed easy and very interesting. We are on the last part of 2274/5 Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment which is Exam 70-290 and then we move on to 2276/7 Implementing Managing etc for Exam 70-291 and I believe we take both these MSCA/MSCE core exams sometime in February before going on to Windows XP, Security and SQL modules. We have Exam simulations in January.

QUESTION ONE: I asked Paul what he thought the fail rate was and he said it could be as high as 50% but depended on the Course and other factors and I would like to hear what others say about this.

QUESTION TWO: Paul seems to think we should have some experience of real MS Exams and not just the Skill Drills sort of stuff and I get the impression using these could make the difference between passing or failing. I cannot afford to buy simulations so can I get by with the Course assessments on our CDs and the assessments on the MS site? Paul says to dump any old Trandscender stuff based on W2K as its out of date.

I have revised my course expectations and I will not derive myself crazy thinking about failure. I told our Instructor that I would aim to enjoy it and learn what I can at the same time aiming to pass the exam but having a realistic expectation that not everyone passes first time and not to get too upset if I do not pass and Paul approved this strategy.

Watch this space sometime February 2005 for a Brag ;)

I'm so pleased you've developed a positive approach, MorseLady. I think you'll do well!

I'm sure someone who has taken the same course as you will be able to offer advice - I haven't so I can't :)

I took a similar course set, but Microsoft certification was not available when I took it (it now is).

We were 22 people originally registered for the class.

On day 2 there were 21.

At the end of it all, 13 people were left and only 11 passed.

I think the common factor to all these people dropping out was their lack of properly understanding the time they would have to invest. Some were taking the class during a sabbatical (like they were on vacation), others worked nights and took the class during days. One lady was even thinking about doing this during her pregnancy. She's the one who left on day 2.

It takes commitment to finish it, not just skill.

And it looks like you have tons of each of those.