Four Down, One To Go

Wednesday marked the completion of my fourth exam in my ongoing quest for MCITP certification.  The test du jour was MCTS 70-643 Configuring Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure.  Seriously... that's the name they came up with.  As I had done with the three previous exams, my primary study material was the Microsoft Training Kit.  This book was even more to-the-point the than those that I read for the other exams.  I think that's what I like most about this series of books; They're direct and focused, while still giving an overall broad view of the subject matter.

As of test time I was consistently scoring in the mid to hi 90's on the practice exams that came with the Training Kit as well as some 3rd party study guides I acquired online.  As such, my confidence was pretty high going into the test.  It was quickly shaken when the very first question threw me for a complete loop.  Of course, I signed an NDA when I took the exam so I can't discuss the question, but it was something that I had not encountered in my many hours of studying.  Fortunately, it got much smoother from there.  The next 4 or 5 questions were right in my comfort zone.  I marked 12 (of 40) questions to go back and review.  The others I was 99.9% sure I had right.  Of those 12, several were just oddly worded and I wanted to make sure I thought them through logically before committing to an answer.  And finally, there were about 5 questions that I was unsure of the answer for.  So, like before, I eliminated any ridiculous answers and tried to make an educated guess from the remainder.  It worked.  I passed the test with a score of 953/1000.

That means it's time to prep for my fifth and final exam... MCITP 70-647: Windows Server Enterprise Administrator.  I've got the Microsoft Training Kit sitting in front of me now.  Time to study.