May 6, 2009

RTFM!

Windows 7 Beta Exam 71-680

Well it has been quite a while since I started playing with Windows 7 by installing it on my main production machine, and recently I have reinstalled it to put RC on.  I have to say that I am very much liking Windows 7 on almost all fronts.  When I heard about the beta exam for 71-680 from the MS Learning blog Born To Learn, I called in to secure one of the limited spots available.  I was lucky to grab one and quickly scheduled for today May 6th.

While I have been using Windows 7 hands on for awhile, I knew that I would need to spend some time in the days before the test to come up to speed on some of the things that a stand alone installation wouldn’t normally see or use so I would know how to deal with them on the test.  Luckily the 71-680 prep guide came online pretty soon after the announcement so I had a rough idea the areas to bone up on.

So this morning bright eyed and bushy tailed I went off to take my exam and see what it was like.  Of course we are under NDA when you take MS exams so I will not comment on question specifics, but I will give some thoughts on the exam both positive and negative.

  1. There were no gross errors or totally misleading questions on the set I worked with, I have seen murky questions in several exams I have taken in the past, but I did not hit any of those this time around.
  2. It was still an “old” style test.  I was hoping this exam would bring a launch of “performance” based testing like the 70-113 pilot exam.  This one had the age old exhibit pictures to work with and standard text questions, though the scenario questions were light to me from past exams.
  3. So over /switch questions… really if I know how to do something from a command line and I know what .exe to use, I am pretty sure I will figure out the switch parameter when needed.  I think it is a little much to have to remember all switch configurations for .exe files.  I can easily get them in a moment at a cmd prompt, I would think you could use that question to probe into a test takers other areas of knowledge.
  4. Little things can annoy me during a test, like the fact the center I was at still used a ball mouse that probably hadn’t been cleaned in ages, This caused it to be very unresponsive to my movement.  The old CRT monitor with rounded screen also was a distraction, if I can show my snobbish elitism for flat screen monitors now.  Hopefully I can finally find a test center that has a little more modern equipment.

All in all there really were really no real surprises in 71-680, when compared to 70-620 except for Windows 7 specific technologies.  Anything could happen but I am pretty confident that when I get my results in  2 months or so I will have passed.  And again while I am under a NDA for specific questions, I am going to be writing up some articles on the specific technologies I saw, that some people might not always be familiar with in day to day use.  Look for those in the near future.

May 6, 2009 | Filed Under Microsoft Certifications, Windows 7 

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2 Responses to “Windows 7 Beta Exam 71-680”

  1. josh on May 7th, 2009

    I will be sitting this exam on may 15th any heads up would help me out alot.

    Thanks

  2. Anonymous on May 8th, 2009

    “Little things can annoy me during a test, like the fact the center I was at still used a ball mouse that probably hadn’t been cleaned in ages”

    My testing center has newer mice, that even have scroll wheels – but the thing that annoys me is that the testing software ignores scroll wheels! It’d be a huge help if Prometric (Pearson probably has the same issue) finally brought their testing software into the current decade on that point, since there’s so many exam screens that require scrolling.

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