Customer Reviews

MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-297): Designing a Microsoft® Windows Server(TM) 2003 Active Directory® and Network Infrastructure (Pro-Certification)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Overall this book is a good place to start your 70-297 study.

When I study for exams I us a combination of book study and practice tests such as the readiness review CD included with this title. My personal favorite testing software for Microsoft exams is the SelfTest Software products (who also writes the offical Microsoft testing materials). Based on my current experience with the 70-297 Selftest program, most of the question reference are based on the Windows Server Deployment Reource Kit - a hefty collection of books that go indepth on all the various aspects of deploying windows.

Bottom line is that you might want to cut out the middle man (ie. the MS 70-297 training kit) and invest in the Windows Server Deployment Reource Kit instead.

The worst part about the kit is that the Readiness review test is flawed when it comes to taking a test in the Certification mode - this mode is supposed to simulate a real test environment, however the 30 minute time limit to answer 90 questions is extremely unrealistic. That works out to 3 questions/min in a scenario based test environment. Last time I checked the real tests were aloted 2 hours for the test.

This MS Press book does a poor job in preparing the reader for exam 70-297. Not to say it doesn't include useful information, but it doesn't focus on the same information the exam appears to consider useful. For example, I'd estimate the real exam has 20% of its questions directly related to domain upgrade/migration procedures. This book's material on the same: 2 pages.

I do appreciate other MS Press books. ISBN 0735618992 (Exchange 2003, 70-284), and ISBN 0735615772 (AD for 2003 Technical Reference) are both great. By the way, I used the latter to fill in for some of the shortcomings of this book.

Overall this book was a great review and summary of some of the information covered on the 70-297 vendor exam. However, it was missing some specific details about material that was covered on the vendor exam. The case studies did a great job of preparing you for the type of format you will see on the exam but the content was not nearly as in-depth or challenging as on the vendor exam. IF you are looking for the quintessential book to prepare for the vendor exam, this is not it. However, as a review of major concepts it is right on.

I've passed 6 exams for MCSE, and used MS Prep books for all of them, I've passed all at the first attempt. Most of the books were fine, except the one for 293 exam - which is much like this one (for 297).

Before I sat to study for 297 exam I thought that I would never say something like "The prep book has nothing to do with preparing you for the exam".

The 297 MS prep book indeed has nothing (at all) do to with preparing you for the test. Nor (in my opinion) it does anything else. The #!&*@ book is a waste of paper. No info at all.

Very lame attempt at giving you some tertiary sort of general "overview" of what you would possibly do while you are designing the MS AD and Network Infrastructure. It's better to review the 294 and 291 books to prepare for the 297 exam.

I used this a supplement along with CBT training fromt TestOut.

Note, I would only recommend this book as a supplement training for this test only if you have extensive experience in the subject matter. The testing method is different then the other tests for the MCSE series.

You should know this material hands down, and if you don't you will be in for a rude awakening. If you do know the test materials, then you should pass the test with flying colors.

This is one of the worst books geared toward exam prep written for the MCSE Track, This would be a good book to start with as it basicly just gives you a basic overview of all the main topics in all the core exams.
Good information, just not for what it is intended.

This book does not prepare you for the exam. Although it is full of useful information relevant to the exam, I felt that it did not cover all the bases as I would have expected from a Microsoft Press training kit. I had to seek additional material in order to ensure a pass.

The book was not extremely useful for this exam, basically its just a recap of the materials learnt in all other exams. The book did however provide a great refresh of this information and the practice questions on the simulator included prepare you for the exam well.

The book is different from earlier MCSE 2003 exam book.
Contains less exact data, contains more overview of having complex idea of designing a new infrastructure.
This is a typical closing exam book for having MCSE 2003, for the ones, who not mastering the Security aspects. For Security aspects, there exist another exam book 70-298, that I have no oppinion about.

It is also assumed, that the exam will be new to earlier one. I expect having more situation tasks instead of having multiple choice questions. It will soon turn out.

Tyke Fenderson

Very well written with guidelines and tools to assist you in your study, especially liked the notes on what to focus on for taking test, questions at the end of each chapter were also an added bonus. Highly recommend this book, well structured and detailed.