Customer Reviews

Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Exam Guide (Covers Exam #70-073)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book has good content, but it is: 1. overpriced, 2. dated, 3. peppered with errors here and there, 4. containing a CD that barely merits the cost of pressing.

I just used the 2nd Edition to pass the exam and found that it is: 1. $60 cheaper, 2. updated, 3. corrected, 4. having a CD that is as good as any I have seen with a test prep guide.

See my review on the second edition to see my story.

I found the writing to be less than concise, tending to be both stuffy and rambling. Many of the graphics were amateurish. The question sets could do with explanations of why certain answers are correct. After my first experience with this series, Dan York's fine "Network Essentials," I was expecting a lot more from this book. Especially for the price.

I used this book to prepare for my NT workstaion 4.0 and I barely got through. The book was good but I felt it did'nt focus properly on an exam point of view. Some topics like sysdiff utility were not covered. The sample questions could have been modelled like Microsoft exams. Not worth spending so much money on this book.

When you get to your Microsoft exam and there are 6 questions on sysdiff, you will wonder why you paid so much this book, because it's not even mentioned. As you take the practice tests you'll also wonder why there are no explinations to the answers. Hopefully you'll figure out that it's because most of the answers are wrong. Someone pointed out that the practice questions in this book are harder than the actual exam, that's because on the microsoft exam, the correct answer makes sense. Unlike this book

Even simple things like the hardware requirements for installing NT are all wrong.

If I hadn't ripped open the CD, I'd definately bring this one back. Very sloppy work guys.

This book came very highly reccommended to me, so I shelled out the hundred bucks, hoping that it was going to be twice as good as a $50.00 book. I was wrong. My biggest problem with the text is that there are so many errors in the chapter-end tests. Chapter three has 20 questions, but the answer key only has 18 answers. What the heck is that? Even when a chapter has the right number of questions/answers, quite a few of them are often wrong. As it stands I have absolutely NO CONFIDENCE in the book's ability to deliver accurate information. I wish that were not the case because I hate to badmouth anyone's hard work, but I also hate spending a hundred bucks on something that might or might not be accurate some or all of the time. When I tried to contact the publisher (Que/MCP) for erratta, they were "under construction," so I had to leave an email for the webmaster, which is just a further inconvienence. Normally I'm a pretty tolerant reader, typos and nitpicky things like the asthetic quality of the charts really don't bother me, but if you have the nerve to charge twice as much as the other guy, then you better be able to deliver a product that people can trust.

The content of the book was decent but it is way overpriced. The sample test questions were nothing like the real test and the interface was rather clumsy.

This text is a good one to study in order to get a solid footing in the NT Workstation realm, but there are certain key areas of note that lessen its effectiveness. First, as indicated by other commenters, the book does have a few organizational flaws such as misplaced diagrams, or incorrect answers to various questions, but a major flaw was that it totally omitted any discussion of the "Sysdiff" function. Maybe it was just me, but I could not find any reference to it within the text, and there were several questions (some scenario-based!!!) on the 70-73 exam that called for knowledge of this topic. Therefore, the MCP candidate should use at least some supplementary material with this book to be totally well-rounded, preferably material that "majors" in 'unattended installations' and 'monitoring and performance'. Also, use of exam-prep questions from the "TRANSCENDER CORP." would provide the final cement for a candidate's pursuit of the MICROSOFT certification crowns, in conjunction with this text. "Many" of their questions were almost the exact same ones as found on the actual 70-73 exam.

I found the main part of the book to be very good but I expected more for $70. Diagrams/screen shots were weak with errors and not enough of them. Numerous typos and formatting problems that were distracting. Looks like it would have benefitted by one more checking/editing pass rather than being rushed to press. The test section was most disappointing. Some vaguely worded questions, a wrong diagram and incorrect answers. Mastery tests were just self-assessment test repeated.

This book is better written and organized than the Sybex counterparts with fewer mistakes and more drills. In my opinion, the chapter questions are more difficult than the actual MCSE Workstation 4.0 (70-73) Exam questions themselves. You can probably pass the MCSE exam by studying the material in this book alone. However, I recommend coupling this book with practice exams from Transcender Corporation. This particular combination produced a 980/1000 score on my first MCSE exam, #70-73.

The text portion of the book is excellent and gives all the information needed to pass the MSCE exam. The Lab portion is also very good. My biggest complaint was with the test questions. They got scrambled and sometimes the answers are wrong or in a different chapter than the one you are studying