T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Good evening people, in 8 weeks i am sitting my mcsa/mcse exam 70-290. Having never done any "real" revision and having left school at 15 (now 37) am looking for some advise. Do i make notes? if so whats the best way. How many hours a day should i do?

I work 4 on 4 off so have 3.5 days to revise. I can also read on nights if we are not to busy. The other 2 days i leave at 5am and do not get back till 8:30pm so those days i could do maybe and hour before bed.

Any advise would be welcome,

Andrew

mervil

iTrader: (5)

I found that writing things down is the best way as it goes in a lot easier. Don't overdo it as you'll remember sweet f.a. Try writing down key factors that will remind you of the rest of the information that goes with it. Not the best but hopefully will get you somewhere

Mervil

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Cheers Mervil will give that a go.

mervil

iTrader: (5)

Not a problem, hope it works

16vmarc

When i was at college i used to spend 30min a night reading relevent notes to the exam i was due to be taking. I also had past exam papers to do whilst i was at college every week.

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Maybe i could get hold of some old questions and that would give me an idea as to what to expect?

16vmarc

I dont see why not, most of our lessons building up to exams were doing past exam papers.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Have you got the practice tests ?

if not try www.seltestsoftware.com, have got me through all my exams, well worth the 70 quid.

I have done quite a few Oracle exams now and have a feel for it, I now know when I am ready, I try to make sure I can consistently score 100% but you need to know the full answer not just that its the third one of five which is a danger, get a spiral bound notebook, go through your subject book if you have one, I use the Oracle course notes and go through and write the salient points down, If there are say four parameters that consist a certain set up I make a rhyme or word from the first letters, e.g. Oracle 10G memory tuning

Shared Pool
Java_pool
Large_Pool
DB_Cache

These are the auto tuned memory parameters, I remember it as, 'We shared a Large Java, I paid (DB)Cache', cringeworthy but if it helps !

I also use what I call the Karate kid approach, Wax on/Wax off, hammer it until you know it inside out, you get to a point when you have defined the subject area in your head, at first it seems daunting but just keep with it, dont leave it all to the last minute, postpone the exam instead, plan to do at least some revision every day, even ten minutes to keep you in the mindset, dont do much more than an hour unless you really want to, before bed is good, I use an old laptop next to the bed so I can do a practice before sleep (or whatever....) as it seems to sink in. Dont sack it off for a week, always do a little bit, its one of those things that is incremental, there is no big bang with learning for most of us. Its one of those things (like most things) that your result is directly related to the effort you put in, there are efficient ways of learning but no shortcuts.

Oh and practice on an actual pc doing the work if possible as there is no substitute for actually doing it.

Good luck,

J4CKO, Oracle OCP 8i, 9i and 10G next week (hopefully)

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Exellent cheers mate, will have a look at website as well. I have a copy of windows server 2003 that came with the book(managing and maintaining a microsoft windows server 2003 environment) i think this has the tests, only arrived today so not had chance to look yet.

We manage over 2000 servers so i get a lots of time on them but cannot practice what i read. Bringing down the environment is not good for my job prospects!!

Good luck with your exams

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Does your place not have test servers ?

I installed the dataabse on my pc at work and at home (though its poo on there !)

Kyl3cook

The best way to revise is to get hold of as many past papers as possible. Photocopy them a couple of times and work your way through them once, then twice, then again....you'd be surprised at how similar questions are from year to year. They may change bits of a question, but they are generally repeated every 2nd or 3rd year, so if you have 3 years worth. You should cover everything that you may face.

Then when you get into the exam room and see a question that you've already done 3 times right, with a number 6 in place of a 4....you'll blitz it.

I only figured this out at Uni, otherwise I would have used this method from the beginning.

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Thought about buying another pc/server and insatalling windows server 2003 on it.

T5OLF

iTrader: (4)

Cheers mate will try and get hold of some questions