Hedge
American Infidel
Well kinda just back anyway . . . I just didn't have time to check in until now.
So I'm back from Boot Camp and it was a brutal and humbling experience! I never realized how much I didn't know until I entered the Octagon! What a beating!
I know what you all are thinking . . . this fucker went to Vegas for 2 weeks, how bad could that have been? Well let me give you a daily run down of my life each day.
The Microsoft Training Facility was located on the 4th floor of the Flamingo Hotel.
My hotel room was on the 8th floor.
This was my after hours study arena. Yes they do have Maid Service!
Class started promptly at 8am every morning and went non-stop except for a few 15 min breaks and a 45 min lunch break; and it finished at 8pm at night. I got there at 7am every morning to get some breakfast and check emails and pre-prepare for the day. I stayed about an extra hour each night talking with the instructor and the other 8 people who took the Bootcamp with me. We could ask questions or practice shit in the labs. Then I would go straight upstairs to my room to study what we learned that day. I would turn the light off at 11pm to try and get enough sleep to awake at 6:30am to get ready to get down there by 7am the next morning. This is basically how my schedule was every day!
There are 7 exams you have to take in a Prometric Testing Center, which is a very official Microsoft Certified “No Nonsense” facility that you walk into with empty pockets! No fucking around at all or you’re tossed! I took the first exam 70-290 and failed it by 1 question! 1 Fucking question! They base their tests on 700/1000. If you get 700 or better you pass. Microsoft is currently giving free vouchers for a 2nd try right now . . . otherwise it costs $125 a test. OK, so I go back to my room and put the full cram on that night and I’m really ready the next day to use my free voucher and pass this test, which by the way is the easiest of them all, they get progressively harder as you advance from test to test. I go back in the next day and take it again. Just before I push the finish button I say a prayer to God to please make this a passing grade! I guess he was busy because after I pressed the finish button I Failed; this time by 2 fucking questions!
OK – I fucking freaked out because this means I cannot re-take the 70-290 test for 14 days and I have to now pay $125 for the re-take. Furthermore, I am now disqualified from coming home with my MCSE or even my MCSA which only requires me to pass 4 tests. Both of these certifications must have the 70-290 passed in order to get the cert. Now I’m seriously depressed.
OK, I’m now going to try and gather it up and just pass as many as I can so since the 70-290 is no longer an option I start cramming on the 70-291 which is the next easiest test. Back to my room after classes and full cram on. I kinda lost track of time and days when I was there so I cannot really put any of this in chorological order; but anyway I feel I’m ready to take the 70-291 and I go downstairs to the 4th floor several day later and take it. I fail it by about 10 questions! Now I’m fully on TILT! I’m convincing myself that I’m stupider than my boss says I am! I’m at one of the lowest point in my life now with a full-on depression going! I decided that I better not use my voucher for the free retake. I even decided that taking the 70-293 was probably a bad idea and I better either kill myself or listen more closely in class. Unlike the motherfucker in front of me who was doing FaceBook all day. I thought he passed his exam which really torque me off, but I was to find out later that he didn’t pass a single exam except Vista Client. Which is useless because they are phasing this out like that piece of shit Windows ME. Microsoft will be rolling out Windows 7 soon and let me tell you right now - it is a slick ass operating system!
My Instructor sees me the next morning and realizes that this guy is probably gonna jump from the window and finish himself off so he pulls me to the hallway and we take a walk and have a talk. He explains that I’m going to have to study the Microsoft way now and begin to think answers to test questions the Microsoft way so that I don’t fall for their squirrel traps! He tells me that Microsoft wants you to do things their way which, many times is different than the way we do things in a normal production environment on a daily basis. He said that he would teach me how to prepare for a Microsoft exam, how to reverse engineer out the answers that are not possible, how to decide which answer out of the ones that were left is the right answer!
I began to cram for the 70-294 Active Directory exam his way, the Microsoft way. I crammed for a complete day solid. I then went into the Prometric testing facility and took the test. I pressed the finish button about 2 hours later and I scored an 825! Yeah Baby! I got 1 in the pocket! I now have just enough confidence in me to drive on! I apply myself with my new found confidence and pass my 70-297 which is probably the hardest test of them all. It has 6 different complicated scenarios that you have to read through and then answer about 6 – 8 questions. The problem is that each scenario is timed and when you press start you might be given 18 min to complete Scenario 1 and answer 6 complicated questions. Hers the thing; you could easily spend the first 15 minuets just reading the scenario, which would not give you enough time leftover to answer the questions. What they do is they give you an ass-load of information inside the scenario and a lot of it is completely useless. So the trick is as soon as you press the start button you go right down to the questions and right them down on a piece of scrap paper they give you as fast as humanly possible. Then you go back and read the scenario and try and fill in the puzzle!
So I'm back from Boot Camp and it was a brutal and humbling experience! I never realized how much I didn't know until I entered the Octagon! What a beating!
I know what you all are thinking . . . this fucker went to Vegas for 2 weeks, how bad could that have been? Well let me give you a daily run down of my life each day.
The Microsoft Training Facility was located on the 4th floor of the Flamingo Hotel.
My hotel room was on the 8th floor.
This was my after hours study arena. Yes they do have Maid Service!
Class started promptly at 8am every morning and went non-stop except for a few 15 min breaks and a 45 min lunch break; and it finished at 8pm at night. I got there at 7am every morning to get some breakfast and check emails and pre-prepare for the day. I stayed about an extra hour each night talking with the instructor and the other 8 people who took the Bootcamp with me. We could ask questions or practice shit in the labs. Then I would go straight upstairs to my room to study what we learned that day. I would turn the light off at 11pm to try and get enough sleep to awake at 6:30am to get ready to get down there by 7am the next morning. This is basically how my schedule was every day!
There are 7 exams you have to take in a Prometric Testing Center, which is a very official Microsoft Certified “No Nonsense” facility that you walk into with empty pockets! No fucking around at all or you’re tossed! I took the first exam 70-290 and failed it by 1 question! 1 Fucking question! They base their tests on 700/1000. If you get 700 or better you pass. Microsoft is currently giving free vouchers for a 2nd try right now . . . otherwise it costs $125 a test. OK, so I go back to my room and put the full cram on that night and I’m really ready the next day to use my free voucher and pass this test, which by the way is the easiest of them all, they get progressively harder as you advance from test to test. I go back in the next day and take it again. Just before I push the finish button I say a prayer to God to please make this a passing grade! I guess he was busy because after I pressed the finish button I Failed; this time by 2 fucking questions!
OK – I fucking freaked out because this means I cannot re-take the 70-290 test for 14 days and I have to now pay $125 for the re-take. Furthermore, I am now disqualified from coming home with my MCSE or even my MCSA which only requires me to pass 4 tests. Both of these certifications must have the 70-290 passed in order to get the cert. Now I’m seriously depressed.
OK, I’m now going to try and gather it up and just pass as many as I can so since the 70-290 is no longer an option I start cramming on the 70-291 which is the next easiest test. Back to my room after classes and full cram on. I kinda lost track of time and days when I was there so I cannot really put any of this in chorological order; but anyway I feel I’m ready to take the 70-291 and I go downstairs to the 4th floor several day later and take it. I fail it by about 10 questions! Now I’m fully on TILT! I’m convincing myself that I’m stupider than my boss says I am! I’m at one of the lowest point in my life now with a full-on depression going! I decided that I better not use my voucher for the free retake. I even decided that taking the 70-293 was probably a bad idea and I better either kill myself or listen more closely in class. Unlike the motherfucker in front of me who was doing FaceBook all day. I thought he passed his exam which really torque me off, but I was to find out later that he didn’t pass a single exam except Vista Client. Which is useless because they are phasing this out like that piece of shit Windows ME. Microsoft will be rolling out Windows 7 soon and let me tell you right now - it is a slick ass operating system!
My Instructor sees me the next morning and realizes that this guy is probably gonna jump from the window and finish himself off so he pulls me to the hallway and we take a walk and have a talk. He explains that I’m going to have to study the Microsoft way now and begin to think answers to test questions the Microsoft way so that I don’t fall for their squirrel traps! He tells me that Microsoft wants you to do things their way which, many times is different than the way we do things in a normal production environment on a daily basis. He said that he would teach me how to prepare for a Microsoft exam, how to reverse engineer out the answers that are not possible, how to decide which answer out of the ones that were left is the right answer!
I began to cram for the 70-294 Active Directory exam his way, the Microsoft way. I crammed for a complete day solid. I then went into the Prometric testing facility and took the test. I pressed the finish button about 2 hours later and I scored an 825! Yeah Baby! I got 1 in the pocket! I now have just enough confidence in me to drive on! I apply myself with my new found confidence and pass my 70-297 which is probably the hardest test of them all. It has 6 different complicated scenarios that you have to read through and then answer about 6 – 8 questions. The problem is that each scenario is timed and when you press start you might be given 18 min to complete Scenario 1 and answer 6 complicated questions. Hers the thing; you could easily spend the first 15 minuets just reading the scenario, which would not give you enough time leftover to answer the questions. What they do is they give you an ass-load of information inside the scenario and a lot of it is completely useless. So the trick is as soon as you press the start button you go right down to the questions and right them down on a piece of scrap paper they give you as fast as humanly possible. Then you go back and read the scenario and try and fill in the puzzle!
nly been to Vegas once,7 days at the Hilton Grand Vacations at the Flamingo.The history of the place,the "Vegasness" that surrounds it,everything about it. I`m hoping to go back again this fall,after all the daughters wedding hullabaloo is over.
