Description:
For a hundred and fifty bucks, you could buy three extra books to help you prepare for the exam--or you could buy this one. And it says something when the Windows 2000 Core Four Exam Cram Personal Test Center is truly worth three full-fledged books. You see, most books don't really hone your troubleshooting skills for the exam. They present the facts, but they present them in an odd vacuum where facts sort of float around aimlessly, not connected to any real working computers. Sure, things break down in test preparation books, but you can always look at the chapter header that says "Chapter 8: DNS" and dope out that whatever's happening, it's probably DNS-related. It's rare that something bad happens and you have no idea what's going on in a test prep book--and your troubleshooting skills suffer as a result. Microsoft knows this: they've begun to write questions to nail nice folks like you. And the Exam Cram Personal Test Center gives you a boatload of "PCs gone wrong" scenarios in the exact same way that Microsoft writes them--by either giving you a scenario where you have to configure the computers in a specific way to make them work, or by giving you some byzantine question packed with red herrings to try to mislead you. The Test Center actually hones your ability to track down and locate problems quickly, and that alone is something you won't find in many other books. The Test Center is, at its core, a set of several styles of questions, broken down under the four Microsoft exams--a hundred for each of them. You can choose from four fixed-length reviews of about 25 questions each, a "random" test composed of selections, a "review" test (which appears to be the same as the "random" test, but automatically gives you the correct answer and an explanation). You can also save and load tests to retake them. In taking the exams, the first thing you'll notice is that there are no softballs to be found here--they're all at least three-star questions, and they ramp quickly. Almost all of them are situation questions, where something has either gone wrong or isn't working, and you have to figure out where things are getting bollixed--though there are a few simple questions along the way. The situation questions are always helpful since generally they're fairly simple fixes that call upon both your retention of raw Windows 2000 facts and analytical skills--and Coriolis always writes the questions--so they're tough to fake your way through. There are no obviously stupid answers, and quite frequently they'll pull the trick of putting several similar-sounding answers next to each other for camouflage. If you don't know the answer, you can click on the "Answer" button, which will tell you what the correct answer is, then provide explanations for both why that's the right answer and the other choices are wrong. One gripe with this software is that the explanations are frequently skimpy. It would be nice to have a bit more depth in this aspect. Also, a hundred questions for each exam seems a bit light, though admittedly these are mostly grueling questions. Quite frequently you'll be given network diagrams and asked to solve various situations: "Which services are functioning correctly in this network?" There are also a generous number of list prioritization and tree simulations available. These questions are presented in a style that's almost identical to the actual test room, including the ability to mark and review answers, which helps get users past that initial burst of panic when you log in for the first time. You can save your tests for future reference, although there is no user login function, making this a little less useful for large-scale corporate environments. To sum up, this package may initially seem a bit pricey, but the sheer quality and quantity of questions will serve you well in preparation for the exam. Highly recommended. --William Steinmetz
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