I passed with a 913

I passed with a 913. The questions were very familiar thanks to the braindumps. Since the MS curriculum doesn’t cover half of what’s on the test, how anyone could pass without the braindumps is a mystery to me.

Skip all the lengthy blue screen questions and finish the test first. That’ll boost your confidence that you’re going to finish in time. Then you can sit there and take your time reading the tough questions.

Read the blue screen questions backwards, from the bottom up. All you need to know is the Proposed Solution, Required Results and Optionals. Who gives a #$%@ what city it’s in or how many zillion users are on the LAN, etc?

The trancenders were kinda helpful getting a feel for the T1 WAN questions but beyond that they were lame. They seemed to feel the test was primarily about the OSI layer. This wasn’t what I found.

Like I said, most of the test was a review for me, since it was mostly covered in the braindumps I read. Here’s what I can remember.

I got the classic Ethernet to Token ring question asking why it took longer to copy one way vs. the other. – Packet Size.
I got the two blue screen questions with the Triangle of cities. One with two T1 lines and one with all three connected. Obviously the one with all three T1 lines has continued connectivity across all cities in the event one line goes down.
Two Bluescreens on NetBIOS naming. These just need to be read carefully. They are basically looking for Uniqueness.
(Is using a person’s email address a good idea for netbios naming? I dunno, sounds good to me.)
Know where devices sit in the OSI layer. (Repeater, Routers, Bridges, Gateway, Brouter etc.) The pic of the layer was provided.

5. Memorize cable lengths. Mostly just UTP and coxial stuff.
Know correct how to measure coaxial stuff. Open from shielding to core, open across T connector, 50 ohm on terminators.
I got the classic where you need to replace RG-58 /U with RG-58 A/U to correct a workstation’s problem.
Protocol Analyzer seemed to be the answer to everything.
ATM seemed to also be the answer to everything.
I got the classic what will someday replace analog phone lines. –ISDN Basic Rate.
The PPP, SLIP and CSLIP questions were gimme’s.
If the question contained anything Nwlink the answer was probably Frame Type.
Know UNC goes \\computername\sharename
I got the classic about connection vs. connectionless. This was a gimme.
Know what protocols are routable and non-routable.
I got the classic what protocol is a good choice for a peer to peer. (Netbeui isn’t a choice.) -Nwlink IPX/SPX
I got a couple on NDIS and ODI. All I knew was that they allowed multiple protocols to be bound to one adapter. They want more details. Good luck finding this out......
I got the classic picture on the "Mesh" network.
Know only routers stop broadcast storms. Bridges do not.
Didn’t get much on WINS or DNS. Know these anyway....
Thanks to the people who gave the answer to the following classic stupid question:

Barbara’s PC has a network adapter in it that properly "initializes" but cannot get on the network. The choices all seem pretty close. The correct answer is: TRANCIEVER SETTINGS.
Forget the fact that any decent Ethernet card nowadays does this automatically.
One question was about using a switch to reduce network traffic and getting rid of the hub.
One question asking what was "best" for a backbone between five servers. Cost wasn’t mentioned, so I picked fiber. Cat 5 WAS a choice, but I believe they are looking for fiber on this one.
Absolutely nothing on wireless. (big surprise!)
I got the regular one’s on IRQ conflicts with network adapters. Remember the IRQ’s, especially the com ports.
I got the classic about performance monitor showing a high percentage on the disk time. The only logical choice was implementing disk striping.
I got a few blue screens on RAID stuff. Nothing tricky, pretty straight forward.

That’s it, my head is starting to ache again...