# Best Way to Prepare for 70-686



## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

Has anyone here taken and passed this exam before? If so how did you go about preparing for it? Right now if I do decide to prepare for the exam I'm thinking of getting the MS resource book to study, reading through the relevant technet articles, setting up a virtual lab to practice, and finding some good practice exams. 

I'd love to hear from anyone who has successfully passed this thing


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## BosonMichael (Nov 1, 2011)

That's one I haven't taken, Tim. I typically use MS Press or Sybex to study for Microsoft exams, so I'd recommend looking at reviews (taking them with a grain of salt) to see what others think about those titles.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

I have the MS press book for the 70-680 and the sybex one and the sybex one is better imo although I still havent got around to studying for it properly yet.

Never use just one study tool, so I would suggest using two books for the 686 one book may lack in an area the other doesn't and vice versa


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## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

Sorry for the late response, and thanks for your answers. I've decided to start studying for the exam using the MS Press book and another book written by Darril Gibson that received higher reviews than Microsoft's book. I also just set up a little virtual lab running Server 2008 R2 with five Windows 7 Enterprise machines attached to it which should help somewhat .

On a side note, I'm just wondering about something and would like your opinion. I've been at my new job for about two months now doing laptop and printer equipment setup and installation. Each day I go to a different office to set things up. At the end of the day the office receives a survey to fill out about how I did. I've gotten one positive comment so far and no negatives, after doing about 30 installs. Is it normal to not receive many comments if the staff is satisfied or should I be worried? Everyone seems happy at the end of the installs but I'm just wondering. Thanks


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## BosonMichael (Nov 1, 2011)

I'm guessing most of them forget or simply don't have the time. Unless there's some incentive, most won't bother. Are they branch offices of your company or are they customers?


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## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

They are branch offices of an insurance company.


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## BosonMichael (Nov 1, 2011)

tim19889 said:


> They are branch offices of an insurance company.


Of the insurance company you work for? Or an insurance company that is a client your company services?

What I'm trying to determine is the angle you need to work to give them an incentive to complete your reviews. If a customer, you can offer a discount (if that is within your power). If your employer, you can get the employee's manager to require that the employee fill out the review.

In short, if there's no compelling reason for them to fill out the review, and they're not otherwise required to do it... they won't.

Here's a real-world example. Anytime you go to Taco Bell, you can tell them how your visit was. If there's no reason to do so, you're probably not gonna do it unless your visit was horrible. However, if they provide an incentive to you, such as offering a chance to win a free iPad 2, you're much more likely to participate.


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## Basementgeek (Feb 7, 2005)

No news is good news 

BG


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## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

BosonMichael said:


> Of the insurance company you work for? Or an insurance company that is a client your company services?
> 
> What I'm trying to determine is the angle you need to work to give them an incentive to complete your reviews. If a customer, you can offer a discount (if that is within your power). If your employer, you can get the employee's manager to require that the employee fill out the review.
> 
> ...


Ah, I see what you mean. That's a good point.

I work for an IT outsourcing company whose client is an insurance company that I perform equipment installs for. I'm not really sure how to give an incentive for them to fill it out, other than doing a really good or really horrible job lol. I think I'll go with what BasementGeek said though, no news is good news. That makes me feel better at least hehe.


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