Product Description: This comprehensive book prepares you for Microsoft's new certification, MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Exam 70-236 serves as both the single exam requirement for achieving the MCTS designation as well as the entry exam for the MCITP certification for Exchange Server 2007. Inside, you'll find the practical and in-depth instruction you need, including full coverage of all exam objectives, practical hands-on exercises, real-world scenarios, challenging review questions, and more. The book includes a CD with advanced testing software and electronic flashcards.
Wrong Emphasis I bought this book and passed up the official Microsoft text (Willis/McLean) due to a bad experience with the previous official Microsoft Exchange book written by the same pair.
I think doing so was a mistake.
I worked my way completely through the Schmied/Miller text, did all the study questions, and at the end redid all the study questions and then took the practice tests included on the CD-ROM. At that point I still felt unprepared for the exam, so I bought a prep kit from MeasureUp for $70 and carefully followed MeasureUp's prep procedure. Finally I felt prepared and took the exam.
I failed with a 667 out of 700.
Now, this was my fifth exam. I've never before failed one. In fact when I went in I felt very confident and was not at all worried about passing. How wrong I was! There were probably between ten and fifteen questions on the 70-236 exam that I flat did not know the answer to, and most of those I was not able to answer even through process of elimination.
Now, before you accuse me of inadequate preparation, keep in mind that I had been preparing about three months for this exam (reading the text, going through study questions, etc). In addition to that, I've been an Exchange Server 2007 admin for more than a year. I thought I was ready. I absolutely was not.
The fact is that the exam focuses entirely on PowerShell. There are absolutely NO questions having to do with the GUI (Microsoft Exchange Management Console) on the exam. And the Schmied/Miller text, while emphasizing that PowerShell is important ("some of these commands are likely to make an appearance on your exam"), does not stress this.
Schmied and Miller have written a lot about using the GUI to accomplish tasks but for some reason leave the equivalent PowerShell commands only as an afterthought. The emphasis is completely backwards -- this book should drill PowerShell into your head and minimize the GUI material. For a Microsoft admin who has grown used to doing things the GUI way over the past fifteen years, this is a particularly hard concept, but it's the way things are going.
In short, while I can't say that there is really anything wrong with this book per se, it is woefully inadequate if you want to pass the 70-236 exam. Buy at least one other book and make sure you dream in PowerShell code at night before you think of taking this exam. Take my word for it, 70-236 is a very challenging exam, and every minute you spend preparing for it will be worthwhile.
It's Ok I have to give this book two stars mainly because if this is your only or primary source of preparing for the exam you won't pass it the first time or maybe even the second time. I was lucky as I have been working with Exchange for many years now and used other study material in conjunction with this book so I was able to pass the exam the first time up. The authors do a pretty good job of keeping the subject interesting but in my opinion don't go deep enough on a technical level to prepare you for the exam. The CD that comes with the book is nice, but I would avoid the flash cards as a lot of the information was just incorrect.
Get a Proofreader Wow, were they ever trying to get this out the door in a hurry. The spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors in this book are embarrassing. I could overlook that if they didn't make a few technical errors too. The practice test on the cdrom is buggy and contains several answers that are plain wrong. But its the only non-microsoft 70-236 book out there, so you're stuck with it.
Good but not perfect! Most Sybex authors have a great way of putting "technical speak" in to their own words, which can make reading and learning new technologies much easier.
This book is on par with other Sybex books within the same category when it comes to the technical and copy editing accuracy. It does contain small, yet noticeable technical contradictions between pages, and grammatical and spelling errors.
I used this book to reinforce most of what I had already learned through experience, along with other Exchange 2007 study resources.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
