Overview
This exam (70-740) finally went gold recently (Jan 2017) – emerging from a long Beta period. I was super interested in the gold code since I am writing a book on how to pass it! 🙂
MCSA 70-740 Cert Guide: Installation, Storage, and Compute with Windows Server 2016Â
I am looking to beat that June 1 publication date by the way!
So now that the shameless self promotion is out of the way – let’s get to the exam.
The 70-740 Exam
You can expect about 47 questions on this 70-740 exam with a passing score of about 700. You have 120 minutes for the exam. Time pressure is NOT an issue. I say this even as a very fast test taker and an author of a text on how to pass.
The exam breaks down accurately into the following sections. Notice the percentage breakdown on the number of questions you will face!
- Install Windows Servers in host and compute environments (10–15%)
- Implement storage solutions (10–15%)
- Implement Hyper-V (20–25%)
- Implement Windows containers (5–10%)
- Implement high availability (30–35%)
- Maintain and monitor server environments (10–15%)
So the 70-740 exam is biased toward High Availability? YES! Sorry for all of you that were excited about Windows containers like I was – not a big part of this test at all as Microsoft advertised. What are the topics in the most important High Availability domain? Here they are:
- Live Migration
- Failover Clustering
- Storage Spaces Direct
- Network Load Balancing
Know these – and know them well. The exam almost seems crazily biased toward them.
Question Types
What types of questions can you expect? Here they are:
- Simple multiple choice – this is actually the least common question type you face
- Scenario-based multiple choice – here is your most common question type – you are presented with a scenario of text and tables and things, and then you get a bunch of multiple choice based questions on that information; the scenario does not change – just the multiple choice questions change; this is great, saving you a ton of reading since the scenario is exactly the same
- Drag and drop steps in the correct order – you can expect bogus steps in the list of steps that you are to order; for example, you might need to select the three steps needed and order them correctly out of 7 possible steps
- Select the correct command or parameter from a drop-down – here you choose the correct PowerShell or command line option
- Select the correct command or parameter using drag and drop – note that this is basically the same as the above; how awesome we never need to enter in command syntax from just our brain matter – we are always selecting from options presented in some fashion
Final Thoughts
This 70-740 exam is pretty easy. Please, of course, study. But compared to previous Server exams, it is definitely on the easier scale. Knowing key facts can carry you through many questions. And you have a relative few questions to deal with. I really enjoyed how this exam hammered important facts, and not trivia.
