Testout

[hipoint]

I received a promotion from testout. For $2500 I would get cbt's for the following certifications:

MCSE 2003
MCSE 2000
MCSA 2003
MCSA 2000
CCNA
CNA
Security +
Network +
A+

With 60 day money back guarantee, exam pass guarantee (or they pay for the exam), and free updates for a year.

Sounds too good and I'm ready to take the deal, but wanted to know if anyone has recently used any of these and can provide an informal review?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[NDeters]

My organization recently purchased this set of CD's for training. I have not had too much time to work with them yet, but I have had a good review from a co-worker. I will try to give you more information after I try a few courses out.

 

[jtb]

For the same $2,500.00 you could buy a couple PCs, some network equipment, all the books you need to study, and pay for the tests. For some people, these online (or on CD) training courses are supposedly useful. I haven't met any yet.

Before you spend a single dime, tell us what having these certs will do for you.

Do you have IT experience? If not, you'll be classified as a "Paper MCSE", in other words, a cheater. Do you want to go there?

Do you have a career plan you've worked out with your spouse, your boss, your parents, or anyone else not associated with people who want to sell you thousands of dollars of potentially worthless CDs?

Don't you think making a plan will allow you to KNOW what your next steps should be?

Remember, neither Bill Gates nor Michail Dell have an earned Degree nor any technical certifications. Yet they are billionaires.

14 tests will get you all those certs... that's about another $2,000.00 in test fees--not to mention more than a test per month on very difficult topics, if you try to take them all in a single year.

I think you may want to reconsider... but it's your money!!

JTB
Have Certs, Will Travel
"A knight without armour in a [cyber] land."

 

[willir]

hipoint

I have to agree with JTB on this. Although CBT's can be great in that they are well organized, great graphics, etc, they are basically a book on a CD.

The company I currently work for probably relies on 95% of training objectives to be completed by CBT's (and we have to complete over 36 hrs each year), but the CBT's, although would get a good technical review, are very, very limiting.

1) You can not ask the CBT questions.

2) Any tests will accept only "their" answer when in fact you may have other answers that are just as good. (Anybody who received certifcation will know "There is ----'s world and the real world" where you can substitute ---- with Bill or Novell or ...

3) You can not discuss an issue or pursue a topic in more detail.

4) And CBT's become outdated very quickly. (A recent HR manager I know spent $60,000 on CBT's for our production environment. It turned out to be a huge waste. Employees used the CBT's to top up their hours when they were sick, and nothing else.

Where CBT's are useful, and this may justify their cost, is that they can train you to answer questions correctly on a certification test. This learning is by route. Bill's answer to this question is xyz type of thing. At the end, you will have your piece of paper to prove certification. And the certication may get your foot in the door to get certication in the "real world".

Richard

 

[lespaul]

Hi Richard! Glad to see you around again! Been a while,

leslie


Leslie

 

[chiph]

Something else you may consider -- you can buy a copy of MSDN Universal. You'll get operating systems, development tools, office productivity, and enterprise servers (SQLServer, BizTalk, etc).

A coworker bought a copy here for $1150 (plus local tax if any), which leaves you $1350 to buy a couple of PCs (WalMart.com is selling a Compaq with 15" LCD for $698) to set up as domain controller, etc.

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[rphips]

Well when I was an instructor I had our learning establishment buy and keep current all cbts.

Since the school was a adult training school the CBTs worked great in teaching them not only how to take a test but what to expect when taking a test.

But don't get me wrong - CBT will never replace hands on training but they do have there place as a suppliment when you want to get those certs.

As I said
They are a great tool to teach how to take a exam (expecially a Microsoft exam).

Combine Hands on with book knowledge and you have a winning, intillegent individual.




bob

"ZOINKS !!!!!"

Shaggy

 

[jtb]

Remember that the useful minimum for W2K in your test lab is the minimum listed. Roughly Pentium 133, 128MB, 2x(speed)CDROM, 2GB HD... these are going for less than $100 with shipping on eBay...

The minimum for XP and 2K3 is probably a P3? 450MHz with 256MB, 8x CDROM, 6GB HD... probably less than $200 with shipping...

Plan your future... Be your future...

JTB
Have Certs, Will Travel
"A knight without armour in a [cyber] land."

 

[thillside]

I have a bit to add to the above. Of course doing is better than reading and there is much more to learn from having the systems available. That said, some of us don't have the room available to put up a 3 computer lab. I live in a small NYC apartment, finding space for the books needed to study is an issue, finding space for 3 more computers is almost impossible.

 

[GMcNamara]

Do you have IT experience? If not, you'll be classified as a "Paper MCSE", in other words, a cheater. Do you want to go there?


A cheater....wow. There is no substitute for hands-on experience, but until Microsoft implements a minimum number of hours of real world hands-on experience for certifications, then cheater may be a bit exaggerated.

For some, teaching yourself from books is the only way to break into the field. You can't get a job without experience and you can't get experience without a job (unless you evidently want to be a cheater) and you can't get a job without experience and you can't get experience without a job..... Everyone has to start somewhere.

Pick up a book, make a change, take a chance, be a cheater.

 

[thillside]

I have more than 15 years of hands-on experience. I don't mind being a "paper" anything since I know I can go into an environment and learn what I need to get the job done. That said, I don't see a paper cert as cheating, the cert means you have passed the tests, no more and no less. If you don't claim to have experience you don't have you are not cheating. Hiring people should know what to ask for their needs. For some jobs they require a cert because the company demands the cert, but the actual position does requires some other experience entirely.

Personally, I can't stand classes. They never go at the right speed (I like to think they are always too slow) and the instructors are often "paper" certified instructors, with no experience themselves. (That is, IMHO, cheating. I expect an instructor to have way more knowledge than required for the course.) I have a problem learning "abstractly" from a system. Give me a problem and I will learn what it takes to fix it and keep that knowledge. But a blank slate does not do much for me. OTOH I can learn well from books since I tend to be able to retain the knowledge.

That said, my only point was that there are some of us for whom space is a real problem. I just don't have room for the equipment, at least not in any obvious way. I have not decided how I want to go on this though.