MCSE Career Pack
Wave Technologies' MCSE Career Pack is a comprehensive multimedia program that supplements hard-copy study manuals with electronic video displays, interactive activities, and simulation exercises. MCSE Career Pack's eight self-paced study manuals present the key knowledge you need to pass the MCSE certification core and elective examinations.
Each chapter in the study guides contains pretest and post-test questions to help you assess your understanding of the subject material during various stages of your study. Hands-on exercises appear throughout the text. Included in MCSE Career Pack is Getting Started, a booklet that guides you through the program and explains the MCSE certification process and how to use the program to study for each Microsoft certification exam. MCSE Career Pack's real value, however, is in the program's multimedia features. Special icons appear at strategic points in each study guide to refer you to the multimedia presentations.
It took me only 5 minutes to insert the Career Pack installation CD-ROM in my workstation's CD-ROM drive, run the installation program, and tell the software where to install the files. MCSE Career Pack files consumed 16MB of hard disk space.
MCSE Career Pack includes more than 3.5 hours of digital video presentations keyed to your review of the study guides. The video presentations are generally cue-card presentations with some degree of interactivity and a voice narration. This approach lets MCSE Career Pack include a significant amount of video in a relatively small space on your hard disk. Screen 4 shows a typical video presentation.
In addition to its video presentations, MCSE Career Pack includes an advanced technical simulation program called NEXTSim. NEXTSim presentations are also keyed to the program's study manuals. An example of a NEXTSim simulation exercise is mirroring two disks using Disk Administrator. After you launch the simulation, NEXTSim presents you with an NT Server desktop. You must click and type your way through the simulation until you complete the exercise. In many instances, the software did not let me perform a task in the way I usually do. For example, during a simulation to quick-format a drive and assign it a name, the simulator insisted I tab after entering the new volume name to move down to the quick-format button. My usual procedure is to use the mouse. If you make a mistake during a simulation, the software does not let you proceed with the task until you correct your error.
MCSE Career Pack contains an exam simulator called Challenge! Interactive that you use to gauge how well you might perform on the Microsoft certification examinations. With sample exams for each of the MCSE core and elective tests and large question pools to prevent rote memorization of answers, Challenge! Interactive is one of the most effective test exam simulators available.
MCSE Career Pack is priced significantly lower than comparable products. Its cost, in combination with a comprehensive and excellent feature set, makes Career Pack among the best CBT self-study solutions you can purchase.