.NET Cert discussion/.NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Application Development (Exam 70-562)

all in one!

First I'd like to hear from people who have acquired some sort of cert from The Giant, MS. Could you please state what sort of certification you achieved, whether you accomplished your goals (learning the framework, better job, etc), and if it is/was worth it.

I've been developing web apps for a few months now in C#/.NET and while I've learned a lot, I wish I k new more so I could make better choices for such tight deadlines. Perhaps it will help me with another job later on down the line, but for now, it's more about personal gain. I want to be really great at this. I COULD just study a book or two, but after being at work for 8 hours, it's hard to find another hour or two towards something like 'studying'. Going for a cert should give me a nice boost, because at least this 'studying' will be going towards earning something.

Anyway, so I'm looking at Exam 70-562, which is TS: MS .NET Framework 3.5, ASP .NET App Development. Is this the correct exam to earn a cert for web development? It is, according to this link.

Somewhat of a roadblock is.... I can't seem to find any books for this exam on amazon, probably because it's a new exam soon to be released in August. Do you guys recommend any books that would help for something like this? Any articles that discuss this exam?

Anything would be appreciated. I'd rather not hear about how 'useless' an MS cert is, because I really want to do this; would love to hear about how this went for other newb developers.

Some background: about 8 months developing web apps (2 new ones, mainly doing maintenance on one, then moving on to a new 3rd one, probably starting today). Yes, this blows but we have been using .NET Framework 1.1. I realize 3.5 is a huge leap, but hey, I like what I'm doing so far so don't mind learning it. I graduated in CS in Spring '07, and I like all things I've been learning at work!

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/4/2008 2:46:38 PM

First, I have an MCPD Web Application Developement (I did it by doing an MCTS: Asp.net 2.0 first). Better job? Yes. Do I know .NET more now? Yes, since read the books made to prepare you for the test, and they point you toward some pretty obscure features that people often omit... One of em for example was CompositeControl, which I'm trying to push on these forums lately... They're the "real" way of doing dynamic control injection on the page (none of that silly OnInit vs OnLoad vs whatever stuff, it takes care of all of it, no viewstate issues, etc). Few people know of it, and there isn't much on the web about it, but it was an exam question, so that definately pointed me in the right direction.

However, the job prospect and the quality of what you'll learn depends on where you live and how to do it. In certain areas, everyone cheats at the tests. In those places, the certs are totally meaningless. So it will depend on that a lot. If -you- yourself cheat, you'll also lose all of the knowledge validation, so you won't be a better dev, and in the long term, that shows.

You're right too. Aiming for the cert is what makes you better in the first place: you have a goal that force you to study and go through books (though thats more the MCTS... the MCPD, if you have enough experience in the real world, can be done on first try without even going through a book, since there's very little "by heart" learning).

70-562 is the test you will want, but keep in mind it isn't out yet... very new (coming this month), so documentation will be few and far in between about it. 1.1 is really another realm, not only in technology, but in mentality. So chances are that a lot of what you've been doing wasn't the "right way" of doing it, since your team probably didn't push all that far to keep up (its common, so don't take this as a blast at you), so yes, it will be a big step. Go through the books, do -OFFICIAL- practice tests (they're cheap), and you'll be good to go.

shados 8/4/2008 3:08:28 PM

Link82:
Going for a cert should give me a nice boost, because at least this 'studying' will be going towards earning something.

If that's what it takes to motivate you then a certification is worth every penny to you. Some study for the joy of it, but most study in order to accomplish something, a degree, a new job, a transfer to a different area, etc. Whatever the motivation, you have to do what it takes. I have a friend who is motivated by gold stars. She pastes one on the refrigerator when she accomplishes a specific goal. I'm guessing if she meets all her goals, the prize is a new refrigerator. :)

Jeff

Please: Don't forget to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helped you. That way future readers will know which post solved your issue.

jeff 8/4/2008 7:08:41 PM

shados:

First, I have an MCPD Web Application Developement (I did it by doing an MCTS: Asp.net 2.0 first). Better job? Yes. Do I know .NET more now?

That's cool. How long did it take you to obtain the MCPD? What books/materials did you use for preparation? Glad you have a better job. I live in DE (snooore), and am working as a programmer/developer and making ok starting out. I have a BS in Comp Sci. If you don't mind me asking, do you have a degree as well? How long have you been developing for?

shados:

However, the job prospect and the quality of what you'll learn depends on where you live and how to do it. In certain areas, everyone cheats at the tests. In those places, the certs are totally meaningless. So it will depend on that a lot. If -you- yourself cheat, you'll also lose all of the knowledge validation, so you won't be a better dev, and in the long term, that shows.

I already mentioned that I live in Delaware. I haven't shopped around, but the area is full of banks, school districts, Univ. of DE, etc, plus more I'm sure. I hadn't realized about cheating; if I was going to do that, I may as well not take the exam. Believe me, the emphasis is on learning, no matter how long it takes. I wonder how bad it is in this area...

shados:

70-562 is the test you will want, but keep in mind it isn't out yet... very new (coming this month), so documentation will be few and far in between about it. 1.1 is really another realm, not only in technology, but in mentality. So chances are that a lot of what you've been doing wasn't the "right way" of doing it, since your team probably didn't push all that far to keep up (its common, so don't take this as a blast at you), so yes, it will be a big step. Go through the books, do -OFFICIAL- practice tests (they're cheap), and you'll be good to go.

No offense taken. I don't have a team, I'm the sole programmer so I have to not only program/develop, but do testing as well. But it's good for the experience right? Yep 1.1 is where they are, we have the option to convert to... 2.0 I guess, but there's a lot of work to be done and little time to convert projects over. I will be coding new projects in 2.0/2005. I'm looking forward to what 2.0 and 3.5 have to offer. May as well fix my habits now.

jeff@zina.com:

If that's what it takes to motivate you then a certification is worth every penny to you. Some study for the joy of it, but most study in order to accomplish something, a degree, a new job, a transfer to a different area, etc. Whatever the motivation, you have to do what it takes. I have a friend who is motivated by gold stars. She pastes one on the refrigerator when she accomplishes a specific goal. I'm guessing if she meets all her goals, the prize is a new refrigerator. :)

Jeff

Thanks for the encouragement, Jeff! I'm not sure I want to accumulate those gold stars, but receiving a cert will prove certain things to me. As I've mentioned, my biggest problem right now is that the exam that I mentioned is not quite out yet and neither are any books regarding it. What would be the best way to start prepping for something like this?

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/5/2008 7:13:34 PM

Warning, long post ahead!

The MCPD took me about a week, to quickly review the documentation (some stuff in the documentation is about "The world through the eyes of Microsoft", so, while rare, sometimes you have to give what you may feel is the wrong answer, to get the right one =P), and go through. The MCTS was a lot longer and harder, because its about the deep technical side of the .NET framework, and you need to do two exams instead of just one, but it is required for the MCPD.

By technical side, I'm talking about the classes, methods, etc. You can have questions such as "What is the size of an Int32 in .NET", or picky stuff that is obvious when you're in front of Visual Studio, but not so obvious when in front of a questionnaire ("What is the method you'd use to get the size of an array. Count, Size, Length or Max"). Some are quite tricky, for example something like "What are the steps to make a control of type XYZ", and then you have 10 steps, you have to pick 6, and put them in the right order. That can be tricky.

Note that these are just examples and aren't real questions (there -IS- an NDA of some type at the beggining of the exam, so can't let the cat out of the bag!).

For the 2 tests of the MCTS, I took about a month each (reading 50-100 pages of the Microsoft Press books per day, and doing practice exams... I like those books, since, while the books are crappy-ish, they come with free sample practice exams that are legal, and a rebate on the cost of the exam).

The MCPD, you can almost go by guts feeling. "If you have an application that will have over 100 concurrent users, and have around 9 gigs of Data, what will you use... MS Access, MS SQL Express, or MS SQL". Again, question taken out of my imagination, but the answer is pretty obvious... MS Access will not survive 100 concurrent users, and MS SQL Express cannot handle 9 gigs database. So its a lot less "by heart", and a lot more "knowing your stuff".

==============

As for degree, I'm Canada, but worse than that, I'm from Quebec... which has a fairly **** education system compared to, well, the rest of the freagin planet... Instead of something standard-ish like 12 grades -> 4 years BAC, we have something along the line of 11 grades -> 2-3 years intermediate college education (NOT the same as an associate) -> 4 years BAC... I stopped after the intermediate degree, in computer science. I got cocky, winning a bunch of awards and lots of praises, and didn't feel I needed to go further. It was a **** mistake, and one that bit me in my first few years. I could get a job easily thanks to the awards and recognitions, but not necessarly the job I wanted, at the salary I deserved. Now, I made a bit of a reputation for myself, and people don't even look at the degree anymore, so I get the same jobs and am paid the same thing as anyone else with a BAC, but it took a few years and lots of hard work. Not the brightest decision I made in my life :)

I've had developer jobs since a bit before I graduated... so about since 2001, though I took a sabatical in the middle, so I guess about 5-6 years, with about half of that doing architecture work (I'm more into the whole figuring out HOW to do it than actually sitting down and doing it, personally, hehe). All around, my background is a bit atypical, so I'm not sure its a good reference to you.

==============

To prepare for exams that aren't out yet... thats tricky, and will be a lot longer, since you don't have the job spoonfed to you like I did. Last I had checked (it may have changed), the first test of the MCTS (the base framework test) isn't changing for 3.5. Thats good, it means you can get the first step done by using the existing documentation, and it will give you a feel of how its like. After that, it gets trickier... for the 3.5 certs (again, unless it changed), you have 3 tests total (one being the one I just mentionned, and 2 being something like ADO.NET, and ASP.NET). I can assure you that the questions and answers are taken almost verbatime from MSDN, so thats your primary ressource. If its not on MSDN, its not in the test, period. Of course, MSDN is rather big :)

So you look at the exam's description on the Microsoft MCP web site. They detail very well every single point in the test. You can be sure that it follows that structure, with at LEAST one question for every single point the **** supposed to cover. Then, for each of these points, look up documentation about it, from MSDN and whatever books you have. Keep in mind that books and online blogs/ressources are almost 50% mistaken on everything, so don't take those at face value.

Beyond that you should be fine :) Its actually very easy. Trust me, its much, much easier than school exams, by an order of magnitude or two, and then some :)

shados 8/5/2008 8:57:31 PM

Interesting life story, shados, thanks for sharing. I'm just trying to be patient, because I think with 2-3 years of job experience, a cert, a BS in CS, and hopefully an MBA within the next couple of years, hopefully I'll have set myself up for success. I can only hope!

Now that you've given me an overview of the exams, I'm a bit nervous. I'll start throwing together a study guide/plan this weekend, detailing what I should be reading, how I should be prepping, and how many times a week.

Of course I'd like to hear from more people. But again, thanks for the insight. It might be inappropriate to ask so you don't have to answer: what is your job title and how much do you get paid? Do you think you'll go back to school for something else? Is this field getting old for you?

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/6/2008 12:13:56 PM

Field is getting old? No way :) Its just getting started! A thing with software development, is that it is good for (I'll steal a quote from the makers of Metal Gear Solid, even though I hate the game...): "I want to be the one to explore the moon, not be the one who asks other how the moon was". In this day and age, especially since the post 2000 "reevaluation" of software development... everyone "sucks" at it. Being of those who get hired within a company to propose ways of cleaning up the mess, and making it happen, is just so... fulfilling :). There's a big odd that every day, you may do something thats never been done before (because if it was, you'd just buy it!).

I'll be moving in to the US in the following years (long story), so I may end up going back to school, diploma being more or less meaningless. If I was to stay here though, no, I wouldn't go back. No point, since my prospective employers don't look at that part of my resume anymore. (They tend to just look at your introduction paragraph and your last 2 jobs or so, plus the list of stuff you worked with, and more or less nothing else... HR guys have a short attention span... software engineers even shorter...)

For salary... that would be meaningless to give you. 100$ an hour in Manhattan is like 20$ an hour in the middle of nowhere. You just can't compare it. What I can tell you, is that I can pay my full life expenses (no kid, no car, by choice, not by obligation, and I'm not single) on about 1 week of pay (after taxes), and that its a common scenario: right now, the market is starved for -qualified- (and I stress, qualified!) people in basically all fields, even with the semi-recession, so you have decent bargening power, depending on area, if you fit that criteria. Its a bit tougher south of the border with the economic climate, but my fiancee works as a software engineer in Boston and has an easier time than I have even. As for job title, I'm mostly doing consulting work, so I tend not to have any, but I tend to be refered to as a software developer (can't be called a software engineer up north unless you're accredited by an official organisation) or an application architect.

As a side note, don't be nervous about the certifications. I'm sorry if I came off in a way that made you think it was that huge big thing.
Lets put it with an easier point of reference: its way, way, WAY easier than getting your driver's license.

shados 8/6/2008 1:28:19 PM

Wait, did you say you might move to the States? I wouldn't mind being in Canada right now! Everything seems like such a mess here, but to each their own ;)

Oh I do realize that about salary--it depends where you live. I was wondering if you lived in an area similar to NYC/LA orrr somewhere in Kentucky lol and how the pay was for you. Qualified--yep. I need to be patient. I want to be at that level where I'm just the best (or well, very good). And I think I goofed off to much in my undergrad years and I'm trying to catch up with that. I don't want to start with my MBA till I feel like I've explored a bit of the programming world. So I guess getting a cert by studying hard is a step or two in the right direction. I think with about 2-3 years of experience under my belt, I'll be in a good spot. Not that I'm not starting off well ;)

I guess you get nervous when you don't know what you're getting into, so this next week coming up will be me setting a deadline for the exam(s) and organizing the study plans. I'm excited though!

p.s. do you mostly work with .NET/C# or do you get to work with java etc. as well.

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/6/2008 5:36:39 PM

Hahaha, yes... It is actually pretty funny (and off topic, but this IS the free for all forum, you may get a laugh about it). I met my wife while in NYC, over 5 years ago. When we decided to eventually move in together, we made a kind of bet: whoever is the most well off overall, doesn't have to give it up (read: the other one switch country). I lost, badly so =P

I work mostly in .NET/C#/SQL and some business intelligence, architecture, analysis. I did do my share of VB6 (before .NET was RTM), some PHP, PERL, Java (for a few years, when I was younger, I was heavily anti-Microsoft, didn't have a single Windows box in my house at all) and more. In my area though, the market is heavily focused on specialists... potential employers didn't like seeing all that (there was more... a lot more...) on my resume, fearing (rightly so, to some extent) that the lack of specialisation would prevent me from using the tools to their fullest potential, so I eventually went almost purely .NET (until the next best thing comes along!).

Its good to have some background... best way to know the strengths of your tools is to know their weaknesses. There are things for example, that Java does extremely well, that .NET is awful at (until .NET 3.0, one of the big ones was message passing). When you know that, you can think twice about how you'll use the tools... working on their strengths, avoiding their weaknesses... Saves time, lots of time :)

shados 8/6/2008 7:55:51 PM

Link82:
As I've mentioned, my biggest problem right now is that the exam that I mentioned is not quite out yet and neither are any books regarding it. What would be the best way to start prepping for something like this?

You have a rough outline of what's covered, start working with those technologies. I think the exam is about to be released, but exam prep books are notoriously slow. Microsoft course books should be ready right away, but you have to take the course to get them. Otherwise, all the exams are designed so that someone working in the field with reasonable experience should be able to pass. So start working with the technologies and you're part (or evean all) of the way there.

Jeff

Please: Don't forget to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helped you. That way future readers will know which post solved your issue.

jeff 8/6/2008 8:11:49 PM

I forgot to ask w hat your fiancee does. That's funny because I was at Boston about three weekends ago. Went whale watching--best thing I've done in years, haha.

And sounds like I'm doing something along those lines (as you): .NET/C#/sql stuffs.

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/6/2008 8:12:45 PM

Otherwise, all the exams are designed so that someone working in the field with reasonable experience should be able to pass

Are you sure about that? :) I know thats the theory... but in practice... the material covered is definately stuff someone with enough experience should have an idea about, and for the MCPD, you're entirely correct... but for the MCTS exams, especially the core framework one, some of the questions are seriously nit picking on little silly details.

The bits about Datasets for example. Not too many people know by heart the -exact- result of doing a merge operation on 2 datasets... Or the exact order (without looking at MSDN, and those aren't multiple choice questions) of the steps to code the databinding part of custom databound controls, just give examples =P I'm sure SOME people know stuff like that right off the bat, but... Its really easy right after going through training guides, mind you, but right off the bat just like that? =P The entire tests are about nit picking. (I had a question where I had to remember if a specific semi-obscure method's name was pluralized or not, eesh)

=====

@Link82 ->My fiancee's a software engineer working on low level APIs for some specialized datawarehousing engine.

shados 8/6/2008 8:21:45 PM

I didn't even see your post, Jeff. Yep, I get the feeling that there won't be much out (official prep books anyway) for a while. I usually like to read review on a few books (belonging to same topic) and then make a decision. I was checking out the prep books for the other exams and only found MS's own stuff, which people don't seem to be too thrilled with.

I'm actually looking forward to it.....I have to setup a few things on my laptop this weekend and just start working with tools. I might check out the 3.5 Unleashed book since it received great reviews. It's nice to read about something and then try it, just sinks in more.

Shados--that's pretty cool that your wife is in the same track. It was rare for me to find another female in my comp sci courses..... and in senior level courses, I was the only female :( But it's all good ;)

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/7/2008 7:42:38 PM

I recently passed my first Microsoft Exam ( 5 days ago to be more precise), 70-536: Application Development Foundation 2.0. Well i think they'll be changing this exam's name, stripping off the version specific, "2.0".This makes me MCP since this is my first exam, i guess. Exam 70-562 is my next goal, which realistically, i'm setting out to achieve before the year ends. Although i'm in some sort of diffculty getting started with this.

My goal for certs was to really gauge how much i learned from the past 10 months doing .Net web development in C# . Since i didn't really have any programming background( as I finished an engineering degree), i'm also relatively new to web/ app development and to IT for that matter. To me earning the cert is well worth it because at the very least, it gives me something to bank at; something that gives me a moral boost. Of course no one's worth at work and technical aptitute could be absolutely attributed the certification **** has, it helps to know that you have something objective and concrete to attest and prove that you know what you are talking about. And when you study for a particular certification, as with my case studying for 70-536, you learn a lot of things, concepts you might want to know about later on for dealing with complex problems/ bugs/ issues. it allowed me to have a deeper insight and appreciation of what i already know and better yet, of how much i really don't know.

And yes, its quite hard to find a good book, but there are some good titles in Amazon which i would settle for (particularly ASP .NET 3.5 in C# by Matthew MacDonald). The things is, from my country it takes nearly 2 months to ship a book ordered online :( And there are no local supplies for the titles i want.. argghhh But its all good, seize the day right?! :)

Well, that's me.. Goodluck!

penski516 8/25/2008 1:32:06 PM

Hey penski,

Thanks for contributing to this thread. First, congrats on passing the 70-536. I believe you're right about MS stripping the version specific 2.0. The reasoning for me gaining the cert is close to yours: knowledge. I've been using .NEt (1.0) for 7-8 months, but I mostly work with DataGrids. I want to achieve a deep understanding of the .NET technologies and specialize in it. Before starting on a project, I'd like to be able to carve out a solution from everything I know and not be limited by just the little chunk of .net that I work with now.

penski, how long did you study for 70-536? Was this your first time taking the exam? I can't find "ASP .NET 3.5 in C# by Matthew MacDonald" exactly.. he has a beginner and pro ones. I was thinking of going for "ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed" by Stephen Walther, but I'm debating between t hat and "MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 7--536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0" by Tony Northrup, since it's suppose to have practice questions etc.

But it's about time I get one if I ever want to take it and pass it!

p.s. penski, where are you from?

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/25/2008 2:33:00 PM

Careful about that MCTS 70-536 book. Its the one I used, and yes, the training questions are great (plus you get a discount on the cert test and stuff), but, unless there was a new edition that I wasn't aware of, its actually fairly bad (the other books of that serie are actually pretty good, at least for the MCTS: ASP.NET and the MCPD: Web Development). It touch some obsolete subjects, deprecated functions, etc, that aren't part of the exam at all, and is a bit convoluted.

I still managed to pass just fine with it, but I had to cross reference some of the stuff and the errata because of all the issues. Also note that the .NET Framework fundamental **** much, much harder than the asp.net one, and they can be taken in any order, so you're potentially better off doing the asp.net test first.

shados 8/25/2008 5:27:27 PM

It took me 4 months time to study for the test. Well, for my case, i do have a regular job and i've some lousy study habits so this might take you shorter to prepare for. My review material was solely the MCTS Self-Pace training kit(70-536) - this personally was helpful to me in about 60-70 % of the 40 questions thrown to me during my 70-536 exam. I don't think that even if you study this book thoroughly, you would have not been surprised by some of the questions in the exam.The exam was not too difficult though, but it was very challenging when you're faced with a question on a specific topic you never came across in your study of the training kit. When that happened, i resorted to answer elimination and analysis based on the logic of the answers asking myself, "What would this look like if it was done in the real world?" Sort of intelligent guessing for me..

By the way, if you're still aiming for 70-536 i don't think you should start of with "ASP .NET 3.5 Unleashed". Most of the coverage of the 70-536 exams are not yet Web-oriented and much of the exercises i studied with are console applications. You really don't have to learn in-depth about ASP just yet for this exam. More relevant topics would be Reflection, CAS, RBS, Interop, Threading, Encryption and the basics (Generics, types, Serialization,...) Although i do think ASP .NET 3.5 is a very good material for 70-562. And also, don't be too comfortable with MCTS Self-Pace training kit (70-536) if you're going to use it. Though you can start by studying the kit,i suggest you supplement it with a good C# book covering the topics i mentioned instead of dwelling more time mastering the training kit as i've regretfully done.

I think the complete title of the ASP book i really want to have is Pro ASP .NET 3.5 in C# 2008, 2nd ed by Matthew McDonald and Mario Szpuszta.

i'm from Philippines, by the way.

Hope this helps :)

penski516 8/26/2008 1:24:52 AM

shados:

Careful about that MCTS 70-536 book. Its the one I used, and yes, the training questions are great (plus you get a discount on the cert test and stuff), but, unless there was a new edition that I wasn't aware of, its actually fairly bad (the other books of that serie are actually pretty good, at least for the MCTS: ASP.NET and the MCPD: Web Development). It touch some obsolete subjects, deprecated functions, etc, that aren't part of the exam at all, and is a bit convoluted.

I still managed to pass just fine with it, but I had to cross reference some of the stuff and the errata because of all the issues. Also note that the .NET Framework fundamental **** much, much harder than the asp.net one, and they can be taken in any order, so you're potentially better off doing the asp.net test first.

Thanks for the advice, shados. I think I'd like to get the 70-536 one over with, esp. since it's harder. I'm really torn over what book to go for. The book you're discussing--I checked out the reviews for it at Amazon and yes, there's a lot of varying opinions. I don't think there's an official new edition, but someone had mentioned a new reprint that seems to have less mistakes (less, but still quite a lot), and MS hasn't acknowledged it as a 2nd edition.

penski516:

It took me 4 months time to study for the test. Well, for my case, i do have a regular job and i've some lousy study habits so this might take you shorter to prepare for. My review material was solely the MCTS Self-Pace training kit(70-536) - this personally was helpful to me in about 60-70 % of the 40 questions thrown to me during my 70-536 exam. I don't think that even if you study this book thoroughly, you would have not been surprised by some of the questions in the exam.

By the way, if you're still aiming for 70-536 i don't think you should start of with "ASP .NET 3.5 Unleashed". More relevant topics would be Reflection, CAS, RBS, Interop, Threading, Encryption and the basics (Generics, types, Serialization,...) .... And also, don't be too comfortable with MCTS Self-Pace training kit (70-536) if you're going to use it. Though you can start by studying the kit,i suggest you supplement it with a good C# book covering the topics i mentioned instead of dwelling more time mastering the training kit as i've regretfully done.

...

Four mo nths? It's kind of a lot... I do have a lot going on. I also have a full-time job and I've been out of school for over a year, so any study habits I had are out the window :( I would like to study for a month, month and a half and then give it a shot. I have heard about fake tests, which I might want to look into so I get the feel of how the real thing would be like. This scares me because all the relevant topics you mentioned--I don't know much about if at all. I guess that's why I'm going for a cert!

I think I will end up with the training kit 536 book, since it's the official study guide (despite the **** reviews). It's a start anyway, which is what I need right now. I wish more people would talk about tips regarding the cert... from this whole forum, it can't be that only 2-5 have received these certifications. Thanks all!

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/26/2008 7:04:47 PM

The subjects that were mentionned are the reason why I suggest doing the .NET Foundations test second. Since it will be your first certification, it will be much easiest to do the harder test second: you will know what to expect from the easier test (the asp.net one. Though if you do .NET 3.5, there's also the ADO.NET test to do, I beleive, for a total of 3 for the MCTS ASP.NET. In .NET 2.0, there was only 2 to do to get the MCTS).

1 month studying should be more than enough. How fast do you read? If you go through the book you pick fairly quickly (read carefully, not in diagonal, but quickly), and do all of the exercises (at least, all of the ones that take 10-20 minutes or less. Some are rediculous and not needed to understand), then (assuming you used the Microsoft Press book that comes with questions) use the practice test until you get 90%~ (reading carefully the documentation for the stuff you messed up, including references to the MSDN articles), then take tests from measureup.com (those are Microsoft certified practice tests. Actually, Microsoft often has discount codes for these) until you also have 80-90% (worse case scenario for someone with little to no experience), again rereading the documentation and MSDN (the MSDN articles are referenced when you get your scores on these practice tests).

If you do all that, and 1 month is MORE than enough (I did in in a bit less than that, and I have the attention span of a 2 years old, so you probably can manage faster), you'll easily score 80-90% in the test (which is way more than you need to pass, giving you a comfy error margin).

The practice tests, especially those from measureup.com are key, IMO, because they're very representative of the type of questions you'll get in the real test (the experience is pretty much the same).

shados 8/26/2008 7:18:57 PM

Shados, you're doing a good job convincing me... It might be a mood uplifter as well and might motivate me further for the harder test. I have all the bad habits-- 30 second attention span, cat that has to jump on my lap if I try to read something; but that's ok, I seem to thrive when I'm at my worst Stick out tongue

I'll have to read the thread over again, but when you refer to the 'book' for studying for the asp .net (3.5)one, which one are you referring to? I don't think there's one out for it, esp. from the training kit, which really blows. Oh, and you bet that I'd be taking a practice test or two before I attempt the real thing!

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/28/2008 4:27:24 PM

Sorry, I may have been mixed up or confused you. Since you were refering to starting by the .NET foundation exam, you can use the same book as for .NET 2.0, its supposed to stay the same test (unless something changes).

Of course, for the asp.net 3.5 and ado.net exam, I don't have any references for now ^^

Sorry for the confusion, especially if I got your hopes up.

shados 8/28/2008 4:30:06 PM

70-536:

I passed the .net foundation exam last month just using the ms press book for .Net 2.0 and having read the book, there were no surprises in the exam. I'd recommend you look at the percentage weighting of the skills measured as listed on microsoft's preparation guide http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-536.aspx it pretty closely matches what you'll get, and you'll notice that security is a big topic, followed by serialization.

I guess that 70-536 seems like a tough exam for us on this forum since we're mostly geared towards ASP, and there are a lot of issues in AppDev foundation that we may not have encountered before - at least that's how it seemed to me, but I do feel smarter for learning it Smile

50-562:

For ASP.Net 3.5, I'm not quite sure where I stand - if I feel like I'd be ready to take the ASP.Net 2.0 exam (70-528) and then go and read up on ListViews, DataPagers, LinqDataSources, and ASP.Net AJAX would that make me ready to take 70-562?

BTW I just got the Wrox Professional ASP.Net 3.5 book (Evjen, Hanselman & Rader) today and it's huge (1650 pages and 2.25kg)! Flicking through it, it seems like an excellent reference book with good examples, but it'd take a very special person (not me) to read it cover to cover as exam prep.

Sabeltann 8/28/2008 5:50:04 PM

Hmm, I knew the MCTS exams for ADO.NET 3.5 and ASP.NET 3.5 were supposed to be out soon, but guess I totally missed that they've -been- out... whoopsies.

Guess its time to take my -own- advices and update my certs!

shados 8/29/2008 2:55:12 PM

I'll have to look this up later, but are you sure that there's an exam for ado.net 3.5 I'd have to take as well to become an TS? So really, there are 3 exams?

Carpe Diem!

Link82 8/29/2008 7:09:43 PM

No, sorry. I'm remembering it wrong (I read all that months ago). The 2 MCTS were talked about being required to get the MCPD for web application development (as opposed to only requiring one back then). I don't know whats the plan now, but for MCTS you only need 2 exams. Sorry.

That said, I'd still heavily suggest doing the ADO.NET MCTS after doing the ASP.NET one... ASP.NET is kind of not very useful without ADO.NET :)

shados 8/29/2008 ****:14 PM

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