Customer Reviews

MCAD/MCSD C# (r) .NET (tm) Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Exams 70-315, 70-316, 70-320)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I've read the first three chapters and am extremely frustrated by the number and blatancy of errors. For example the book states that a namespace declaration doesn't need a semicolon, but the quiz answers claim explicitly that it does.

There are many many errors in the SIMPLEST things and I don't trust the rest of this book.

** I'm adding this now that I'm on chapter 11. This is the WORST technical book I have ever read. There are errors EVERYWHERE. Blatant, stupid errors that show that the writer has NO idea what they are talking about. Full on contradictions between the text and the quiz answers are in EVERY quiz so far. How about this for a moronically incorrect history lesson, "The network designers used [TCP/IP] to provide MILNET, which initially connected the military computers and was developed into the Internet today." That is just WRONG and is tantamount to saying that chimpanzees were developed into mankind today.

And what's this:
...
catch (Xcp e)
{
Console.WriteLine(Xcp.ToString());
}
...? It's on p. 250.

Worst Book Ever.

Much of the book is clearly just a rephrase of specific pages of Microsoft's MSDN library which you can get free online. The diagrams, tables, content and order of the paragraphs of the book section closely match the MSDN pages with the exception that much of the critical information is left out. In many instances it is clear that the authors - and I use the term authors loosely - did not understand what they were reading on MSDN while "writing" the chapter and therefore the re-write is inaccurate. For instance, the following quote is the authors' description of the ADO.Net Persist Security Info property:

"Specifies whether sensitive security information is to be resent if a connection is reopened."

Are these people just making it up as they go along, or what? If you know anything about ADO or ADO.Net then you know that Persist Security Info only refers to whether you can, in code, retrieve the password information from the connection string of an open connection. Regardless of how Persist Security Info is set, the password is available for opening or reopening the connection.

Wait! Maybe this book was intended to be a work of fiction about C#! It's just listed in the wrong section! That would explain the authors just making it up as they went along.

As for being All-in-One, I would call it None-in-One. Many key sections of the book are incomplete and don't tell you that they're incomplete. Other sections are incomplete and tell you to read MSDN for more information. I thought that was what I bought the book for...so I wouldn't have to read the tens of thousands of pages of MSDN.

I have to wonder if the authors have ever written a C# program in Visual Studio. My guess is probably not. This is a quote from the book:

"Notice in the code generated by the Windows Forms Designer that a call to the method InitializeComponent() is made in the constructor of the form. You can then place any of your initialization code in the InitializeComponent() method."

There is no way that the authors have ever successfully done that - added initialization code in the InitializeComponent() method. Anyone who has ever written a C# program in Visual Studio.Net knows that the code in the InitializeComponent method is created by the designer and any changes you make there will be lost as soon as you make a change in the designer.

This is the second (and last) McGraw Hill/Osborne All-in-One book I have purchased. I bought a CCIE edition several years ago. It was as error-filled as this one. Many of us who have been around a long time remember when Adam Osborne was a cultural icon. It's disappointing that the books that now bear his name are not of the same caliber as the books of yesteryear.

But I am being too harsh. I should be sensitive and understanding. The authors are undoubtedly ridden with guilt over having caused hundreds or thousands of unsuspecting buyers to spend money on this book and then waste $125 each taking, and failing miserably, the Microsoft certification exams. That guilt, combined with the shame and embarrassment they feel for having created the lowest rated certification book on the topic, should be punishment enough. I should be reaching out to them, feeling their pain...

I recently completed 2 Microsoft courses on C# and was hoping to use this book for review and to fill in gaps. As I read thru the first 2 chapters I came across a number of errors in the book's text, examples and sample test answers. I pulled down the book's errata from the publisher's web site and it didn't address the errors I'd seen. If I am finding undocumented and obvious errors in the introductory material then I can't rely on the information for the more complex subjects. The book simply doesn't serve its stated purpose.

This book is poorly written and filled with errors. There are sections in the text that are painfully naive. If you see this book in a store take a look at the explanation of application models on pages 224-227. Ignorance abounds.

With that said, I actually found the book somewhat useful as a study aid. It gave me a good framework to start with and a number of examples apps to work through. Ironically, all of the errors eroded my faith in the author, which compelled me to research many of the topics independent of the text, which lead to a deeper understanding of .NET. (Thanks go to the MSDN, not this book)

This book is really bad. I recommend you save your money and use it to publish your own .NET study guides. The competition in this market is very weak.

Jake

I have only read chapters 1 through 17 (i.e. the common chapters and the chapters for test 70-315). I bought this book because I'm aiming for the MCAD certification, so it's a great buy for preparing for 3 different tests.

What I like about this book is that the first chapters have common concepts that you need to know for three different tests (i.e. ADO .NET, XML, localization, assemblies, security, error handling, etc.). I also liked the exam tips that are included throughout the different chapters. Also at the end of each chapter there are ~15 review questions which are useful for testing your knowledge of some of the concepts covered in each chapter.

What I didn't like about this test is that since it covers all three tests, you'll find some test objectives are vaguely covered. Also there are a lot of typos in this book which is always annoying. For instance in page 254 dr("EmployeeId") should read dr["EmployeeId"] which is the right syntax for C#, the first is VB .NET syntax. Page 306 makes reference to a Global.aspx file, but they meant the global.asax file. In page 346, they make reference to the AutomaticPostBack property, which is really AutoPostBack.

The CD of this book contains a sample test, which is ok, not great. For some reason they like to emphasize that you need to know SQL, so they included a lot of SQL syntax questions. The electronic version of the book (a PDF file for each chapter) is also handy.

If you're considering taking at least two of the .NET track tests, this book may be a great buy for you, although I think this book is not enough resource for each test by itself. I recommend looking at other books, such as the Self paced kits from Microsoft Press.

This is easily the worst book I've ever seen in terms of test prep. I took the exams based upon their "preparation" and failed abysmally, then took them again using another book and passed with flying colors.
The book is full of inaccuracies. Many of the code examples don't work or even compile as written. The explanations of the authors are terse, especially for the advanced subjects, betraying their own ignorance. Worst of all, each exam section covers at most half of the actual information you will see on the exams. None of the things listed as exam tips were even mentioned on any exam I took.
Finally, the prep software that comes with the book uses questions directly from the back of the chapters, so you don't get any new questions. And many of the correct answers are misspelled or syntactically incorrect, which misleads you into thinking the answer is wrong.
Don't even bother to get this piece of crap. Get the study guides from Que instead. They're 1000% better.

This book is riddled with poor examples and errors. For example one of the review questions at the end of chapter 9 asks for "The correct syntax for adding a trace listener to the Listeners collection is:", well none of the possible answers are correct as they all contain INCORRECT SYNTAX. I could give example after example. You continually have to guess what the writer's intentions are to get the example test questions correct. The CD that comes with the book is also disappointing. I finally gave up and went to another book. I would suggest sticking with the MS books when preparing for an exam. I got more out of the first two chapters of ADO.NET Step by Step than 10 chapters of this book.

The book was obviously not proof read, and the example code was just thrown together to get to press earlier. Well it may be one of the first to press but it will be the last that gets read!

The book provides a good introduction for someone who is new to the .NET Framework and C# .NET, but falls far short as a test preparation tool. It doesn't go into near enough depth in several areas. It's a good starting point, but if you are serious about want to pass the exams, I would suggest looking at books that focus on each of the exams individually, such as the Microsoft Press self study series.
The biggest failing is that the book gives the reader the raw facts, but doesn't provide directed hands-on practice. You need to know the information, but also how to apply it in practical situations.

Tried to use this book to brush up my knowledge in some specific areas of .Net development. I liked the "all-in-one" idea since there are many common topics applicable to all the three Microsoft exams. And this book could be good if only the authors knew the subject! I read only the first chapter and it was enough! Even on the inroductory topics there were too many errors, and not just typos, but complete misunderstanding of the subject. It looked like the hands-on experience of the authors doesn't go further than creating the "Hello World!" application.

For example, what the authors call a property is actually a field. Here is a quote:

"The syntax for creating a property within a class file is as follows:
<field modifier> <type> <variable name> = <initial_value>;"

Then the authors admit that making a property public is not a good OO design, suggesting to use private property instead and two custom implemented public methods GetXXX() and SetXXX() as the accessors for this property. What a mess!!! And there was no indication to the actual definition of the properties in C# with get{} and set{} accessors whatsoever!!!

Just look at the sample question given in the book:

"Which of the following is the correct way to declare the method
GetPayCheck()?
A. public int GetPayCheck()
B. private int GetPayCheck()
C. private void GetPayCheck(int a)
D. public void GetPayCheck(int a)
"

How would you answer this question? The context wasn't given and without context all the declarations seem to be syntactically correct.

But the answer is: "Since this is a getter method, the method will need to return the value that it retrieves, hence the return type of int. All getter methods should be declared as public."

What "getter method"? Who said they should be public? What I see here is an attempt to declare someone's own personal programming style as a kind of a standard.

Stay away from this book. It will make you to waste your time and money on Microsoft exams.

There are definitely loads of typos, but the real danger lie in those downright wrong statements such as can be found in the Test Answers on page 119:

- "The array constructor cannot take an explicit size parameter as well as initialization."

- "Events must be declared as static"

And then, "Any delegate that is declared as public void is a multicast delegate", which is okay per se, but then what's the point of this statement? there is no relation whatsoever with being "public void" and multicast delegate.

With such a poor knowledge of .NET framework, how many bugs these guys must have helped to introduce into the apps they wrote for their customers? I wonder!