Customer Reviews

MCSD FrontPage 98 Study Guide (Exam 70-55)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book gives you a basic idea of what the exam is going to cover, but the exam questions and the ease in which you answer them may give you false send of security. The book is very lean on Defining Technical architecture and Managing Access to FP and really assumes that u know a great deal about NT, Unix and how to configure these. If u know about these then you're in great shape. I also read Running Front Page 98 (RFP)by Jim Buyens besides this book.

Because I don't have a good background in IT, I decided to sample the Transcender Exam and bought the tests. In my opinion, you definitely need the Transcender Tests. Studying the transcender answers really cuts through the walls of words in RFP and the holes in this book.

I do not recommend this book for those who are new to the product and have no other related experience. Start with something more simple, like the Step by Step book or something from the Dummies' series. This book does cut to the chase and provides a detailed overview of the various components of the application. It does a much better job than the MOC in preparing one for the exam!

There are a few errors in the book, especially in the sample tests. There were some questions that are just wrong! For the most part, however, this book does cover the real test - much better than the Exam Cram book for this test.

Do not rely upon only one source to prepare for this exam. It is important to have a good understanding of the site and user management features of the FrontPage Explorer. There are almost no questions about the Editor. If you focus too much on using the Editor to create pages you are wasting your time preparing for the exam. Instead, focus on the real-world running of a website using FrontPage. My experience from other certifications (CIW, CIW Site Designer) where real world applications of web technologies are examined was invaluable in preparing for this exam.

I liked this book more than I disliked it. I expect to be teaching the MS 1009 class soon, and I plan to recommend this book to my students.

It is ok to start with this book for the exam preparation. But do not expect to successfully complete the exam just with this book. The book does not cover a considerable number of topics that are part of the exam. The book tends to repeat a few pieces of information, such as Active-X controls being supported only by Internet Explorer, over and over again. A couple of chapters in the book do not appear anywhere in the list of examination objectives as published in Microsoft certification website. The practice/live test on the accompanying CD is not at all good. It is mostly just a repetition of the chapter-end review questions. The actual test is much tougher than the practice/live test on the CD.

This review is based on the idea that you are looking to maybe buy this book in order to pass the FP98 MCP exam. Overall, it will help - but I would not recommend it being your only resource. It covers too much detail in some areas (script wizard), and does not cover the nuances of site security and IIS. I just passed exam 70-055:Designing and Implementing Web Sites with Microsoft FrontPage 98 using this book as my one textual reference, so I'd have to say it did help. The book is easy to read and gives a very thorough treatment of FP98. Overall, I would say this book lays a decent groundwork as test preparation and has lots of info, but falls short. The chapter questions have wrong answers in the book and on the CD and authors tend to jump right into to details unexpectedly.

Suggestion - buy Running FP98 and get the Transcender Tests. Then go out and build lots of webs using the material from the tests. Get the experience. It seems to count more than what you can get from any book.

I do not understand why everyone likes the book and slams the exam questions. Neither are really very good.

The book repeats itself so often that I regularly wondered if I was reading the same chapter over and over. It is written as if 14 guys each had a chapter to write and had no idea what the others had covered in their chapters... a great way to pad a book.

As for the exam questions in the book, people should realize by now that NONE of the study guides for ANY subject have great test questions - I have passed over 12 Microsoft exams and at this point do not even take the CD out of the book in most cases. People need to just accept this and stop WHINING about it! If you want study and reference material, buy books; if you want exam questions, buy Transcender.

Overall, I cannot fault the material - it is adequate for passing the exam. It would have been nice if they could have decided that the book did not HAVE to reach the 600 page mark... it could have been done in half that.

I recently took the Frontpage exam and did pretty well. I have this book to thank for that. The book presents a solid foundation for expertise in Frontpage. It does an exhaustive review of all the features of Frontpage with a few tips on optimization.

Unfortunately it only covers about 70% of the exam. For example it does not discuss which features require Frontpage server extensions very well (an important topic) and the Analysis part is essentially useless. The review questions at the end of each chapter and on the cdrom are much too simple to be a gauge for the exam. I mean c'mon do you think Microsoft will ask "What does HTTP stand for"?

This book will NOT prepare the reader for the simulation questions, because there just arent enough diagrams or illustrations that will familiarize you with the Frontpage intereface and dialog boxes (a crucial part of the exam). Coupling with this book with Running Frontpage 98 from microsoft (which had lots of visual aids) and extensive practice with the software did the trick for me.

I agree with most of the reviews posted previously. The book is not without its deficiencies, notably repetition, especially towards the end, but it covers most of the basics to get ready for the exam. The test questions on the exam are much more "scenario" oriented, and much longer and more difficult, than the ones in the book. I took NetG on-line courses to prepare, but would not have passed without this book.

With the fact that you are relying on this as a test study guide, it is frustrating to weed through errors on the on the cd and in the self-tests answers.

... Well I passed the exam on my first try. I must say the book is really nice. I didn't try any other books so I can't compare. Lots of sample questions so do all of them as many times as possible. There are a couple of errors on the CD-ROM version of the tests. Marks a couple questions wrong when they are right. You might want to get another book to supplement because there are other types of questions on the exam that the book doesn't prepare you for. Overall I was impressed by the thouroughness of the book. Study hard and good luck.

... you'll still have to study a lot and get additional study material. I went for the 'hardcore' extra study material - the transcender exam, and it worked. The book does cover all the material in the exam outline, but the questions at the end of the chapters are still too easy (and just forget using the CD - see comments by other reviewers). In my humble opinion (I passed the exam on the first try), you can skip chapters 1,6 and 12 ... but do yourself a favor and get some additional study material. And study hard - the exam isn't easy.