Customer Reviews

MCSD Visual Basic 6 Desktop Exam Cram (Exam: 70-176)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I just passed 70-176 (Visual Basic desktop), thanks mainly to this book, with a score of 942/1000.

I have about 2 years' professional VB and the book was ideal for me. I knew the concepts and practice of VB but the exam has a habit of querying you on details ("Do you use 'Find' or 'Seek' with an ADORecordset?") and trying to trip you up.

Yes, there are a few technical errors in this book, and when using it you should consult the author's errata page (http://www.netway.com/~mmacdonald/vb6_desktop_errata.htm).

Make no mistake: this book is not there to teach you VB (plenty of good books out there for that), it is for one reason: to help you pass the 70-176 exam. It has plenty of worked examples and the division of material amongst chapters is logical. It will give you an idea of what to expect from the (often tricky) Microsoft exam, and includes a full practice test (with answers *and explanations*). In fact, I found the questions harder in the book than on the real exam! The author has a friendly, jocular style which makes you feel like he's on your side!

I recommend you read this book thorougly, and use it along with MSDN, writing simple programs in the VB IDE and your professional VB experience, then you will have no trouble with the exam.

I bought the book based on the reviews placed here in Amazon. As a developer with plenty of experience in VB(6) I figured it would be good enough to help me "get an idea" of whats on the test. I didn't think the technical errors that other people mentioned would be a big problem and that I would spot them right away.

If you are considering the book along the same line of thought that I had, pass it by. Do not buy it. Even though I was warned, I was completely amazed by the amount of technical inaccuracies spread throughout the book. Common properties are mislabled, important methods left out, and some of the info given on ADO is simply false.

The book did little to shed any light on what was actually the focus of exam topics, so it provided no help in that department either. The book is much more focused on getting people just learning VB for the first time up to speed.

Finally, the author suggests that people preparing to take the exam 'look on the internet and search for braindumps made by people who previously took the exam'. I was quite shocked to see this as using these braindumps are considered cheating by MicroSoft. In other words, the book suggests using illicit material provided by people who break the NDA agreement on taking the exam.

If you are an experienced developer, look elsewhere.

I'm shocked, really. After reading the Exam Cram for the Distributed Exam, I was amazed at the accuracy of Exam Cram material. But this Desktop book is a waste, and beyond that, it will hurt you in the long run. Too many errors. Errors in the practice exam at the end. Discrepancies between what the practice exam says, and what the author says in corresponding chapters. Beyond that, it's hard to follow. Try the Exam Prep instead...

With a few years of work-related VB5/6 experience under my belt, I chose Mr. MacDonald's book in preparation for Exam 70-176 as my primary study guide. I believe my edition was the 5th printing, which already has the corrections listed on Coriolis' website. Despite this, the book was still full of errors, both minor (such as typos) and major (technical errors or flaws). The errors will generally not affect your success on the exam, but does cause the informed reader to question the author's credibility from time to time. This is unfortunate, since the book does cover a lot of relevant material. It does lack some of the material found on the exam, though, but it's not a bad choice if you supplement it with additional material (see below)

I shouldn't discount the value of the material presented in the book, even though quality suffers. For me, the attribute of having inaccuracies actually helped me by forcing me to question various claims, and double-check other sources such as the VB IDE or online documentation -- consequently, it re-inforced the information.

Most errors are very minor -- for example, MacDonald states a few times that vbFixedDouble is one of the values for a Form's BorderStyle property, when it really should be vbFixedDialog. Similar typos include mention of a ControlMenu property when it is really a ControlBox property. In some cases, he indicates a property should be True when in actuality it should be False for a given scenario. Another mistake I found was the use of Shift+F9 in the VB editor, where Ctrl+F9 was the actual command he meant. This list only scratches the surface. Clearly, all of these were the result of carelessness or poor editing, but nothing that will cause you to suffer on the exam.

Technical faux pas are not as easily excused. For example, MacDonald indicates that an object declaration WithEvents can be done in a standard module which is incorrect (it can only be done in form or class modules). He also claims that the Command Line Arguments text field of the Project Properties is used to specify compilation switches, when it is actually provided to assign a string to Command$. Another example is on page 29-30, which is too lengthy to describe, but is very much in error (which you'll pick up on while reading it). Yikes.

The most major shortcoming of the book is that it only covers about 75-80% of the material which Exam 70-176 focuses on. I find it remarkable that the author even acknowledges this: "Though they are not strictly part of the Visual Basic product (and thus not really discussed within this book) [... there may be] a couple of questions about Visual Source Safe, and [...] Visual Component Manager." Guess what? You may find 4-5 questions on these topics alone, plus a few questions on things like the Package and Deployment tool which the book discusses insufficiently for the exam. My feeling is that if the book is intended to cover the material on Exam 70-176, then they should be adequately discussed in the book without exception! Fortunately, the other 20% of testable material is covered in the Coriolis Exam Cram for Exam 70-175 by Thomas and Fox (a very good book by comparison, with a lot of overlapping material found on Exam 70-176). If you intend to write both exams anyway, I would definitely recommend reading both books before attempting to do the exams since they complement each other well. The Exam Cram for 70-175 fills in all the gaps that this book leaves, including VSS, VCM, PDW, etc., and it is technically sound.

I'm an intermediate-to-advanced level VB programmer, and just passed the VB6 Desktop exam in part thanks to this book. This book is invaluable for helping you focus your studying efforts, and the practice questions are a great resource. I'd like to give this book a 3.5, but opted for a 4, because I passed the exam! There are numerous errors, some inexcusable, and clearly this book should have been better edited. Also, the book is light on the Packaging & Deployment Wizard, VSS and VCM, which make up at least 25 percent of the questions. Use MSDN and Transcender exams as a supplemental resource. Overall, this book provides good summary information, good practice questions, and helps you focus. A worthwhile purchase.

I just passed the VB Desktop 70-176 yesterday using only this book and the transcenders with a score of 87%. The book does not cover _everything_ you need to know to get 100% on the exam (for instance I don't recall reading anything about bootstrap which may or may not be on the exam or any mention of CD autorun when deploying an app).

Nonetheless if your only goal is to pass the exam this book offers a sound foundation. My experience with VB was somewhat limited and I scoured this book about 3 times, then the night before ran through the transcenders. I would have guessed I'd of gotten low 70's without transcenders to fill in some of the holes this book leaves.

While keeping in mind that this book is not totally extensive on the ocassional detail I would certainly recommend it to somebody looking to pass the exam.

This book is good. I think, the people who rated it 1 star, used this book as scapegoat for their lack of preparation. I found only a couple of very minor mistakes. I rate this book slightly better than the Distributed Cram by Micheal Lane Thomas. The sample test at the end (70 questions) is the best out of 5-6 tests that I used. My advice : Buy this book. Sit on the Computer. Try out each question, concept, etc until you understand it 110 percent. Good Luck

I found the official Microsoft Press book to be the best of the bunch, but the Exam Cram comes in at a close 2nd. I've bought 6, yes 6 study guides for this exam and they have all fallen way short...with the exception of this and the MS book. I found the first half of this book to be excellent. Especially the chapters on Classes and Active X. The sections on ADO and common controls were a bit dry, but nonetheless complete. I've used the Exam Cram books for over 7 exams and I have yet to be disappointed...

I would recommend as a study base: this book, the official MS book along with some testing simulations to ensure a good score on the exam.

I thought this book was excellent. I scored a solid 814 my first try at the test without any prior VB experience, just programming experience in C/Basic/Cobol/Assembly-80x86 in Unix/VMS/DOS for about 10 years, but no windows/event-driven/oo experience. I also used transcenders and NETg CBT's, which were all big help. This book tought me how to take a microsoft exam. The author's questions were just as tough and devious, which was excellent. The material in the book is laid out great and I love the "Alert" side-bars.

I think any exam cram book should be part of everyone's study materials. They're inexpensive and they don't attempt to teach the material as much as they teach you how to take the exam. The 70-176 exam has tricky devious questions and this book helps.

The book is too brief. I must say that it is not easy to write a good book for this exam, as the scope fo the exam is wide. I normally classfied a book in these few aspect : Exam prep, Reference, Beginner's guide or Advance. This book is not good at any of the aspect. I do not even use it as reference after I passed the exam.

I use Transcender and MSDN, with many hands-on practice. These two helps me the most, not this book.