64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This Book + Transcender = 1 Easy Exam, June 17, 2007
This review is from: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation (Hardcover)
The following are my pointers about the book and exam. I hope they'll help calm someone's nerves, because I was a nervous wreck before my exam yesterday.
First, about me:
> I studied in earnest for three weeks, using only the book and accompanying practice exams until the last three days
> I used Transcender during the last three days, and never scored above 60% on the full practice exam
> I am relatively new to .NET (four months exp. writing production-level apps), but not new to software development (working with Java for over four years)
> I passed the exam yesterday, on the first attempt, with a score of 859
With that said...
1. To anyone sadistic enough to take a Java cert exam (like my moronic self), the MCTS is a cakewalk. Unlike the ferocious Java exams which try to bait you into picking the wrong answers, 70-536 seems to do the exact opposite. I'll elaborate on this in point 2.
2. Remember taking the SATs and being given the advice to first eliminate clearly wrong answers before analyzing the ones that might be right? Do that on this exam, and you'll immediately cut your answer choices in half on nearly every question. For the vast majority of the questions, Microsoft practically GIVES you the answer - almost like they're trying to sell you on how intuitive their framework is. These questions are multiple choice, with one answer choice being cartoonishly incorrect, another answer being kind-of-correct but clearly too convoluted, then two or more other answers that are extremely similar, except for some minor detail.
3. You do not need to go into the MSDN and know every object mentioned in the book like Adam knew his wife. You should, however, be very familiar with the methods and signatures of Stream objects, Serializer objects (XMLSerializer, especially), AppDomain, and Culture/Region Info. As for the rest, just pay close attention to the methods and objects used in the book's examples.
4. The Transcender exam is WAAAAAAAAAAAY HARDER than the actual 70-536.
5. The MeasureUp exam that comes with the book is slightly easier than the actual 70-536.
6. On my particular exam, there were no questions whose material hadn't been covered by the book. Be careful, though, because from the Transcender exams it seems the book's authors left out at whole lot about interoperability.
Seriously folks, this exam isn't that bad if you're a seasoned software pro and familiar with OOP. Get a solid grasp of the stuff in the book (the labs really help), use Transcender for some details that the book misses, take the exam, and pass that sucker.
Good luck!
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I passed the exam using this book, January 2, 2007
This review is from: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation (Hardcover)
I used this book as my primary resource for the exam, backed up with a transcender for additional practice tests. I passed the exam on the first attempt. Based on that, I'll rate it as 4 stars (more like 3.5).
Yes there are errors - so make sure to get the errata. Do the practice tests on the CD (several times!). I can't imagine not using this book, given that it's the only one at present. If you look at the exam topics on the MS web-site, you could spend weeks or months on MSDN chasing down the relevant information. This book brings it together in one place, and avoids you spending loads of time on irrelevant topics. I think the book covers just enough to get you through the exam - provided you know the content very well. This is not an easy exam.
As for a general .NET book, the various chapters provide a useful introduction to each topic, but don't go into that much depth - just enough for the exam. Part of the issue is the exam covers a very wide range of topics, so it's difficult to go into much more depth without making the book 2,000 pages long.
At the end of the day, it got me through the exam, which is ultimately what matters.
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
SECOND EDITION - STILL ERRORS!!!!!, March 8, 2007
This review is from: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Application Development Foundation (Hardcover)
Simply unbelievable. For those of you who have not heard, the "first edition" of this book had a ridiculous number of errors in it. In fact, I originally had a copy of it from my work, and I had to print off the errata (list of corrections and fixes) and it was OVER 60 PAGES. Yeah, it was really fun trying to read the book on one side of my desk, and having a 60+ page document on the other side trying to find all the errors and bad code examples.....so anyway, I bought the "second edition" from Amazon. While it looks like the 60+ pages of errors that were found in the "first edition" were all corrected, there ARE STILL MORE OBVIOUS ERRORS IN THE BOOK. I cannot express in words how amazing this is to me. Did ANYONE with a technical background actually proof-read this book the first time? If not, shouldn't someone have done it before printing a second edition that was made because ONLY because there were 60+ PAGES OF ERRORS in the first edition? This to me is inexcusable. And how Microsoft could put their stamp on this book is baffling.
Anyway, other than the errors, the book is fine.....it just makes it hard to read this book for an exam, because can you really trust the content 100%? I say no. And, to top it all off, this (to my knowledge) is the only book out there for the 70-536 Exam. Good luck.
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