Exam 70-516 Passed

I passed this exam yesterday. Just got the certificate mail today.

For this exam I prepared using two books.


MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-561): Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5-ADO.NET Application Development: Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5--ADO.NET Application Development (Self-Paced Training Kits)
This book does not have the best reviews on amazon. But I found it quite pleasing to read.









The other book I read was Programming Microsoft LINQ in Microsoft .NET Framework 4 which is a gem of a book really. I have already written much about this book in various blog posts for LINQ : http://www.basarat.com/search/label/linq















All in all the exam was worth it. I learnt a lot of new stuff. And fortunately have already started using standard ADO.NET (non EF / Linq2SQL) in a new highly dynamic application. 

Achievement Unlocked : .NET Framework 4, Service Communication Applications 70-513 passed!

I passed exam 70-503 a few days ago. Today I passed 70-513 which is essentially a new version of the same exam. After going through the official training Kit for 70-503 I looked at the new features of WCF 4 (mentioned quite well here) . There weren't that many questions of the new features. But they were most definitely asked. I found the question quality to be better in this exam (less ambiguous right answers).

The exam was of 140 minutes (the old one was 120 minutes) and had 50 questions (the old one was 45). I find this to be better. (The question count alone).

PS: the title of this post is something I took from this tweet. Xboxy :)

If you are looking for resources this looks pretty awesome : http://www.jamesjfoster.com/blog/2010/resource-links-for-70-513-wcf-certification-exam/ ... although I didn't read it before the exam... JUST found this on google :)

Enjoy!

Exam 70-503 Passed

This time I got 918 / 1000. Not my highest but I am satisfied.
So, how did I prepare this one. I took two months to prepare for this exams (mostly because there were a lot of things that were pending since the last exam). It was totally worth it. I thought I knew WCF before starting on the only book I read. I learnt soo much more from this book. There is some repetition of content in the book but its not excessive. And in fact it helps to drill the data into your memory.

This book (the official guide) is the best one I have read yet. This should be pretty clear considering my score and this being the ONLY book I read on WCF itself. I feel so confident after reading this book that I am going to attempt the WCF 4 certification soon. Right after doing all the stuff (coding) that is pending this time around :). the list of new features in WCF 4 is not too big ... also there is no Official book for WCF 4 certification mentioned as of yet so I'll msdn / bing what I need to know ;) Also today is the day this becomes available hmmm :)

My friends and family had to be really patient during the last few days before the certification and I'd like to thank them. Its hard work but I am glad I went through it.

Enjoy!

Exam 70-502 Passed

The exam was great. Really I am not saying that because of my score. I am saying that because it was much more fun (for me at least) than 70-536. WPF (and now Silverlight) is a technology I am deeply passionate about. Maybe its because of my love for beauty and elegance. Maybe its because I hate to say to someone that adding a really classy button just the way you want it to your application will take me three days.

PS: I sincerely believe that 70-536 made me a better programmer. You will not catch me asking around about StreamReader or how to determine drives in c#.  Although a quick google search would help you ... but I will not need one ... I hope :) Oh not to mention : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.path.getfilenamewithoutextension.aspx or http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wz42302f.aspx (these weren't asked of me ... but I remembered them).

Now how did I prepare for this exam. 
Well I have had an eye on WPF for three years. Recommended it to a colleague two years ago (I myself was experimenting with python + flex)  and did a project in WPF about a year and a half ago. Simultaneously I had read the book WPF unleashed (http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Presentation-Foundation-Unleashed-WPF/dp/0672328917).This book is basically what got me really motivated to start doing Microsoft certifications in the first place (I devoted myself to a technology I loved). The official book would not be sufficient without this. Everyone will tell you that. Without this I wouldn't know what {Binding} meant (bind directly to datacontext) or that a style without an explicit key but a targettype gets an implicitly set key.

It wasn't until mid of this year that I finally got the time to start doing it. First I applied for exam 70-536. Just then the new certifications came out (VS2010). But I really wanted the title WPF technology specialist, so I decided to go with the old certifications anyways. Additionally I don't feel comfortable about doing a certification without an official "book" (VS2010 book isn't out yet). For this I read the book cover to cover one and a half times (second time just the highlights to memorize what I thought deserved memorizing the first time I read it). This is the "book" : http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-Self-Paced-Training-Exam-70-502/dp/0735625662/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291632845&sr=1-5 I loved this book. Without this book I wouldn't have known that there are EnterActions for property triggers.

I still had time (about a month due to prometric test center being booked in my city) ... I decided to read WPF Unleashed 4 : http://www.amazon.com/WPF-4-Unleashed-Adam-Nathan/dp/0672331195 I intend to finish it someday but just got curious about silverlight as it is now. And then I picked up Silverlight 4 Unleashed : http://www.amazon.com/Silverlight-4-Unleashed-Laurent-Bugnion/dp/0672333368 Now note that I am reading this book after preparing 70-502. This meant I know the value of learning ... really learning every single API that is exposed. And I couldn't put this book down. I simply love it. It showed me how to make my own controls in the very first chapter. I can see XAML now (just like I could see c#). Make my applications Blendable. And I really feel comfortable with MVVM (and yes I have made applications without MVVM ... I am not proud ... and I don't intend to do that ever again). This alone made it the best book on WPF (yes WPF... even though it does not claim it) ever!

And that's it ... the exam was today morning at 10:30 am ... and the rest is history. Thanks for everyone who waited patiently while I prepared for this exam. Love you mom for tolerating my eternal business and keeping me well fed and energized.

Exam 70-536 Passed

First of all you need is 700 from 1000 to pass. Did I mention i got 953. I am very happy.

Time was 140 minutes. I was done in half an hour and did not review the answers since I either knew the answer or gave it time in the first go because I could see that time was not going to be an issue. Also first thing you do is select your language (I chose c#).

How I prepared? Just read the official book (MCTS self paced training kit for 70-536 second edition) cover to cover. Highlighting everything I didn't know before as well as names of .Net types (classes, properties, methods etc) that I had to memorize by heart. Then went through the book again memorizing the highlights ... twice. Both times looking at them and writing them on a piece of paper. I took my annual leave for this. All in all it took one month.

Of-course officially working on C# almost exclusively (other languages nowadays are python for short scripts and java for maintaining older codebase) helped me focus in putting in so much effort into memorizing the framework.

Was it worth it? Yes. Here's what I feel it will do:

• Prove I know the .Net framework so you don't need to test me for it. You can but it would be pointless. 
• Plus it helps in programming if I know all the things I have available even if I never use them. 
• Prove I know the basics of programming in general. Even if only syntactically. Not that anyone would question that anyways ;) 
• Prove that I am serious about .Net :) 

Here's what it cannot do (no certification can really):

• Prove I am a good programmer. You will always need to test the guy you are hiring for that or just review his code :)

Plus it looks good on the CV even if it works only subconsciously on the employer. 

There were questions outside the book. That is were real programming experience helped e.g. knowing the basics of XML API and what an attribute or inner text means can help you narrow down the answer. Also I could guess that this is the interface with this signature function for one of the questions (although I see now that it was mentioned in the skills measured but the signature beyond the method name ToString was not present in the book). Also I just happened to read about the difference of Deflate and GZip thanks to Jeff Atwood once upon a time. 

But in any case from the book alone 700 is most definitely possible. 

Enjoy!