So, I take my 70-315 exam in about a week and a half. (shudder).
For you unfortunates who haven't had the intense physical/psychological pleasure of Microsoft certification [0], exam 70-315's topic is "Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET" [0].
Surely you'll allow me the numbers on this one going forward.
The 70-315 is pretty much all about ASP.NET in C#. There's also some stuff about VS.NET, a little bit about Web Services (they really go deep on that on the 70-320 [1] exam, my next target), some build/deploy stuff, etc. This exam is my first step towards upgrading my existing MCSD cert to and MCAD and quasi-current status. Quasi-current because as of the beginning of 2006, MS has completely changed their cert structure, titles, exams, etc. I have little, if any, temptation to charge off down that path at this time. I have my bread well-buttered in the existing (and still valid, mind you) cert structure.
Because of how I took the exams for my old-track MCSD [1], I only need to take two exams to pick up the MCAD cert. That puts me as certified in .NET, but without having to essentially start from scratch and take 4-6 new exams to get there. Not a bad trick. It's a move I learned in college -- the "prerequisite pivot". You should've seen the wacky stuff I took to fill out my entire core curriculum in the space of, like, 3 classes.
But so it's been an interesting course studying and prepping for this test. First, I grabbed the QUE book on the subject by Amit Kalani [Array]. I can recommend that pretty highly. Kalani knows what he's talking about and presents the material in a way that's helpful for exam prep. I actually went ahead and grabbed his 70-320 book when I saw it on clearance. But I could tell that a book alone was not going to cut it.
For every other MS Cert exam I've taken thus far, I've used Transcenders [2] to prepare. They always skewed significantly more difficult than the real thing, plus the actual practice test mechanism closely resembles the real thing, and the modality they provide for taking practice exams, finding your weak areas, and concentrating your study were invaluable. But I was advised that Transcender was not as hot on the newer exams, specifically the MCAD/new-track MCSD exams. The material they had wasn't as up-to-date, the question formats had changed, etc. I hate it when that happens.
I was instead advised by a trusted... um... advisor (how do I always do that?) to use TestKing [3] stuff instead, because they essentially composed their practice materials from actual exam questions. It was certainly cheaper (by about half the cost, actually). But I was instantly less than enthralled with what I got.
TestKing gives you a copy-protected 200-page PDF which they encourage you to handle with Acrobat Reader 7.0. OK, fine. I guess. Commence upgrade and 3rd party security plug-in install. Done. Unpack and open the PDF, hooray.
Then I go to print out the beast in a portable format (2pp/sheet front and back, to compress 4pp onto one piece of tree skin -- save a tree or 10, you know), and lo and behold (!) nothing happens.
Investigation provides this nugget: Acrobat Reader 7.0, says TestKing (at the very end of the TK troubleshooting document -- and nowhere else) has "known printing issues". Their advice? Downgrade to Acrobat 6.0 or below. Thanks, guys. Heaps. The upshot was, about 2 hours later, I still had to destroy most of the rainforests of Laos and Ecuador to print the damn thing out. And as far as portability goes, have you tried carrying around half a ream of loose sheets of paper lately? Fun with binder clips.
But the thing is, yes, the materials TestKing provides are very clearly ganked directly from MS' exams, with only the phony-baloney company names in the questions changed. And many, many typos added. But if you've taken one of those exams you can smell their questions a mile away, and these smell real. So the quality of the material is there. But ultimately, I REALLY REALLY REALLY prefer doing the Transcender practice tests to studying from a paper document. I could take 3 (or more) practice tests in sequence, printing out all the questions (with detailed answers and explanations) that I missed each time. I could study those, take the next practice test, and watch my score go up each time. After the third practice exam, I would be pretty much completely prepared for the real deal. I scored an average of 200 points higher on the real exams than on the Transcender.
So this exam will be something of a crucible. My continued use of TestKing stuff is certainly on the line. If their material is as close to the exam as purported, I will probably get their kit for the 70-320 as well. But if it isn't pretty much on the money, I will very likely go back to paying a bit more for the Transcenders. It such a better fit for the way I want to study that even some inaccuracy would be worth it.