MCSD - Step One Complete

Author

Step One Complete

Wayward Son

2003-08-31, 4:58 pm

Well, I sat and passed my first exam on friday, 70-306.

Next up will be 70-305, then 70-310 or 320, I may take one in C# for a change.

70-229 will be my elective, as I've worked with SQL Server for 6 years now, including SQL Server 2000. It won't be a problem.

Then comes the fun, 70-300. I haven't seen much discussion or info regarding this, other than people noting the MS Press MCSD book seems to be largely irrelevant to the actual exam.

Anyone have any insight into a good book to use to prepare for 300?

LittleRicky

2003-09-05, 12:35 am

Yeah, that 70-300 exam was NOT FUN!! I don't feel really bad about it because I passed it on two tries and, from other postings I've seen, that seems to be about par.

What to study? First thing I would say is you should prepare for and take the other three Core MCSD exams first..and then tackle this one. A lot of what you will learn in the other exams will help with 300.

And it's true - that Microsoft Study Guide really bites. As far as I'm concerned, that's a big part of the problem.

Having spent a lot of time preparing for this exam, here's what I would suggest: Get the Exam Cram book. Read it, do the review sections, etc. For any topic that you don't feel you know really well, read MSDN articles. There's some good MSDN articles on stuff like Security and Authentication, Layering, N-tier design, Services, Deployments, etc. that will give you good background for that exam.

Also, be ready to deal with problems relating to normalization and data entities, including ORM. Several questions will deal with that as well as things like whether a given stiuation calls for building web apps vs. windows apps and design-type issues like that. Also, expect a few questions on deployment/release strategies, testing buzz words, etc.

Exam Cram is much, much better, in terms of being relevant to the exam, than the Microsoft Study Guide - I read both books thoroughly. It also looked to me like it was better that the Osbourne book.

Hope that helps

berg891832

2003-10-08, 1:55 am

What was that exam like?

Berg

LittleRicky

2003-10-08, 8:04 pm

The exam consists of 3 case studies - there's several paragraphs of information about some enterprise, what their current applications are like, and what kinds of improvements they want to make. Following each case narrative, there are something like 1 to 12 questions that all relate to the case.

Each case is a saparate section - you have a time limit to read the case and answer its questions. Once you finish a case, you can't go back to it. Any time you might have left over for review can only be used to review questions in the case you're currently in.

Personally, I felt like there was plenty of time to read the whole case, and refer back to it a lot as I went through the questions...and still have time to review everything. I seem to recall feeling that carefully reviewing everything and thinking things through made a big difference. I won't say they are trick questions...but sometimes it seemed like I didn't see exactly what they were getting at right away.

Hope That Helps - and Gook Luck!

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