Anyone Taken 70-536 yet?

bcairns

Just wondering if anyone has taken 70-536 and started tward an MCPD.

Been reading my book from MS Press while working tward MCPD and MCSE.

Just wondering what to expect on 70-536...I am sure there is a lot of generics, working with XML, general IO, classes, collections, isolated storage, etc etc.

JDMurray

I'll take it one day, but probably not anytime soon. I'm working through all of the exam objectives right now using the same MS Press book. I was thinking of posting study topics with work problems on this forum for people studying for 70-536. I'll start a few threads and see if people jump on. What topics would you like to see first?

bcairns

jdmurray wrote:

I'll take it one day, but probably not anytime soon. I'm working through all of the exam objectives right now using the same MS Press book. I was thinking of posting study topics with work problems on this forum for people studying for 70-536. I'll start a few threads and see if people jump on. What topics would you like to see first?

I think (my humble opintion) the topics should be seperates into

.Net general framework (Like system.stream)

and

New to .Net 2.0 framework (Like generics or the compression stream)

There are a lot of people that just will not read something that includes older material.

I hear you about taking the exam....started a new job and working on 70-290...just opened the 70-536 book not too long ago, years of .net programming experiance but it is always best to study before attempting a test, there just are not enough hours in the day

JDMurray

The MCTS and MCPD exams are only .NET 2.0 material, and you can count me as one of the many people who are not interested in pre-2.0 .NET at all. It's probably not useful to differentiate between "new for 2.0" features and "same as 1.x" features. I'd prefer to make sure that any topics we post and review work under 2.0 and without regard to backward compatibility to 1.x.

mvastarelli

Right now I'm pulling pretty hard to prep for the 70-526 and 70-536 tests. I'll probably take them in about 3-4 weeks. The big question is whether I should take them together. I know the cardinal rule of MS testing is you never take more than one test per day, but I've been doing windows programming with .net ever since beta2 so it should be a breeze for me.

Anyone have any idea how many questions are on the tests? Typically MS tests are around 50 questions. Is that about right for these tests?

JDMurray

mvastarelli wrote:

I know the cardinal rule of MS testing is you never take more than one test per day, but I've been doing windows programming with .net ever since beta2 so it should be a breeze for me.

This rule has nothing to do with how much you know, but instead how much intensive test taking your brain can stand in one sitting. In terms of brain power, fifty Microsoft questions are probably worth 250 CompTIA questions. The MS cert exams can be such an ordeal that you might not have enough left in your brain bucket to good a good job taking a second exam on the same day.

mvastarelli

jdmurray wrote:

This rule has nothing to do with how much you know, but instead how much intensive test taking your brain can stand in one sitting. In terms of brain power, fifty Microsoft questions are probably worth 250 CompTIA questions. The MS cert exams can be such an ordeal that you might not have enough left in your brain bucket to good a good job taking a second exam on the same day.

You raise a valid point. By the end of the last MS test I took (70-270) my mind couldn't take much more of it. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to separate them by a few days. I'm still a few weeks away from taking either test though, so I'll report back when I get closer. To date though I've never failed a certification test. I don't intend to start now.

JDMurray

mvastarelli wrote:

To date though I've never failed a certification test. I don't intend to start now.

Same here. I could have taken both my A+ exams on the same day, but there was no need to risk my "perfect GPA" for cert exam success. Even a few days separation between exams is likely to be a good thing for your final score.

mvastarelli

jdmurray wrote:

Same here. I could have taken both my A+ exams on the same day, but there was no need to risk my "perfect GPA" for cert exam success. Even a few days separation between exams is likely to be a good thing for your final score.

A lot of people (myself included) took both A+ tests on the same day. I think this test is the exception rather than the rule though. I miss taking tests where the questions were rarely more than 2 sentences long, rather than 2 paragraphs long.

bcairns

mvastarelli wrote:

I miss taking tests where the questions were rarely more than 2 sentences long, rather than 2 paragraphs long.

I second that !!!

hi_its_ashu

hi,
I gave this exam last week (18th Oct 07). I scored 982/1000. That means only one wrong.

The questions were pretty easy. there were lots of questions on streams, all type, like StreamReader, StramWriter, BufferedStream, DeflateStream, SSL Stream.

for 80% of the questions you could figure out the correct answer by using common sense and just looking out the arguments supplied in each options.

Some questions:
[Deleted by moderator]

Cheers,
Ashutosh Bhawasinka

sonalp

Hi,

Can you please tell me how much preparation you gone thru to clear this exam?
Mainly what you followed? MCTS book? is it sufficient to pass this exam? if no then what extra you followed?

Thanks in Advance,
-Sonal

hi_its_ashu

Just finish the MCTS book...its more than enough....and use common sense in the exam

-
Ashutosh Bhawasinka

hi_its_ashu

for most of the questions you could rule out the options based on the parameters of the methods/functions...

-
Ashutosh Bhawasinka