«

Figured I would pass on my experiences for those who may be interested.

Background: Been coding for almost ten years - back in the VB 3 and SQL
3.21 days. Pretty much self-taught - never had taken an MS exam before.
Most of my work has been in start ups - lots of "duck tape and baling wire"
kinds of projects. Unfortunately, not as much exposure to formal methods and
training as I would have liked.

Left my last contract (which was all VB6) and decided that I needed to get
up to speed in .NET soon or risk getting left behind. Decided to just take
time off of work to study full time.

First exam: 70-305. Read Gunderloy's book all the way through, and then
reviewed with Kalani's C# Exam Cram. Took me about two weeks to study.
Passed with an 848. This was by far the easiest of the three exams, and I
recommend it as the first.

Second Exam: 70-310. Same regimen with the Gunderloy and Kalani books.
Same time frame. Passed with a 748. This one was a lot harder. With the
first exam, I found that I generally understood things without actually
having to do the examples (just followed the code in the book). Not so with
this one - remoting was especially difficult for me to get a firm grip on
(all that wire formatting and stuff).

Third Exam: 70-229. Read Vieira's book, which is excellent. I had hoped
this exam would be easy since I have worked off and on with SQL for some
time. Not so! Flunked the exam the first time with a 585. Like many
others, my major problem was time. By the time I had answered half the
questions, I was 2/3 the way through my time. Went back home and singed up
for a one month Transcender subscription and did that methodically (went
through the flashcards twice and kept taking the sample exams until I was
scoring in the 800s). This seemed to work - passed the exam with 816 and had
20 minutes left to review my answers.

Reflection: Well, I am certainly not going to pretend that I am an expert
in this stuff. However, I learned a lot - even though the learning is more
broad than it may be deep.

When I flunked the SQL exam, I had a dark moment of the soul and was tempted
to go the TestKing braindump route. I am so glad that I did not! Although
time was a factor, the real reason I failed that exam was that I did not
understand certain aspects (especially indexing and optimization) well
enough. Contrary to what some others say, I believe that the Transcenders
actually helped me learn better (with heavy use of BOL), and were not simply
"teach the test" tools.

One last comment - if you are taking these exams in the Norfolk VA area, I
would recommend that you not go to TCC. I found that noise in the test lab
was very distracting. I took tha last exam at the AT&T Govt Solutions center
and found the atmosphere to be much more condicive.

Well, wish me luck in the job search. Gee, won't I look swell with my shiny
MCAD laped pin buttoned on my newly pressed suit

Good luck,

Matt West
MCAD

D'Oh! Please read "duck tape" as "duct tape" and "3.21" as "4.21".

-mw

did you hear =?Utf-8?Q?Frisbee=C2=AE?= <>
say in news::

> Matt, first and foremost, congrats.
>
> Hope you don't mind, I've cross-posted this reply to
> microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse as it's rare to find someone tempted
> to use br@indumps, yet resists the temptation and is grateful
> afterwards. Way to go.

well, you (M)CAD, you. Lining up directly behind Fris to offer a congrats
from me too. And thank you for not using dumps...

--
Neil MCNGP#30

- Macintosh....an "Etch-a Sketch" You Don't Have to Shake.

"Frisbee®" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Matt, first and foremost, congrats.
>
> Hope you don't mind, I've cross-posted this reply to
> microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse as it's rare to find someone tempted to
use
> br@indumps, yet resists the temptation and is grateful afterwards. Way to
> go.
>
> Matt West wrote:
> >
<sorry had to snip here>
> >
> > When I flunked the SQL exam, I had a dark moment of the soul and was
> > tempted to go the TestKing braindump route. I am so glad that I did
> > not! Although time was a factor, the real reason I failed that exam
> > was that I did not understand certain aspects (especially indexing
> > and optimization) well enough. Contrary to what some others say, I
> > believe that the Transcenders actually helped me learn better (with
> > heavy use of BOL), and were not simply "teach the test" tools.
> >
<and some other snippage here>
> >
> > Matt West
> > MCAD
>
>
> --
> Fris "Another success story" bee®, MCNGP #13
>
> The MCNGP Team - We're here to help!
> http://www.mcngp.com
>
> Certaholics
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/certaholics
>
>
I am going to jump in here also and say Congrats and thank-you
very much for avoiding the br@indump route. You have much
to be proud off.

Be careful where you show off the MCAD pin, you might get your
suit very wrinkled trying to fight off the babes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Lnkwizard2 MCNGP 2^5

http://www.mcngp.com
"He who does not test himself is worthless indeed"
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Awesome mate! Good to see knowledge, hard work and determination get someone
through the certification. You've earned it, go geek-out some babes

--

Wayne McGlinn
Brisbane, Oz

"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system
of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the
masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony"
- Dennis (sometime in the middle ages)

"Frisbee®" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Matt, first and foremost, congrats.
>
> Hope you don't mind, I've cross-posted this reply to
> microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse as it's rare to find someone tempted to
> use
> br@indumps, yet resists the temptation and is grateful afterwards. Way to
> go.
>
> Matt West wrote:
>> Figured I would pass on my experiences for those who may be
>> interested.
>>
>> Background: Been coding for almost ten years - back in the VB 3 and
>> SQL
>> 4.21 days. Pretty much self-taught - never had taken an MS exam
>> before. Most of my work has been in start ups - lots of "duct tape
>> and baling wire" kinds of projects. Unfortunately, not as much
>> exposure to formal methods and training as I would have liked.
>>
>> Left my last contract (which was all VB6) and decided that I needed
>> to get up to speed in .NET soon or risk getting left behind. Decided
>> to just take time off of work to study full time.
>>
>> First exam: 70-305. Read Gunderloy's book all the way through, and
>> then reviewed with Kalani's C# Exam Cram. Took me about two weeks to
>> study. Passed with an 848. This was by far the easiest of the three
>> exams, and I recommend it as the first.
>>
>> Second Exam: 70-310. Same regimen with the Gunderloy and Kalani
>> books. Same time frame. Passed with a 748. This one was a lot
>> harder. With the first exam, I found that I generally understood
>> things without actually having to do the examples (just followed the
>> code in the book). Not so with this one - remoting was especially
>> difficult for me to get a firm grip on (all that wire formatting and
>> stuff).
>>
>> Third Exam: 70-229. Read Vieira's book, which is excellent. I had
>> hoped this exam would be easy since I have worked off and on with SQL
>> for some time. Not so! Flunked the exam the first time with a 585.
>> Like many others, my major problem was time. By the time I had
>> answered half the questions, I was 2/3 the way through my time. Went
>> back home and singed up for a one month Transcender subscription and
>> did that methodically (went through the flashcards twice and kept
>> taking the sample exams until I was scoring in the 800s). This
>> seemed to work - passed the exam with 816 and had 20 minutes left to
>> review my answers.
>>
>> Reflection: Well, I am certainly not going to pretend that I am an
>> expert in this stuff. However, I learned a lot - even though the
>> learning is more broad than it may be deep.
>>
>> When I flunked the SQL exam, I had a dark moment of the soul and was
>> tempted to go the TestKing braindump route. I am so glad that I did
>> not! Although time was a factor, the real reason I failed that exam
>> was that I did not understand certain aspects (especially indexing
>> and optimization) well enough. Contrary to what some others say, I
>> believe that the Transcenders actually helped me learn better (with
>> heavy use of BOL), and were not simply "teach the test" tools.
>>
>> One last comment - if you are taking these exams in the Norfolk VA
>> area, I would recommend that you not go to TCC. I found that noise
>> in the test lab was very distracting. I took tha last exam at the
>> AT&T Govt Solutions center and found the atmosphere to be much more
>> condicive.
>>
>> Well, wish me luck in the job search. Gee, won't I look swell with
>> my shiny MCAD laped pin buttoned on my newly pressed suit
>>
>> Good luck,
>>
>> Matt West
>> MCAD
>
> You might not want to post your real e-mail addy, though. Someone named
> Swen is looking for it.
>
> --
> Fris "Another success story" bee®, MCNGP #13
>
> The MCNGP Team - We're here to help!
> http://www.mcngp.com
>
> Certaholics
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/certaholics
>
>