Do I have to take MS courses in order to take the exams?

I am a little confused. Do I have to take MS related
courses in order to take the exams for MCAD, or I can learn
on my own (buy books) and simply take the exams. In the
FAQs for MCAD, there is this question: "Why do I have to
take two or more courses in order to acquire the skills
assessed in some exams?" Does this mean that I need to take
those courses, or that it is recommended to do this? Can
you please shad some light on this for me. Thanks.

 

No, you do not need to take any courses nor buy any books for that matter
(although the books will certainly
help you out a lot. And by books I'm referring to the MSPress books written
specifically for each test that
cost around $60US each). Your absolute BEST resource is the MSDN library
which came with your Visual
Studio .NET 2003 installation. Or, if you want the latest and greatest,
just go up to msdn.microsoft.com, click on
the Library link, then browse down to .NET Development, reading and applying
the info as suits your fancy.

I still use the class reference A LOT (you'll have to drill down thru the
MSDN library a bit to get to it) in my
development to constantly refresh my understanding of how the CLR classes
work together.

But the best thing, really, is when you don't quite get a concept just keep
reading and writing programs until you
can understand/see what is going on.