Today I passed 70-536 Microsoft .NET Framework - Application Development Foundation. It wasn't easy... but it wasn't hard either.
To study, I read the Microsoft Training Kit book cover to cover, and I used Transcender. After I read a topic section, I used Transcender to test myself with all the questions the exam kit had for that particular section.
After I worked my way through all the material (about two weeks), I wrote the three pre-set exams in the Transcender kit. I made general notes on what I missed, and went and wrote some code for each.
Finally, the night before the exam, I set Transcender to test me with every exam question I had previously gotten wrong.
I got 76% on those questions. It wasn't as high as I would have liked, and I was nervous about passing the real deal. It all worked out. Interestingly, I got 788/1000 on my exam... pretty much bang on with what I had been tracking in Transcender.
Even more interestingly... Last December I wrote the same exam without studying, just to see if I could do it. I got 49%. The night before, I wrote one of the practice exams, and got 48% on it.
So... anecdotal as it may be, in this particular case, those practice exams did an impressive job of predicting my actual test result.
In a few days, I'll clean up my study notes and post them here. I find other peoples study notes to be useless, because the learning comes from organizing the information yourself, not from reading someone elses take on the material. Nevertheless, please come back next week and have a look, and use them as you see fit.
Print | posted on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 9:58 PM