Opinions: MCPD - Windows Developer certification - anybody who has taken either the 070-548 or the 070-563 Pro exams?

Question

I'm looking for some insight from those who have taken either of the Pro MCPD Windows Developer exams (70-548 for 2.0, 70-563 for 3.5). I've got the prereqs out of the way to take the 563 and picked up the 548 training kit (since there isn't a 563 one).

Any advice you can offer? Insights into the approach of the exam; suggested study material; anything would be appreciated!

My long-term goal is to get the MCPD Enterprise Developer (perhaps within the next year), but WCF and ASP.NET are both subjects which I'll need lots of study time on--so the Windows Developer cert is a quick route to a Pro cert--do you think it's worth the detour?

Answer 1

I've started down the road to earn the "MCPD: Enterprise Application Developer 3.5 on Visual Studio 2008" certification; 2 exams down and 4 to go... here's my 2-cents on the ones I've taken:

• 70-536: Microsoft .NET Framework – Application Development Foundation

  • This exam is, as the name implies, focused on the .NET framework rather than any particular application of the framework. It's more-or-less the fundamentals that .NET develoeprs should be familiar with and is focused on a broad and shallow understanding of the offerings of the framework such as security, globalization, etc... Unlike the other exams in this series this is not a 3.5-specific exam.
  • I used the MS Prep kit to study, and it was mediocre but resulted in me passing. The exam was more difficult than I expected, and I had to lean heavily on 2+ years of professional .NET 2.0 development to get through. Many questions asked about specific classes or methods that I had no experience with and which had very little material in the prep-kit; for these questions I had to lean on instinct and try to determine which answer "felt" the most like the framework.

• 70-505: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 – Windows Forms Application Development

  • As the title implies this exam focuses on developing .NET 3.5 applications using WinForms. Overall the 3.5-specific material was very thin, a solid knowledge of WinForms and .NET 2.0 should suffice.
  • Again, I used the MS Prep Kit, and again it was an "OK" reference but far from great. I fared quite a bit better in this than in the 70-536, since it focused on WinForms (with just a touch of WPF/WinForms integration, and a touch of LINQ-SQL), unlike the 70-536 where I received a fair number of questions from areas of the framework we don't use (such as globalization).

I've just received the Prep Kit for the 70-561: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ADO.NET Application Development exam. I'll udpate this after reading the prep material and taking the exam