Reviews for MCPD Self-Paced Training Kit (70-548): Designing & Developing Windows-Based Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework Bk/DVD: Designing and ... Microsoft .NET Framework (Pro Certification)

1. Don't believe all you read

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, July 12rd, 2008

   This is the first review I've ever written but felt it was important to after reading the previous reviews on this book, since they nearly stopped me from buying it...
   
   I have just passed 70-548 and despite the bad reviews I stuck with my tried and tested method of preparing for previous microsoft exams, by just reading the recommended text - I can't stick reading MSDN!!!
   
   I've got to say that compared with the previous prep guides I've read for the 70-536 and 70-526 exams IMHO this was much better written and much easier to read. Picking up on a previous review, I could only count 4 authors and I couldn't differentiate the chapters each of them had written, which I am pretty sure I could with previous texts - in particular the 70-536 prep guide.
   
   I only noticed one or two inconsistencies, and these were where the book text didn't match up to the answers to the end of chapter review questions. Again comparing this to the other two books I've read, this was a vast improvement.
   
   Another thing to pick up on from previous reviews, is that if you are expecting lots of code samples like you get in the prep guides for 70-536 and 70-526 then this is not the book and probably not the exam for you. The MCPD exam is designed to test your ability to understand the why, where and when of choosing a specific technology. The MCTS exams are designed to test your ability to actually implement the technology.
   
   All in all I think this was an excellent resource for preparing for the 70-548 exam - I passed the exam by just reading it. However, I must say that I would like the chance to review the questions against that appeared in my exam against the book. When I was taking the exam I felt a lot of the questions I was answering based on my 8 years of development experience rather than what I read from the book. On the other hand I did read the book 4 or 5 times before taking the exam so maybe I just learnt a lot without really realising it... ;o)

2. Interesting, but not helpful for the exam

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 2007

   I actually found the book generally pretty good, but some chapters were definitely better than others. A few, I felt, were very good, such as requirements gathering and use cases, modelling the application, and so on - but many of the later chapters were less useful. There seemed to be an inverse relationship between how many code examples there were, and how good a chapter was. I think that the chapters with little code assumed that if you were through to doing the MCPD exam, you can probably work the code out for yourself.
   
   That said, the exam didn't really match up with my expectations, or what was covered in the book. If anything, the exam seemed to be about a lot of the stuff I'd covered previously in the MCTS exams. So neither really hit exactly what I felt I should've been examined on, and the book and exam didn't really cover the same areas. And there are probably better books out there for covering development generally.

3. test worthy (70-548) or not test worthy?

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, November 12nd, 2007

   Luckily I did pass the test but I would in no way attribute it to the book. I'm still not sure if some of the authors actually knew enough (in one case anything?) about the topic they were writing on (don't extend this to all authors (only a few)!).
   The test questions were helpful showing again, that MSPress books and MS tests do not fit together (having passed other tests this should be (-come) common knowledge...)
   I hope MS will try out new authors or let people like Jeffry Richter write more books.
   
   My opinion: NOT test worthy

4. Didn't help me at all

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2007

   Very little of the book's content came up in the actual exam and parts of it were ambiguous. So it was not surprising that I failed the 70-548 section of exam 70-552. So not recommended at all - I don't know how anyone could pass 70-552 as this seems to be the only material available for the exam. Also, the practice questions on the CD are a complete waste of time.