MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework Application Development Foundation, Second edition
ISBN:9780735626195 read summary

There are no other books available that provide the breadth of coverage of the .Net Framework than this book. However the coverage is skin deep and not sufficient to give someone enough of a mastery of the .Net Framework to pass the 70-536 certification exam. For the depth of knowledge necessary to pass an exam I have had to turn to more specialized books on the .Net Framework.

Some of the material for the exams is not even listed inside this book. I have taken the 70-536 twice now, with 2 months worth of studying--and have still not passed. The second edition is still full of errors.

I haven't taken the test yet, but I felt the book does a decent job of overall summarizing the main topics. My main gripe (and the reason this book gets only 3 stars) is the practice exam questions that come with the book. They are overly specific, often cover topics that the book never addressed, and from talking with other people (and looking into other books/tests) it sounds like these questions aren't particularly indicative of the actual certification exams. The questions that come with the book seem to want me to memorize syntax, parameter ordering, and a lot of other nit picky details, while neglecting to address the underlying concepts -- which I expect are more important to passing the real exam.

I have several issues with this book.

First off, I resent the fact that it is "bi-lingual". As it is, a third of the book is useless to me (i.e. the VB.NET code samples) - a complete waste of dead trees and ink. It's not only superfluous, it is distracting, since I must continually scan for the C# code. Please bother to print two different editions of the book. It should be trivial.

Second, there is too much generic boilerplate text. Each chapter starts with the same kind of generic paragraphs stating that you should have some prior experience with .NET and Visual Studio blah blah blah. Again, I have to scan the text to see where the actual content starts.

Third, I would have liked to see some illustrations! Several topics (such as code access security) would benefit greatly from visual presentations to accompany or replace part of the text. As it is, I have to mentally deserialize the text to build up these images in my head instead.

Finally, a complaint about the exam itself (not the book) is that there are too many questions about random .NET arcana (such as the sequence of parameters to a method call, or whether you pass something to a constructor or set a property after constructing the object, or if there's is a factory method you should use rather than a constructor). A good test would focus on understanding, not on the stuff that Intellisense and MSDN gives you.

This was definitely the .Net overview book I was looking for. I learned a ton and was generally pretty satisfied. However, having read each chapter 2-3 times, taken extensive notes, worked through all the questions and some of the labs, I did not pass the exam the first time. I was close. When reading many of the questions I felt as if the topic had only been briefly covered in the text. However I would also have to say, your knowledge of .Net would need to be pretty incredible to pass without having reviewed this book.