Brian On Software

Some readers were asking me about the status of my self-imposed challenge to achieve the MCPD-EAD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer: Enterprise Application Developer) certification before the end of the year.  Well, it turns out that I’ve completed and passed the last exam of the series this morning.  When I first started out with this insane challenge of doing one certification every three to four weeks, I had no idea of the amount of time I would have to dedicate to complete it in the initial timeframe.  So just to recap, I passed 70-536 (Fundamentals) back in June, 70-529 (Distributed Applications) in July, 70-528 (Web Applications) in August, 70-526 (Windows Applications) in September and 70-549 (Design and Development) this morning (October).  All of these exams focus on various technologies targeting .NET 2.0.

For each of these exams, I have used the “self-paced” book series (the same series used for 70-536 and 70-529), which are:

• MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-528): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Web-Based Client Development
• MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-526): Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Windows-Based Client Development
• MCPD Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-549): Designing and Developing Enterprise Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework

Now, I’m going to say it straight and simple: all of these books suck.  The only good thing about them is that the authors have done a pretty good job copy/pasting the right MSDN documentation so that we wouldn’t waste our time doing it ourselves.  The major drawbacks I have against these books are the really poor coding style of the authors towards their examples.  A big portion of the examples contain errors, are sometimes misleading and some of them clearly won’t compile if you copy/paste the code in Visual Studio.   It’s sad to see so many mistakes like these, especially when each book is written by so many authors, because the credibility of these individuals take a pretty bad hit in the public’s eye.  I’m sure they were pushed by the deadline, but I wished they’ve polished the examples a little bit more.  I know…I know…Nobody’s perfect…I know.  But that’s still no reason to deliver mediocre products.

All right.  So just in case you’re thinking (or already started) to get your MCPD-EAD credentials, I am going to tell you how I’ve managed my time to pass each of these exams in hope that it might help you to pass them successfully.  In average, I dedicated about 40 hours per exam:

• 15 hours to read the book (1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening should be enough for you to read the whole book within a week.  You don’t have to read EVERYTHING.  If you’re proficient in C#, then skip all the VB.NET examples.  Same idea goes if you’re more proficient in VB.NET than C#.   Whenever the authors mentions something in a box with the title “Real-World Scenario” you SKIP it.  It doesn’t matter.  The “real-world scenario” isn’t in the book…it’s in the REAL WORLD.  Don’t waste your time.  Also, don’t do all of the activities at the end of each chapter.  Just get through the book because you don’t want to waste too much of your time.  Here we’re really trying to cram our brain with tons of information.  The exams are roughly 80% based on memorization of the content and 20% on actual thinking.  Feel free to write notes and underline important ideas as you read along.  I used to write “EXAM” in red ink on the margin so that I can review it at a later time.)
• 20 hours to practice with Transcender or MeasureUp exams.  I have only used Transcenders, so I can’t say much about MeasureUp.  I’ve heard they’re quite good too.  Whichever you decide to do, I strongly suggest you to do all of the questions more than once.  Then when you’re confident enough about the material, take a moment to answer the questions in the “certification” mode to give you a better feel for the exam.  By the way, none of the questions of either Transcenders or MeasureUp were in the exams I’ve taken.  To be honest, the mock exams’ goals are to deepen your knowledge with the various technologies.  That’s it, that’s all.  Don’t put too much confidence in them, because what I’ve concluded at the end of each real exam is that the mock exams only helped me about 20% on the “knowledge” stuff and 80% on the actual “feeling” for the exam.  Take a week or two to practice these.
• 5 hours to practice some things I didn’t fully understand (proper use of some class, understanding the use behind some interfaces, getting comfortable with the security model, etc.) inside Visual Studio.  I strongly suggest you use Reflector to assist you in quickly discovering the information behind some objects in the framework.

I also suggest you to book your exam in advance.  For example, suppose you start studying for an exam today, then you will book an exam date four weeks from now.  This should motivate you to stay on course and respect your schedule.  And if that’s not enough, then mention to your boss and your fellow co-workers that you intend to pass this exam by that date.  Feel free to also share you exam date as a comment on this post! That should put enough pressure to get the job done…wouldn’t it?

In closing, I found that the 70-526 (Windows Applications) exam was the easiest exam of the bunch.  As for the hardest, I must say that it was the 70-529 (Distributed Applications) exam, mostly because I’ve never done .NET Remoting in the past.  And now that WCF is in the neighborhood, I doubt I’ll even have to touch .NET Remoting in the future!  It all depends on your experience with these technologies.  The more you practice and learn, the greater your chance in passing.