----------------------------------------------------------- New Message on BDOTNET
----------------------------------------------------------- From: Sanjay_Narang Message 6 in Discussion Hi, There are many ways you can do your preparation. I'll tell you the way that worked for me. Step 1: ========== Decide about the certification you need to do. Then get all details about that certification. This should be - What certification you are targeting MCAD, MCSD or something else. (I'll go with MCSD.NET assumption here) - How many exams you need to take for that - What all exams you are going to take. For elective you need to decide one exam from different options - What language stream you will take (C# or VB.NET) - Sequence in which you need to take the exam My preferred sequence is : 1. web applications 2. windows applications 3. web services 4. the elective exam 5. the most important architecture exam Following links will help you in this step Six Steps to Certification http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/mcp/sixsteps.asp Details about MCSD http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/mcp/mcsd/ Details about curriculum /syllabus http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/mcp/mcsd/requirementsdotnet.asp BDOTNet certification page: http://groups.msn.com/BDotNet/certification.msnw Step 2 ========== Start preparing for the first exam. You need to keep some target, otherwise it keeps on getting delayed. From my experience, if one doesn't have any knowledge about .Net he needs to spend this much time on different things: - general knowledge about .Net and the language of your choice: 30 to 40 hours - for exams 1 to 3 (as given in above step): 70 to 90 hours each - for elective exam: depends upon the exam you are taking e.g. if you have database knowledge SQL server exam will take you much less time than BizTalk server. If you are starting from scratch you can keep rough estimate of 100 hours - for architecture exam: there is no defined syllabus for this. Here your common sense, experience, and knowledge gained from previous exams comes handy. You can have rough estimate for 70 to 90 hours. But from where to prepare and how to? There are numerous options available. You can take Microsoft courses for different subjects being offered by NIIT and other institutes. But that proves very costly. Microsoft Press has published "Training Kit" for each and every exam. These training kits are very good and cover 80 to 90% of skills required for the exam. I took following method (should work for you) for each exam - Read training kit completely and do most of the practice exercises given in the book. - When you install .NET SDK, it also installs "Quick starts". These are really very useful. Go through all of them that are required for the exam. In fact there are many skills that are not covered in above training kits, you'll find those here. (You'll have many questions and doubts in above two things, refer to MSD library for all such questions. This will give you much more info that you won't get anywhere) - Now when you are ready for the exam, make sure that you take at least one of the mock exam before going for final one. You'll know the style of questions that comes there in exam. And mostly you'll get low score in these exams. It's very important that you review each of your wrong answer and make sure that you don't get similar question wrong again, Now where to get mock exams? Give a search on web, you'll find many resources - legal, illegal everything is there. Microsoft has also started providing some free assessment exams. These are good ones (but not sufficient for the exam). Go through them. http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/assessment/ (Take Visual Studio.NET assessments on above link, these exams are actually provided by MeasureUP) Our BDotNet site has very good guide for 5th exam (70-300). Read that. http://www.msnusers.com/BDotNet/Documents/Software%20Artifacts/Certifications/MCSD%20Study%20Guide.doc Then many sites offering free tests. I remember one: http://www.cert21.com/ THAT'S ALL. You are ready to start now. And post to this group when you complete the certification. Also let us know, if this information was useful. Cheers Sanjay ----------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this e-mail, or change how often it arrives, go to your E-mail Settings. http://groups.msn.com/BDotNet/_emailsettings.msnw Need help? If you've forgotten your password, please go to Passport Member Services. http://groups.msn.com/_passportredir.msnw?ppmprop=help For other questions or feedback, go to our Contact Us page. http://groups.msn.com/contact If you do not want to receive future e-mail from this MSN group, or if you received this message by mistake, please click the "Remove" link below. On the pre-addressed e-mail message that opens, simply click "Send". Your e-mail address will be deleted from this group's mailing list. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
