MCPD Web Developer exam 70-547 hints and tips

Following my post about studying toward
MCPD certification,
I’ve now taken the exam and am pleased to say I passed with a good score. The
exam 70-547 is about designing and developing web applications using ASP.NET
2.0. It focuses on the full software development lifecycle and covers planning,
architecture, design, testing and deployment, where as the prerequisite MCTS
exams cover more of the actual coding and implementation details.



My main study guide was the official Microsoft Press book, MCPD Self-Paced
Training Kit (Exam 70-547). It covered the syllabus thoroughly enough to get me
through the exam, but like most similar books wasn’t much fun to read. It’s over
700 pages, and after the first few hundred the content starts to get fairly
monotonous. It’s also difficult to skim because you might miss something
essential for the exam. If you’re an experienced developer then you might not
learn much, but if you’re new to coding then you should find plenty of useful
information about broader areas of software development, such as architecture,
data modelling and unit testing.



A lot of the testing chapters read like an advert for Visual Studio Team System
(VSTS) and aggressively promote its unit testing and web load testing
capabilities. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a Microsoft exam after all,
but you will need Visual Studio Team Test if you want to work through the
practical exercises (an evaluation version is available). The unit testing in
VSTS is impressive, but doesn’t seem to offer much over the freely available
NUnit. The web load testing on the other hand is invaluable.



My best advice for the book is to read it in short frequent bursts. Try to read
a little bit every day and you’ll easily work through it, so don’t be
intimidated. If you find yourself slacking, just register for the exam and
you’ll soon become motivated. And remember to use the 15% exam discount voucher
that comes with the book.



My other study resource, which I also used for the
MCTS exams, was
the practice test from Testkingdom.com. The questions are very relevant to the
actual exam, and helped highlight areas to focus my study. The most useful
feature is that every answer has an explanation, so if you get one wrong you can
see why and hopefully fill a gap in your knowledge.



The exam isn’t easy, but many questions appeal to common sense as well as
technical expertise, and there aren’t any trick questions. There’s more than
enough time to work through the 40 multiple-choice questions, so be careful to
read each one closely and don’t panic. Some questions ask you to pick more than
one answer so follow the instructions carefully. The passing score is 700 out of
1000.



According to Microsoft’s statistics there are only 2,147 MCPD web developers
worldwide, so if you want to improve your skills, stand out in the job market,
or negotiate a promotion then certification could be a great career move.



My next goal is MCTS
certification for SQL Server and exam 70–431. Then it shouldn’t be too long
before the next generation of .NET 3.5 MCTS are available.

MCTS 3.5 certifications

Next week I scheduled in training time focused on gaining “MCTS .NET 2.0 web
dev”.

I started to investigate what the differences are between the 2.0 exams and the
3.5 versions. Here is what I have discovered (sharing it because everyone I’ve
asked haven’t had any ideas about the 3.5 certs)



They stripped out the old 3 ‘silos’ that the MCTS 2.0 exams had



* MCTS: .NET 2.0 Web apps

* MCTS: .NET 2.0 Windows apps

* MCTS: .NET 2.0 Distributed apps



and replaced it with a number of certifications that focus on a technology area.



The .NET 3.5 certifications are listed here. The first 3 with prep guides will
be released late March, with the others being released later on.



* MCTS: Windows Presentation Foundation 70-502 prep guide

* MCTS: Windows Communication Foundation 70-503 Prep guide

* MCTS: Windows Workflow 70-504 Prep guide

* MCTS: ADO.NET 70-561 Prep guide

* MCTS: ASP.NET. 3.5 70-562 Prep guide

* MCTS: Windows forms 70-505



All of these .NET 3.5 certifications still have this requirement



* MCTS: .NET 2.0 App development foundation 70-536 Prep guide



Which means you can work towards any of the 3.5 certifications right now. And if
you currently have a MCTS 2.0 certification then you already have passed that
requirement.

They will have “upgrade exams” from
MCTS certifications
to 3.5, but full details haven’t been decided yet. But it is suggested that the
upgrade exams will ONLY cover the differences.



References:

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click here for more info mcst training

 

MCP Defined

“The certification process itself consists of three levels –



MCP



-> MCAD



-> MCSD for the
.NET Framework 1.1 track.



You need to take 6 papers in all 5 compulsory and the last one you have a
choice.



You are an MCP when you clear any one paper of your liking!! You need to make up
your mind whether you want to follow the VB.NET track or the C#.NET track before
starting to prepare. You cannot take one paper from one track and take a
parallel paper from the other track and claim credits.



The papers are as follows:



1) C#.NET / VB.NET



2) ASP.NET (C# or VB.NET track)



3) XML and Web Services (C# or VB.NET track)



4) SQL Server 2000 or higher



5) Project Management



6) You have to choose one of several papers – (Commerce Server/ Exchange Server
etc …)



You become an MCP if you clear any one of the first 5 papers. You are an MCAD
when you clear papers 1 through 4. When you have all 6 you are an MCSD.NET.
However, with 2005, Microsoft has already started upgrade exams. In another
year, they would have a separate track for VS 2005!!
MCSD.NET will
still continue to be recognized at least for the next three years!!



My suggestion – go for paper 1 and make up your mind which track you want to
follow!”



So I chose to sit for MCP 70-315 (ASP.NET with C#).

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click here for more info mcst training