Resources for .NET Application Development Foundation (70-536)

I have a lot of people taking this one at the moment and this is a combination of information I have given them in respect to this exam

About the exam

You need a passing score of 700 out of 1000. The exam itself consists of multiple choice questions only. There are no simulations in this exam as is common in development based exam. There are also no testlets (case study style) questions.

This exam is the basis of the .NET development exams based on the 2,0 & 3,5 Frameworks. If you want to certify in any of the .NET based MCTS or MCPD exams you need to do pass this exam.

Books

First off get a book. The recommended one is the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation (ISBN: 978-0735622777)

This is the main training book for this exam. Even tho it specifies .NET 2.0 it is valid for the 3.5 versions as well. The same principles are covered.

Be aware that this book is very very dry, and can cause you to fall asleep! It does cover a lot of the topics quite well, but there are somethings that you may need to get more information on from sites like MSDN or blogs.

What DO you need to know?

The milllion dollar question. Well, the easiest answer is to follow the exam topic matrix as detailed on the MS Learning site. Scroll down to the skills being measured.

This lists what they can examine you on. Its fairly extensive and can seem overwhelming. But .. if you are working in this stuff quite regularly then it wont be that bad. Thats the crux and leads me on the next thing you should be doing.

Software

Get a copy of the trial version of Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 Pro editions.

Install it on a virtual machine if you can. You can use the SQL Server Express Edition that ships with the edition as your database engine. The main reason you will be doing this, is so you can work on the tutorials and also practice with the tools. The exam itself is version agnostic so it doesnt matter. BUT!!! the express editions may not have all the tools installed and so that is why I recommend the Pro. Also if you are going for one of the other exams after this one, its always a good idea to use the Pro versions as they certain deployment tools not shipped with the Express versions.

Sample Exams

There are plenty of providers out there saying they give sample questions. MeasureUp is one of the few certified sample providers. You should invest in a sample question set purely to get used to the exam format especially if this is your first exam. Wording will cause you the most hassle as you need to be very thorough in reading the questions. This goes for every MS exam.

Finally
Couple of things to remember

1. Globalisation is a common topic in all development exams
2. Know the command line tools, such as CasPol.exe, SN.exe etc
3. Security! Know it! Its seems obvious but understanding the implications of security and security principles is a bit thing for all MS software.
4. If there is an option between new and old tech, new tech nearly always wins. MS tend to use their exams like advertisements at times, showing the benefit of the newer stuff. So as a general rule of thumb its new tech over old

I hope this helps and answers most of the questions that you have in relation to the exam and how to prepare for it