How to Prepare for an Exam

Preparing for any MCAD or MCSDrelated test (including Exam 70-306) requires that you obtain and study materials designed to provide comprehensive information about the product and its capabilities that will appear on the specific exam for which you are preparing. The following list of materials can help you study and prepare:

• The .NET Framework Software Development Kit (SDK). This SDK, which you can download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/000/976/msdncompositedoc.xml, contains full documentation of .NET and should be a primary resource when you are preparing for the test.

• The exam preparation materials, practice tests, and self-assessment exams on the Microsoft Training & Services page, at www.microsoft.com/traincert. The Exam Resources link offers examples of the new question types found on the Windows 2000 MCAD and MCSD exams. You should find the materials, download them, and use them!

• The exam-preparation advice, practice tests, questions of the day, and discussion groups on the www.examcram2.com e-learning and certification destination Web site.

In addition, you might find any or all of the following materials useful in your quest for Visual Basic .NET expertise:

• Microsoft training kits Microsoft Press offers a training kit that specifically targets Exam 70-306. For more information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/certification/mcad.asp. This training kit contains information that you will find useful in preparing for the test.

• Microsoft Developer Network CD This quarterly CD- or DVD-based publication delivers numerous electronic titles that include coverage of .NET Framework, Visual Basic .NET, and related topics. Its offerings include product facts, technical notes, tools and utilities, sample code, and much more. A subscription to the MSDN Library costs $199 per year, but it is well worth the price. Visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/prodinfo/overview.asp for more details.

• Study guides Several publishers, including Que Publishing, offer certification titles. Que Publishing offers the following:

  • The Exam Cram 2 series These books give you information about the material you need to know to pass the tests.

  • The MCAD Training Guide series These books provide a greater level of detail than the Exam Cram 2 books and are designed to teach you everything you need to know about the subject covered by an exam. Each book comes with a CD that contains interactive practice exams in a variety of testing formats.

  Together, these two series make a perfect pair.

  • Classroom training CTECs, online partners , and third-party training companies (such as Wave Technologies, Learning Tree, and Data-Tech) all offer classroom training on Visual Basic .NET. These companies aim to help you prepare to pass Exam 70-306. Although such training runs upward of $350 per day in class, most of the individuals lucky enough to partake find this training to be quite worthwhile.

  • Other publications There's no shortage of materials available about Visual Basic .NET and the .NET Framework. The "Need to Know More?" resource sections at the end of each chapter in this book give you an idea of where we think you should look for further discussion.

This set of required and recommended materials represents an unparalleled collection of sources and resources for Visual Basic .NET and related topics. We anticipate that you'll find that this book belongs in this company.

What This Book Will Not Do

This book will not teach you everything you need to know about computers, or even about a given topic. Nor is this book an introduction to computer technology. If you're new to applications development and looking for an initial preparation guide, check out Quepublishing.com, where you will find a whole section dedicated to the MCSD/MCAD certifications. This book will review what you need to know before you take the test, with the fundamental purpose dedicated to reviewing the information needed on the Microsoft 70-306 certification exam.

This book uses a variety of teaching and memorization techniques to analyze the exam-related topics and to provide you with ways to input, index, and retrieve everything you'll need to know in order to pass the test. Once again, it is not an introduction to application development.

What This Book Is Designed To Do

This book is designed to be read as a pointer to the areas of knowledge you will be tested on. In other words, you may want to read the book one time, just to get an insight into how comprehensive your knowledge of computers is. The book is also designed to be read shortly before you go for the actual test and to give you a distillation of the entire field of Windows application development in as few pages as possible. We think you can use this book to get a sense of the underlying context of any topic in the chaptersor to skim-read for Alerts, bulleted points, summaries, and topic headings.

We've drawn on material from Microsoft's own listing of knowledge requirements, from other preparation guides, and from the exams themselves . We've also drawn from a battery of third-party test-preparation tools and technical Web sites as well as from our own experience with application development and the exam. Our aim is to walk you through the knowledge you will needlooking over your shoulder, so to speakand point out those things that are important for the exam (Alerts, practice questions, and so on).

The 70-306 exam makes a basic assumption that you already have a strong background of experience with the Windows development platform and its terminology. On the other hand, because the .NET development environment is so new, no one can be a complete expert. We've tried to demystify the jargon, acronyms, terms, and concepts. Also, wherever we think you're likely to blur past an important concept, we've defined the assumptions and premises behind that concept.