The questions were pretty much well distributed over all objectives.
I was hoping for a few questions on regular expression, but there were none. I also didn't get any questions on drawing such as graphics, bitmaps, image, etc.
There were a lot of questions on serialization, threading, processes, and services. There were a few questions on configuration as well. Something that was hit real hard seemed to be globalization; I think I had a question on every aspect of the subject. I also had question on mailing and security such as hash algorithms. Streams were mixed in with other objectives, so make sure you are comfortable with them. There were also questions on COM interop and platform invoke. There were a few simple questions on debugging.
The questions were primarily small scenarios consisting of one or two small paragraphs with about three sentences. Just about every question required choosing the correct code from different code snippets. I had one question that required me to pick three correct procedures from a selection of six or seven of them and put them in the correct order.
I found the Microsoft Training Kit helpful for the exam. However, you cannot rely on it for study alone. If you are going to take this exam, then you will know that there are different possible ways to code the same thing. So, although the training kit has a lot of sample code, a lot of the questions you get on the exam may be coded slightly different. The .NET Framework is big, and you need to know a lot of little tid bits about every subject. For many of the test questions, it is helpful if you are familiar with the properties and methods that are in each class in the objectives. I know that is a lot to remember, but I came across a few questions where I couldn't remember if a certain property belonged to a certain class. Sometimes, it is just too much to remember every single property and method in every single class in the framework, but it makes the exam easier.
Like in my previous posts, I recommend studying the MSDN libraries. However, while going through them, I found that many classes do not have code examples at all. Even if you dig deeper into the properties and methods, there is still nothing. I guess that is why a lot of them are given a 1 star rating. I found a lot of classes just have one sentence for an explanation. So, sometimes, even the MSDN libraries are just a poor reference also.
As far as more learning materials for the .NET Framework, I think there should be more out there, but a lot of times we are just left to search through white papers or find somewhere that has some samples to give you more information. In my other posts, I also listed a few more books that would be good to use for studying. I think those books are still a good help. Another good book would be CLR via C#. I was planning on getting this book, but I don't have it yet.
Well, in studying for the exam, I took information from the books and MSDN library that I studied from and compiled it all together for each objective. I will add it here for anyone that would like to use it. Keep in mind, that this is not an all in one study guide. It is merely just a review of all the objectives given from the training kit and MSDN libraries. Maybe it will help someone a little bit. Also, when reviewing my printed notes, I noticed a missing parenthesis in one of my code snippets, a class name misspelled by one letter here and there, and sometimes Microsoft Word didn't know which direction to put the double quotes. I briefly went back through later, but I can't remember where they are. However, I'm sure if you are studying for this exam, you will be able to figure out any small mistakes, and it shouldn't be a big deal.
70_536_Notes.doc 531.5K
1251 downloadsGood luck for anyone else working on this exam. Now, it's time for me to move on to 70-526












