Get in-depth exam prep for Exam 70-536, a core MCTS exam for the new Microsoft Technology Specialist and Professional Developer certifications —and build real-world job skills. Includes reviews, case studies, code samples, and more.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 82 Ratings

Second Edition now available!! - 2008-11-18
Reviewer Rating:
Please note that the second edition of the 70-536 Training Kit is available. Fully updated and revised, the second edition replaces this first edition, and is the one to buy to prepare for the 70-536 exam.

Decent Book - 2009-06-11
Reviewer Rating:
This book has a lot of useful information in it and the practice tests do help quite a bit. Good book for beginner developers with some experience with visual studio.

Mandatory book for Microsoft MCTS certification (and old Mainframe Developers) - 2009-04-24
Reviewer Rating:
As an outsourced Mainframe programmer (Job outsourced to India...Thanks Citibank!), this book is the 1st book on the road to a MCTS certification. If you have a working PC development background, this book will be straight forward and you will be on your way to the MCTS certification of your choice (Windows, Web or Enterprise). If you are an old mainframe programmer (like myself), you need to take a Visual Basic.Net or a C# course before you study this book. My warning is that there are a lot of "common terminology" that Microsoft assumes you already know...but it is not common in the mainframe world. Don't be discouraged, use GOOGLE (or a search engine of your choice) and you will be alright...it will just take you a lot longer to finish this book.

Book alone is not enough to pass exam. Several misleading information - 2009-03-02
Reviewer Rating:
The book has several information, several errors too. The errors can be corrected by going to the Microsoft web site (press). The book skims through several topics required for the exam. But, the exam focuses on in-depth information. You will find questions in the exam that is not directly provided in this book. For example, the attribute [ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)] used for specifying how the .Net class should be exposed to COM objects is not mentioned anywhere in the book, but it was asked in the exam. There are several other such examples. Also, there are several notes in the book that says that it is important for the exam. But, the exam does not cover those topics at all. In another one of the review for this book, someone had mentioned about buying Transcender. You can buy Transcender if you want to learn about the topics. But, as far as the exam goes, you may find a question or two that is anywhere similar to those in the Practice exams. For each of the topics, you need to use MSDN web site for in-depth information. And you need to cram the properties and methods. For instance, there is a question about which property to use to check whether a method is accessible to a derived class when using reflection. The correct answer is IsFamily. But, there is no way you can remember this without cramming. It is virtually impossible for every developer to have experience in every topic covered in this book. By the way, I passed this exam after two months of rigorous study.

About me: 15 years in the IT industry. 12 of those in Microsoft technology. Master's degree in Computer Science.

A few good chapters, but the rest is very poorly written - 2009-02-22
Reviewer Rating:
About 3/4 of the chapters are either very thin on explaining the subjects, or they are written so poorly that, frankly, I got quite upset whilst reading. Another thing is that this is the most error-prone book I've ever read. In a novel typos aren't critical, but in a study guide for an exam, they are indeed. So be alert and use the errata. I found out it was better to take the hours needed to correct the text, than spilling time wondering about the accuracy on stuff that looked weird to me. My advice: buy another book !

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