First, lets be clear.
I am, by far, the WORST test taker. I have paralyzing anxiety when it comes to taking tests. I have found, in my years in college, that the way I pass exams is by being prepared. There really is no “short-cut” for me.
I am a bit embarrassed that after 3 months of intensive study for this exam, I received a passing score of 700.
That’s right. I got just enough questions right to pass.
To be honest, I was a little dissapointed. I believed that with the effort I put into my studies, I should’ve performed better. But I digress.
Here are some things that DID help me prepare.
1. Its a good idea to fully understand what you are studying for. This page gives a pretty extensive overview of what to expect on the exam.
2. I purchased the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit book by Tony Northrup, Shawn Wildermuth, and Bill Ryan. This book has its flaws (which I’m sure you’ve seen in other forums). Overall, its a comprehensive collection of what’s needed to pass. I found the MeasureUp test, included with the book, to be absolutely useless. The questions are poorly written and really just tell you what you didn’t memorize from the book. It doesn’t focus on CONCEPTS. Furthermore, if you select the wrong answer, MesureUp does not thoroughly explain why that is not the right answer.
3. I purchased a Transcender practice exam. There are different schools of thought on using “practice” exams. I was a bit leary in using it, but Transcender did an AMAZING job of putting together practice questions.
I would recommend that you start with the book. Read through each chapter and take notes. I used Microsoft One Note to collect all of my notes. This made it handy when I was finished. I could print my entire notebook for review. Plus, I could copy and paste elements from the ebook (diagrams, tables, etc.) that I wanted to remember. The only problem I had was copying and pasting code from VS to One Note. I had to paste it into Word first to keep the coloring and formatting. C’mon Microsoft, can we fix this please!?
After completing the book, I went through and completed each lab in the book. I think it was a better strategy to do it this way because, in a sense, it allows you to go through the book twice.
When I was finished with the book and the labs, I purchased the Transcender. Each question that I got wrong, I printed out. Then I would highlight the “keywords” or concepts that I was missing from that question. Again, Transcender does such a GREAT job of really honing in on why the wrong answer is wrong. I feel like I learned more about what I didn’t know from taking the Transcender and, upon taking the test, I found very few questions that were similar. So, it didn’t feel like “cheating” to me.
Rinse and Repeat.
You can complete the exam in C#, Visual Basic, and (I think) C++?
I can write in both VB and C#, but I chose VB for readability.
I would say that if you are new to programming in general or haven’t developed a competincy for reading/writing code, this would be an ambitious starting point.
If you have any other questions, feel free to leave me a comment and I will do the best I can to answer.
