MCTS Visual Studio 2010 track compared to earlier VS versions

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi,

A while ago I spent some home study time preparing for exam 70-536 as the first step towards a developer qualification, but I foundered because of the volume of the material compared to the time available (full time job, children, you get the picture). I've been looking at the VS 2010 MCTS exams at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-vstudio.aspx#tab2
and they seem to cover less stuff, so for me they'd be more achievable (not that I'm dismissing the previous versions).

Does anyone know if this is right, or is it just how it looks? I'd be really interested to hear any thoughts on how the VS2010 exams compare to the VS2008 exams.

Thanks.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I've just had another look at the Microsoft VS certifcation pages and it looks like VS 2010 / .Net Framework 4.0 isn't a separate track but an option within the 2008 / 3.5 track. Realistically I'm not going to get through the syllabus for 70-536 any time soon, so even though you're supposed to take 70-536 first I'm going to try 70-515 first, because it's more achievable for me. And it would get me in to the mindset of those exams. I've got three years experience as a developer using .Net so even if 70-515 builds on 70-536 I think I'll be OK.

But how does anyone get through the syllabus for 70-536? Or is that just me?

 

I got through the VS 2005 / .NET 2.0 track including 70-536, and yes it is very tough, probably too tough for a cert and for most people though. I basically studied fulltime (like 12 hours a day) for two weeks, then took test and just scraped through. I also have 15+ years development experience.

Its the only way I could do it, can't see how anyone could pass it studying part time, time you get to end of material will have forgotten the beginning stuff.

The newer tracks look far easier.

From what I understand they are all seperate tracks.

The current .NET tracks are for :-
VS 2005 / NET 2.0
VS 2008 / NET 3.5
VS 2010 / NET 4.0

The first two tracks share the same foundation exam of 70-536, but have totally seperate other exams. Generally there are upgrade exams to uprade from one track to another.

The new 2010 track is all new exams as I understand it and they appear less demanding although I haven't taken them. I'm not convinced that the effort involved in maintaining a cert is worth it to be honest...

I can still list MCPD on my CV, other than that people want .NET 4 experience, not a piece of paper...

 

Hi dmarsh,

Thanks for replying, what you say is really helpful. I'm going to forget about 70-536 as it isn't achievable for me, but I think I could do 70-515 and maybe even enjoy it.

I see what you mean about certification vs experience, but I think passing a couple of exams will help me consolidate and increase my knowledge. I'm the only developer at my company so I work on small projects with limited scope and while I know my stuff for my current job, interviews have shown that I don't have enough knowledge beyond that. And I'm hoping it might help convince an employer to hire someone with two arts degrees but nothing beyond a GCSE in maths and nothing in computing.

Thanks again.

 

hi dear,
As of i have read and track i know both VS2010 and VS2008 are diffrent track path for MCTS/MCPD certification and also updation exam is there from MCTS/MCPD VS2008 to MCTS VS2010.U can see and download path for both from microsoft learning site.Exam 70-536 is prerequisite for any VS2008 MCTS track.But there is no any prerequisite exam for VS2010 MCTS track.U can have complete sylabus for exam 70-536 at same site.If u have any further knowledge abaut this please share.

 

I listed the track posters here :-

[post]356024[/post]