I've read through the Kalani book for the 70-315 test,
and practiced almost all of his examples. I'm in a bit of
a rush to take the test in a few days due to our
corporate performance evaluation deadline looming.
So I need your advice as to whether this is enough by
itself to pass the test?
* How much syntax would I need to know off by heart? I
find that I know what I'm doing but with intellisense and
everything in VS.NET its really hard to remember what
each particular method name does and what parameters it
needs.
* I've played around quite a bit with the Datagrid and
ADO.NET but aside from those I haven't researched too
much outside of the Kalani book.
* I've answered all the questions in his book and
reviewed things that I got wrong.
What do you folks think? Is this enough? Is it borderline?
If anyone can hilight any deficiencies they found in
Kalani's book it would help too!
Thanks much in advance!
Gary
> Hi all,
>
> I've read through the Kalani book for the 70-315 test,
> and practiced almost all of his examples. I'm in a bit of
> a rush to take the test in a few days due to our
> corporate performance evaluation deadline looming.
> So I need your advice as to whether this is enough by
> itself to pass the test?
Yes that's all I used and I did well.
> * How much syntax would I need to know off by heart? I
> find that I know what I'm doing but with intellisense and
> everything in VS.NET its really hard to remember what
> each particular method name does and what parameters it
> needs.
It's important to know parameter order, etc. for ADO.NET and to some
extent ASP.NET. Sorry, but you should try to get by without Intellisense.
> * I've played around quite a bit with the Datagrid and
> ADO.NET but aside from those I haven't researched too
> much outside of the Kalani book.
> * I've answered all the questions in his book and
> reviewed things that I got wrong.
>
> What do you folks think? Is this enough? Is it borderline?
>
> If anyone can hilight any deficiencies they found in
> Kalani's book it would help too!
I can't say what Kalani's book didn't cover. It would violate the NDA.
Sorry.
I didnt realize my questions would conflict with the NDA
sorry about that.
That's okay. Good luck on 70-315.
It should be fine to list the general topics, as long as there are no
specific test questions given out?
It seems fair to me to mention, for example, that Code Access Security
and XPathNavigator are not covered in the book.
I think he covered a good 95% of the material for 70-315.
His book on 70-320 seems to have a little less coverage, but it's
still the best of the available books.
Eric
I did not encounter a *single* queston on the 70-320 exam that wasn't in
Kalani. But I did have 5 or 6 questions on 70-315 that definitely
weren't. I don't even remember what those questions were, sorry. I had
no intention of sharing that info with anyone so I didn't write it down.
>I did not encounter a *single* queston on the 70-320 exam
that wasn't in
>Kalani. But I did have 5 or 6 questions on 70-315 that
definitely
>weren't. I don't even remember what those questions
were, sorry. I had
>no intention of sharing that info with anyone so I didn't
write it down.
>
>.
>
No, the exam tends to have more questions whereby you are given 4 blocks
of code to choose from and you have to choose the correct block. Either
syntax or semantics could determine which is right.
Kalani's questions are still better than the crap you find on PrepLogic
or MeasureUp. I can't tell you how many mistakes I've found on their
demo exams.
Kalani's books are clearly the best way to learn - especially if you
like the format of "learn a little, then follow the steps to write a
short program to demonstrate the concepts". You simply *HAVE* to learn
by reading Kalani's books!
Kalani's questions were a good review to help you determine if you
understand the material.
In my opinion, I think the MS tests were a little more oriented
towards problem solving. For example, they would say "given this code,
you get this particular error at runtime, what should you change".
I like the Transcenders sample tests because they seem to be a similar
level of difficulty to the actual test, but they are not verbatim the
same questions. If you can score well on the Transcenders tests, then
you should be ready for the real tests.
Eric
Just to clarify my previous posting, this material (CAS and XPath) is
covered in Kalani's 70-320 book, and most people who are studying for
the 70-315 will probably try for the 70-320 next. So, it makes sense
to buy Kalani's 70-320 book a little early and study these areas
before taking the 70-315 test.
Kalani's 320 coverage seems weak on the actual syntax of XSD files,
putting your own info into SOAP headers (username/password, for
example), and SSL encryption. But he does an AWESOME job on SOAP
extensions, and his examples throughout the book are first-rate!
XML Web services and remoting are tough areas to learn from a book.
Kalani's format of using step-by-step exercises is the best way to
learn in my opinion.
Eric
I took 70-320 before taking 70-315, so I guess I didn't notice.
> Kalani's 320 coverage seems weak on the actual syntax of XSD files,
> putting your own info into SOAP headers (username/password, for
> example), and SSL encryption. But he does an AWESOME job on SOAP
> extensions, and his examples throughout the book are first-rate!
Oh yeah, that was one thing that was left out of Kalani's 70-320 book:
SOAP headers.
I disagreed with his server SOAP extension method. It wasn't necessary
to "chain" in his stream, but it was nice to show that it could be done.
It made the example more confusing than it had to be, is all.
By the way how did you all do your review after running
through the book and doing the exercises?
I realized that because the book is so thick I've
forgotten some of the practical topics from the start of
the book. I dont know if my sanity would last if I went
through again and did all the exercises over hehe. Maybe
I'll stick with the Guided practice exercises but I'm not
sure if that covers everything.
Another thing I noticed - because the book categorizes
exercises into distinct topics theres no large exercises
that encompass topics from multiple chapters. This would
help a ton with the review.
If anyone has a list of exercises they gave themselves
that encompass multiple topics, I would appreciate seeing
them :)
Thanks again all!
Yep, that's tricky stuff.
> By the way how did you all do your review after running
> through the book and doing the exercises?
I did the 75/77 question exam from the back and made notes of what I got
wrong, then redid those sections.
> I realized that because the book is so thick I've
> forgotten some of the practical topics from the start of
> the book. I dont know if my sanity would last if I went
> through again and did all the exercises over hehe. Maybe
> I'll stick with the Guided practice exercises but I'm not
> sure if that covers everything.
I modified the exercises a bit to include material from earlier
chapters. For example, instead of just loading a DataSet from the DB,
I'd load it into an XmlReader, then a XmlDataDocument.