MCTS/MCPD exam 70-562 - Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Application Development

Getting a Microsoft developer certification is a great way to show your value as a developer to your current or future employer. No matter how knowledgeable you are it is always a great learning experience. Also having a concrete goal and working hard towards achieving it over several months is a very rewarding feeling.

Exam 70-562 gives you credit towards “MCTS: .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Applications” and “MCPD: ASP.NET Developer 3.5 on Visual Studio 2008” certification as well as “MCPD: Enterprise Application Developer 3.5 on Visual Studio 2008”. To achieve the first one you need to take exam “70-536: TS: Microsoft .NET Framework – Application development foundation” (you can read my hub http://hubpages.com/hub/70-536). For the Pro Web Developer certification you also need to take exam “70-564 PRO: Designing and Developing ASP.NET Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5”. The professional enterprise developer certification requires total of six exams and is the highest currently offered by Microsoft developer certification.

The official information about the exam can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-562&locale=en-us

The strategy that I recommend for taking the exam is to get the Self-paced training kit from Microsoft Press and read the book from cover to cover. If you read a chapter a day it will take you about two weeks. After that go ahead and schedule your exam allowing yourself another two weeks to study. Don’t forget to use the 15% discount voucher for Prometric that is included with the book. During those two weeks read the book one more time, take notes, and start making practice tests from the MeasureUp CD that is included with the book. The practice tests take about an hour but try to do one every day. Mark for review all questions that you are not 100% sure which the correct answer is. After the test read carefully and understand the explanations of all marked questions as well as all questions you got wrong. By the end of the second week you should be scoring around 90% on the practice test, if not – reschedule the exam and give yourself more time to read.

You should also read the MSDN articles for all of the exam objectives. Here is a quick list from Niall Merrigan's blog: http://www.certsandprogs.com/search?q=70-536+objectives

The exam itself can be pretty long so make sure you are well rested and schedule at least half a day for it. After three hours and fifty questions you’ll be so exhausted you will not want to go back to work.

Best of luck, you might need it!