certifications

First, I totally agree with the reviewer who said this book isn't for you if you're not trying to pass the exam. It's all about the exam and is not intended to be anything more than an exam study guide.

I read this book, the Microsoft Study Guide for 70-300, and most of the Osbourne book for this exam. I'm totally convinced that this book is the best of the three. Having recently passed the exam, I can say without hesitation that this book was a big help. The other two books overemphasize the Microsoft Solutions Framework, which is a Microsoft System Development Methodology. While you will need some perspective on the MSF to pass the exam, this overemphasis is very misleading.

If you need to pass the exam, my suggestion would be to use this book as your major source of study. For any areas that you don't feel really well-versed in, read applicable MSDN articles to get the Microsoft spin on security, layering, deployment strategies, requirements analysis, design, globalization/localizaton, etc. I do recall that the test had a few questions on ORM and not many on UML.

I would be inclined to rate this book more positively were it not for two things. First, the sample test that came on the CD really bore almost no resemblance to the real rest. It was laden with typos and got into some really esoteric things that the exam didn't deal with at all. Secondly, the book delved into some areas, like Yourden/DeMarco-style Data Flow Diagrams and some organizational theory, that I think are not relevant to the exam. These topics not addressed in the exam nor in the Microsoft Study Guide. Further, I don't think there's anything in the MSDN Library that would imply that they would be covered. I also think that Exam Cram isn't extremely accurate in how the MSF is represented.

But, it does seem to be your best option for this particular certification exam.

I used this book as my primary study guide for the 70-300 exam and passed last week. Like the earlier versions for the 70-100, this book gives you a great overview of everything that can show up on the exam. The writing style is friendly and conversational, really a pleasure to read. I also recommend supplementing this with the Transcender practice tests.

I just got out of my 70-300 exam, which I passed after a half a day of studying. But that's after passing 70-100 a couple of years ago, and it probably doesn't hurt to have 20 years in the business, more of which was spent in MS technologies than any other. This book made a big difference. My half-day was very well spent, and the information contained in the book was mostly very pertinent. The exam's more about reading comprehension and the details of the case studies than anything else, but you need to be solid on ER and data modeling, and also very clear about which steps are part of which project phase. Also, bone up on your ORM notation. You may never use it in real life, but it will show up on the test.