Mcpd

Nature Boy

Hi,

I'm just wondering has anyone ever done - or know anything about - the Microsoft Certified Professional Developer course? Is it worth while? Does it make much of a difference in terms of job prospects?

Hobbes

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=882

Evil Phil

Moving to I.T. Certification.

Ginger

I have the MCPD Web and I am sitting the upgrade exam for MCPD Windows on Tuesday. Plan to get all 3 and then sleep for 2 months!

There are currently very few MCPD worldwide ~1500 as of 1 March 2007 (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/certified.mspx) and the brand itself is still getting itself up and running. So many people might not be asking for it because they dont know its out there. The MCAD/MCSD are seen as the standard at the moment for .NET programmers.

Like any qualification that is out there, it shows you can learn to get it. If its backed by practical experience you stand a good chance over someone that has the same experience but no cert.

Having it on its own doesnt really help unless you are straight out of college.

I would say go for it, but its tough, it does take long hours and lots of work to get them.

You need to do 70-536 for any of the MCPDs but once you have it, it counts towards any of the other ones. You then need the necessary other exam for the MCTS and then the PRO exam. These can be done in any order but I would say do them in numeric order.

Books out there, but a good idea is look at the skills matrix and run through it. Also on some of the skills matrices there are sample questions in Word Doc format to help you see if you are getting there. Use them only as a guide rather than indicater that you know it.

Best of luck with it and let us know how you get on

BostonB

Ginger wrote:

....Books out there, but a good idea is look at the skills matrix and run through it. Also on some of the skills matrices there are sample questions in Word Doc format to help you see if you are getting there. Use them only as a guide rather than indicater that you know it. ...

Which/What Skills matrix?

Ginger

Each exam has a skills matrix (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-547.mspx#E1E) the 70-547 one for example

BostonB

Tks

Ginger

And if you are doing any of the upgrade exams here is not to take it!!!

Go in already to get going, do the usual pre exam stuff click yes and Ok a million times

Start off, get the first initial questions done and happy with the answers, get half way through the 1st section when you come to the part that you know is going to screw you. Do your best on it, feel like you havent managed it and fly through the remaining 2 exam parts.. come out after failing and realise that it was the last exam part that screwed you up not the first and getting very annoyed for losing your cool in the exam!!!

Well thats what happened. The exam is split into 3 sections each section is a smaller version of the 3 parts of the MCPD. I did well on the 70-526 and 536 and screwed up 70-548 which is seriously annoying because I thought i had busted myself on the 70-256 part. Final score 613.

Oh well sit it again next month..

CuriousBunny

I am having trouble finding where I can sit the relevant exams for the MCPD - for me this would be the MCTS exam pre-requisite (Exams 70-546 & Exam 70-548) and then the Exam 70-547.


Any info on where to sit these exams in Dublin would be appreciated. I have had a look at numerous schools that offer Microsoft courses but as the mcpd
is relatively new I cannot seem to find a center that holds the exams for it, never mind the course.

Ginger

Try the main two

http://www.vue.com or http://www.prometric.com

They will show where you can sit them... Sureskills and there is a place just off Jervis

I sat the exam in house. We have a Pearson Vue testing centre downstairs and we can sit exams there.

CuriousBunny

Hi,

Thanks a million, it appears New Horizons give the exams, I used the link below

http://www.register.prometric.com/Centers.asp


Good luck with your studies!!

PixelTrawler

Hi Ginger

I'm aiming for 70-547 (WEB) at the moment.
I'm currently preparing for the first one 70-536. I've gone through the book, done the all the labs, and am working through practice software by Selftest Software but I still can't really gauge if I'm ready. How did you fare at 70-536? And how much work did you put in.

From the samples it looks like you could get asked and get caught out by the most obscure questions on the declaration of a particular object or the parameter of a constructor etc. It looks to me you could get lucky and know your stuff or a couple of nasty ones could come up that you didn't quite prepare for.

Ginger

70-536 is the .NET 2.0 Framework.

Its tricky alright, there are some interesting things on the exam. If you look at the exam matrix for it you will see what they are expecting to test on and being very honest it matches that closely.

A lot of it you need to have come across in a work or pratice scenario to be able to deal with it but its fairly comprehensive.

I work in .NET 2.0 all the time and I am doing some fairly nifty web apps and I can tell you that some of the stuff I was very lucky and just had happened to have used it before. When i did 70-536 it was the first time in my upgrade exam and I scored 85->90% on that section.

If i was you, go through the matrix and have knowledge on the particular objects that they can examine. Pay particular attention on how to use the objects in a normal day to day operation.

PixelTrawler

Sounds like a handful!

I've worked with .net 1.1 full time for 3 years now and over the last few months I've been trying to drag our group over to 2.0 but I don't have a lot of day to day experience in it just yet, although having said that I have a fair knowledge of the features and benefits of .net 2.0.

I have built a few small apps in 2.0 but i've nothing like the experience I have in 1.1

Anyway looks like I need to keep revising so! Good advice on the matrix by the way, as I hadn't been following that as a map to study, I'd been using the 70-536 MS Book, which seems patchy in parts and badly written in sections.