Exceptional for exam prep
This book covers the topics not covered by the Microsoft self paced training kit, and is a great suppliment for it. If you already have a strong understanding of the basics (or if you have another guide for the basics) you can use this book to review the more difficult details.
Good book for passing the exam, poor book for WinForms and .NET in general
I'm giving this book 4 stars since I bought it to pass the exam. If you aren't a database/ado.net guru then you might want some supplementary material on use of the DataSet/DataAdaptor/SqlDataReader classes.
As a reference or way of learning .NET programming this book is very poor. I found myself disagreeing with the authors advice numerous times (I've been doing .NET since V1.0 beta 1), but perhaps this just illustrates a flaw in the examination.
IMHO the best WinForms book is Chris Sells' "Windows Forms Programming in C#".
The worst cram book among the three
This book is a very poor extract from the 70-316 training guide by the same author. It is much less readable than the 70-315 and 70-320 cram books.
Great For Passing The Exam
I reviewed three books for the exam; Microsoft's, Chris Sells', and the Exam Cram book. I could have passed the exam with this book alone. Be aware that this book is only good for passing the exam, though. If you want to write a real Windows-based Application, you'll have to implement many more complicated topics than are covered here. As usual, the accompanying practice exam on the CD is not useful, but the content of the book more than makes up for it.
Wouldn't have passed without it
This book does the one thing I needed most: it was a quick reference that covered all the test topics in just enough detail, and nothing more, and the two practice tests are of striking similarity to a real test (the tests on the CD, however, are considerably more difficult than the real test - I failed these and still did great on the real test).
When I opened the book I was only strongly familiar with the C# language proper, the form designer, and some basic controls; when I finished, 2 days later, I had memorized all the necessary little details for a dozen topics I knew nothing about before, including nearly all of ADO.NET. I think I would have failed the exam before reading it, but after reading it I beat the pass mark by a wide margin. One piece of advice: if you're after an MCAD, go ahead and pick up Exam Cram for 70-320, the next exam, and read Chapter 1 to get more important details on ADO.NET.
Now the bad. This book is great for passing the exam in a hurry, but you don't get the in-depth knowledge of and familiarity with the topics you get from hands-on experience. It is true to its name, an exam cram guide, covering only the specific details essential for the exam. I was also displeased that it contained a large number of typographical errors, misspellings, and, worse still, misleadingly used circles where boxes were intended for some questions in the second practice exam. It also made some recommendations of questionable accuracy.
Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking solely to pass the exam in a hurry.
(19 reviews)
