F1 trainer, Andy Fawcett, talks about his route to MCPD & MCPD certification.

As an F1 trainer, I had to pass the MCTS and then MCPD to teach the new Visual Studio 2005 courses, as well as the Visual Studio .NET courses covered by the MCSD.NET certification.  As an existing MCSD.NET the route was a simple upgrade of two exams (70-553 and 70-554) to obtain the MCPD Enterprise Applications Developer.

I also used my exams as a way of evaluating the practice exam tools that are available, and I have put my thoughts into the table below.

You should remember that these professional exams are a measure of both the technical factual knowledge and the applications of this knowledge in new situations.  It is imperative that candidates have a good working knowledge of the products being tested.

As well as taking the upgrade exams, I decided that to best advise F1 clients I would also take the 70-536 exam, which is the Application Development Foundation exam on each of the .NET Framework Technology Specialist certification routes.  This is always listed first on the Microsoft routes, and only has e-Learning as a teaching method.  The title includes the word 'Foundation' which can be misleading as this is not a foundation in the sense of primary level, but in the sense of low level underlying technology and is quite advanced.  I feel that this should always be taken AFTER attending the instructor-led courses for the technical content.  F1 has since changed the layout of their certification routes to reflect this.

Andy has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer for nine years, and has certifications as a Solution Developer, Application Developer, Technology Specialist and Professional Developer.
 

F1 trainer, Jane Howell, talks about her route to MCITP certification.

As one of F1’s MCDBA qualified trainers, I needed to upgrade my qualification to the new MCITP DBA Certification. I had to achieve this in the quickest time possible because as a Microsoft Certified Trainer I am required to hold the premier certification to be able to train the new SQL 2005 courses.

As an already qualified MCDBA, I only had to take 2 exams to upgrade, the entry level MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) SQL 2005 exam (70-431) and the MCDBA to MCITP upgrade exam (70-447). 

For the MCTS exam I bought the newly published Exam Cram book and used the very helpful Transcender practice tests. Having used both I flew through the MCTS exam without a problem. I found it to be a fairly typical Microsoft exam. The upgrade exam was a different matter – at present there are no Exam Cram books published for this exam, or for the individual exams which combine together to make up the upgrade exam. This left me totally reliant on the Transcender practice exams. It was a life saver. Without it I would not have known that the exam consisted of both normal style questions and individually timed case studies. I found the upgrade exam fair, although considerably harder than the MCTS exam.

I would recommend anyone taking this or the MCTS exam to seriously consider purchasing the Transcender practice tests before attempting them.

Jane has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer for six years, and has certifications as a Systems Engineer, Systems Administrator, Database Administrator, Solution Developer, Technology Specialist and IT Professional.

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