I took my first Microsoft test today (70-315) and passed with a score of 852/1000… 700 is passing, so I’m not too disappointed.  The score basically means that I missed about 8 questions out of 55.  My worst area was the testing and debugging, which is understandable… When I studied for the test, I picked up all sorts of useful information related to debugging.  Before taking this test, I just thought debugging was setting a breakpoint and stepping through code.  I didn’t know that VS.Net supported condition & hit counts, etc… Apparently, I still have a little more to learn.

I studied for a total of probably 10-15 hours for the test.  This was distributed in some spare time for the last three weeks.  I mainly used SelfTest, after I found out that work had the 70-315 practice test.  I must say that the software really prepared me for the format of the test and allowed me to estimate how long the test would take.  The questions in the samples were slightly harder than the actual test, which is probably a good thing.  I would recommend using that software, if it’s available to you. 

Overall, the test seemed worth it… it makes you memorize the little nuances with Asp.Net and C#… stuff that intellisense would generally take care of for you.  So it was the closest to a college exam (book knowledge) that I’ve had within the last 10 months…

As a side note, I went to the dentist right before (dentist appt. was at 3:30 & test was at 4:30 – barely made it) and had my teeth cleaned.  So I had the extra pleasure of taking the test with the discomfort associated with my freshly picked gums & teeth.