Born to Thrive

My last exam before MCPD Enterprise Application Developer 3.5 (70-565) is the 70-561 exam, which is Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ADO.NET Application Development. ADO.NET is part of almost every exam for .NET developers (70-505, 70-562, 70-564) but this exam covers a lot more material than it is required by other exams. As always, I have started my preparations by looking for some guidelines from people who have already taken the exam and by looking for some good books that I can use for my studying. When it comes to blogs, it is a lot harder to find something as this exam is not very popular so there's not many people who have taken it so far. I could only find those two:
Passed 70-561
Finally, Passed 70-561 Exam
But the only useful information I have found was that there isn't much that can prepare you for this exam besides some real world implementation experience; because it is so new there do not yet seem to be little practice exams. Since I haven't taken the exam, I can't really tell if this information is useful or not. It is generally agreed that having real world implementation experience is the best way to pass the exam. Now there's a few good books that cover all the material mentioned by the exam objectives. I have also found two websites with the exam study sheet:
Exam 70-561 Study Sheet
70-561 Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ADO.NET Application Development - Section I - Connecting to Data Sources
However, those study sheet are not complete, hence they can't really be considered to meet their purpose as they would if they were complete. And that's where books come in handy and MSDN. I will use the following books to study for the exam:
Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Core Reference
Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics
ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook
Professional ADO.NET 3.5 with LINQ and the Entity Framework
Pro Sync Framework
Pro ADO.NET Data Services: Working with RESTful Data
So there's a couple of books for ADO.NET 2.0 that I have bought for my previous exams (I have aso Core Reference and Advanced topics books for ASP.NET 2.0 and I have found them very useful at the ASP.NET exams so I'm expecting that these ones will get me prepared well to the exam as well). The rest of books are specifically ADO.NET 3.5. It seems that I will have to pay a lot of money for those books but to be honest, I buy them used so ie. Pro Sync Framework will cost me only $4 and Pro ADO.NET Data Services - $12. The most two expensive are ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook and Professional ADO.NET 3.5 with LINQ and the EF - each costs $30. I have this comfort that I get reimbursed for the books, otherwise I would buy the books, study and then sell them losing maybe $10, or maybe buying one every pay check. As you see there is no MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-561) book. After having read the reviews I decided that I would be better off buying the aforementioned books. I have found this book reviews very useful and helpful not only because the book is not worth buying but because I could learn more about the exam from people who had taken it and had used the book. Here are some of the opionions people shared about the exam:

• Study database connections and structuring principles
• Study SQL dependencies and notifications
• Even if one has mastered ADO 2.0 API (DbConnection, DbDataAdapter, DateSet, DbCommand, DbDataReader, etc.), it will not be enough to pass as those topics take only 60% of the exam (70% is needed)
• Knowledge about Entity Framework and Sync Framework is required and those topics take 26% of the exam
• Linq To XML - there are conflicting opinions - the exam objectvies don't mention Linq To XML and some poeple said it would be a waste of time to study this topic - at least when studying to this exam is considered. However, someone said that a question on it did turn up on his exam. My opinion is that if you've never worked with LINQ to XML, then you should try it - the learning curve is really low and having experience with this topic does pay off, which you can find out next time you're going to work with XML

One could say that anyone can arrive to the same conclusions only by studying the exam objectives but on the other hand it's always good to know what topics are more likely to appear on your exam. Unfortunately none of the opionions go into details but even though you can learn to practice sql notifications and dependencies or connecting to different databases. Besides, Microsoft exams are not open book exams and that's why they can be used as an evaluation means of one's IT skills.