Rating: 
Summary: Could be Better
Review: This book has a lot of good content. I felt the explanations of the different subject areas were well-written, thorough, and very helpful. Succeeding on the exam is a matter of being able to think through the problems presented to you - not just memorizing isolated facts. This book can help you gain the kind of understanding you need to take the exam.I feel the book is weak in terms of focus on the exam itself and the sample tests, etc. Many of the exam questions were very poorly worded. They don't give you enough information to make a really good decision. In some cases they were just plain wrong. (Fortunatly, I didn't find that to be the case with the real exam.) One really dissapointing thing is the way the big practice test at the end nearly repeats a lot of the individual chapter test questions. So, the information in the book is good but somebody who really knows testing methods needs to rework it. Also, I think the book emphasizes areas (e.g. replication, full-text search) that aren't stressed very much on the exam. Conversely, it seemed not to cover other areas (security and performance monitoring) very adequately. This book needs to be proofread thoroughly and corrected. The CD only contains a softcopy of the book itself plus some kind of sample test. (Since the sample test in the book were so poor, I didn't waste any time installing and taking the test from the CD.) A very useful addition would be a CD containing enough data to build a reasonably large database. This could be used to give practice in creating, loading, and then running performance tests, etc. "Northwind" and "Pubs" just aren't big enough to do this.
Rating:
Summary: A good resource
Review: This book is a good resource for people who want to learn more about SQL server 2000 programming, but don't soley rely on it if your goal is to pass the exam. I used both Transender and this book and passed the exam.
Rating:
Summary: a newly minted MCAD
Review: This book was marginally helpful in passing the 70-229 test, which I did earlier today. Don't get me wrong, I love the Que study guides, but this is not one of their best efforts. For example, the Que guide for the 70-320 test is a gold mine of sample code and working get-to-the-point examples. It was critical in my passing that one. This one is just a little too general and a little too non specific. If you want to nail this test, get the transcender practice tests and leave this on the shelf, or use it as a supplemental text and try another study guide.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good, save for a few typos
Review: This is a very useful book, and it helped me both on the job and the exam. The practice exam was especially beneficial, as some of the questions on the real exam happened to be from the practice exam. Good advice on what to concentrate on in your studies. Together with Transcender, this book really prepares you for the exam. The only problem with this book is an excessive number of typos which kind of hindered the learning process.
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