Rating: 
Summary: Reasonable starting point
Review: I have taken and passed the 70-306 exam. Firstly this book is not enough to pass the exam or even anywhere close. What this book is, is an overview of the topics covered by the exam. I used the book and a MeasureUp demo exam which I found very good.The book focuses too much (as far as passing exam is concerned) on details of GDI and details of Security. It has a huge omission in relation to using legacy code & platform invoke. It also doesn't go into enough detail about command line .NET tools (secutil, Mscorcfg.msc, Regasm,...). ADO.NET is a vital part of the exam and the book has a single chapter but its badly written. Its very difficult to understand what actually are not complicated topics. The practice exam is similar in format to real thing but since this is training book its a serious omission that you cannot review your mistakes and learn what the answer should have been. ...
Rating:
Summary: C# .& NET
Review: I just passed C# exam. The book serves as a good introductory material and outlines the scope of test. However, you need to supplement it with other books. Write some code to gain proficiency in concepts. Most of the questions on the test are of "problem solving" type. If your concepts are clear, you should breeze through the test.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs supplements
Review: I just passed the C# and VB.NET tests. The C# test is the harder of the two. About 30% of the C# test is about ADO.NET. I would recommend an additional supplement in regards to data access objects. I passed the tests by memorizing this book and then using the internet to clarify topics that are poorly explained in the book or have typos in the examples (ADO, VB event handlers, command line params, component creation). Also, don't worry about the section concerning System.Drawing - I didn't see any graphics related questions on either test.
Rating:
Summary: Need Pratice Test
Review: I just passed the exam. THis book is not
enough to prepare the exam. Many Items on
the exam are not covered by the book.
You must take the practice test before go to
the test. I get a good package from Internet for
one test voucher and 6 month test practice.
and this help me pass the exam.
Rating:
Summary: Not Quite All You Need
Review: I just took the test and I did manage to pass it. However, there were many items on the exam that were not covered adequately by the book (especially relating to .NET application security and ADO.NET). I would not rely on this as an exclusive source. Also, there were many errors I did manage to find in the book as I went. The most flagrant area for this was the ADO.NET chapter. If you do use this book, be sure to try everything.
Rating:
Summary: A reasonable starting point
Review: I passed 70-316 - but only after purchasing extra exam samples from MeasureUp (who are pretty good btw). If I'd gone straight into the exam thinking that the samples provided with the book were of the same difficulty as the real thing - I'd have failed. The book itself covers all the topics needed, but only in shallow detail. There are pointers to extra reading (mainly in MSDN help) which you'll need to follow to add meat to the books bones. Treat the book as an (expensive) overview rather than a comprehensive guide to the subject(s) in questions.
Rating: 
Summary: Good tutorial/overview -- not enough for the exam
Review: I passed the 70-316 exam today and used this book for preparation. By and large, I like this book -- it is readable, covers most major topics (I especially like the coverage of testing and debugging and of deployment), and has good labs. It is not enough to pass the exam, though -- some topics (for example, publishing policies, the CASPOL utility, XML validation, and dealing with ASP.NET clients) are not covered even though there were exam questions on these topics. The book never stresses what is really important on the exam (from my experience, three single most important topics are ADO.NET, GUI development, and configuring and securing assemblies.) I would advise to supplement reading of this book with practice exams on Transcender and to read a good ADO.NET book before the exam -- this important topic is not covered well in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Good study reference, sample questions pretty realistic
Review: I recently passed the VB.NET (70-306) and C# (70-316) exams by studying this book and the ADO.NET core reference. The examples in the book are of little real-world help, but they get the point across. The sample questions are pretty right on as far as prepping you for the test; the only bad thing is that the answers/explanations don't come with the questions, which is a bit of a pain. All of the questions that I saw on the exams were covered to some degree in the book - some more than others, so you have to pay attention to the fine print. More than once a single sentance in the book translated to a full question on the exam. The book at least gives you a starting point on what to look for.
The ADO.NET chapters are good, but are not enough to cover everything on the exam in any detail. The ADO.NET core reference is BORING, but it gets the job done. If VB.NET is your 'thang' then also look into "Coding Techniques for Visual Basic .NET", I found it to be very well written and the in-book examples are excellent. Hope this helps and GL!
Rating: 
Summary: Rife with error
Review: I strongly warn people not to buy this book. It is full of mistakes and statements that are just wrong. It is highly irresponsible of the publisher to allow such a poor quality book to be put out on the guise that it will prepare someone for a certification exam.
Rating:
Summary: Decent for preparing for 70-316
Review: I used this book and the exam cram book. The combination was more than adequate for passing the exam (scored 862). I didn't like having to remember to skip past the VB code (which is always listed first). The exam tops were covered well but the practice exam included with this book is ridiculously hard. The practice exams provided with the exam cram book were much more like the real test.
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