I agree with some of the feedback here. This is not a book for learning ASP.NET. But then the book does state this early on. By all means read my review, even if for an experience, but I wouldn't until you have had an experience with ASP.NET and Visual Studio. To appreciate this book for any benefit you can find from it, go on a course first.

This book is intended only for exam preparation and in places, it serves it's purpose well here. The official Microsoft textbook for the course is just as thick and goes into tremendous detail and manages to use simple language in places. It doesn't convey the exam experience, but then it's not designed to! I made essential notes for the first 10 chapters and, typed up, I have 5 pages. The first 10 chapters comprise 200! The MS textbook has demonstrations, practices, and explanations, which explains why it is so thick.

From what I can tell, in sitting the exam Microsoft don't expect you to be a world class ASP.NET developer. Microsoft appear mainly concerned with ensuring you can concentrate in intricate detail (trying not to scare you: the difference between some understandings is just one word), think according to the understandings and concepts associated with the task at hand (and remember them), and that you are virtually fluent with the tools and the technologies. I wouldn't sit the exam if you haven't played with Visual Studio and made at least a simple Web application. Judging by some of the sample questions, Microsoft assume you have done so and because you gain knowledge in the process, such as realising that a button doesn't have to be coded for other parts of a Web form to work. Programming skill comes with time and Microsoft are kind enough to understand this.

One lesson I drew from a sample question is that I need to read the exam question *very carefully* and study the provided answers with the same care. The exam is multiple choice so the real test is making a judgement call. This is just one of the daily skills involved with programming.

If you know the ASP.NET technology to the dot (at least to the knowledge requirement of the official course book), can read code and follow what its doing (whether correct or not), think programmatically (the science of writing a program), applying all applicable knowledge in the process, and devise a solution provided it solves the problem, you should pass the exam with flying colours.

That's quite a read I know, but then so is this book and only attempt it if you have done a course on ASP.NET. And, in my opinion, only read it to test yourself for readiness; to get a feeler.

I passed the exam using this book. I use .Net at work and read one intro book before this one. This is a good book and good practice tests at the end of the book tested skills that the exam tested. I actually saw very similar questions on the test. Some of the sample questions did not come from the text of the chapters, which I see a lot of people complain about, but I was OK with that. They do explain in the opening chapter that this should not be used to learn the basics of the language.

One thing to note is that the Prep Logic exams included on the CD are awful. I've tried the ones that came with the 70-305, 70-306 and 70-310 books. All of them had blatant errors. For the 306 Prep Logic I did the first 5 questions and every one of the answers was blatantly wrong. Que really should dump those guys as the Prep Logic quality reflects poorly on their excellent books.

If your goal is to pass the exam then this book is for you. This is not a book to learn ASP.NET. So you should not expect any basic stuff. Read other books to learn ASP.NET then use this to pass the exam. I highly recommend it. I read it and gave the tests at the end and passed in the first attempt.