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70-513 vs 70-511, which one first? RRS feed

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    Hi, I'm planning to take 70-511 and 70-513 exams as my first ever certification attempt.

    My question is: which of these 2 is easier and should be attempted first? Would one of them lay a good foundation for the other?

    The reason I ask this is because the MS book for 511 is not out until Feb. The MS 513 book is not planned (?), and I will probably have to use 503's book instead. If I attempt to prepare 511 first, I'll have to wait until Feb; if I prepare 513 first, I can start now by buying the 503 book. I would like to prepare and pass one exam before starting another. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    I'm fairly new to .Net. Have used C#.Net a little bit at work, but my jobs in the past couple of years have been C++ focused. So I'll probably need a lot of time to read and practice with .Net before trying for the exams.

    Thanks in advance.

    Wednesday, January 26, 2011 1:55 AM

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    The 70-511 and 70-513 exams are, respectively, about WPF and WCF, regardless of what their title says. Both are TS-level, and both have a similar difficulty, requiring a relativley profound knowledge of the corresponding technology. So none of them is "easier" than the other one; the level of difficulty would depend mostly on how familiar you are with the subject matter.

    The preparation materials for 70-503 will help you to start preparing for 70-513, but they won't be enough. The 70-513 exam covers a lot of functionality that is new in version 4.0 (check the "skills measured" tab in the exam description page). You may need to look up in MSDN each of the entries in the list, and practice on your own. It's not terribly difficult if you are experienced at developing this type of apps, but if you are fairly new to .Net you should set aside a good amount of time for training yourself.

    • Marked as answer by StephieM Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9:30 AM
    Wednesday, January 26, 2011 8:05 AM
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    It's difficult to tell. As a trainer, I typically teach WCF as a three-day course. However, while the students are frequently newbies in regards to WCF, they tend to be experienced developers who are already familiar with wrinting all kinds of applications with Visual Studio. Also, while the three-day course delivers all the fundamentals of WCF, there are always some topics that are required for the exam but not covered in the course, so the students spend at least a week reviewing and looking up the additional information within sources such as MSDN.

    Similarly, the WPF course is also three days long, but the atendees, even if they are completely new to WPF, are usually very experienced in developing conventional Windows Forms applications, and they still need a few additional days for reviewing before they sit the exam.

    • Marked as answer by StephieM Thursday, January 27, 2011 11:04 PM
    Wednesday, January 26, 2011 10:05 AM

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    The 70-511 and 70-513 exams are, respectively, about WPF and WCF, regardless of what their title says. Both are TS-level, and both have a similar difficulty, requiring a relativley profound knowledge of the corresponding technology. So none of them is "easier" than the other one; the level of difficulty would depend mostly on how familiar you are with the subject matter.

    The preparation materials for 70-503 will help you to start preparing for 70-513, but they won't be enough. The 70-513 exam covers a lot of functionality that is new in version 4.0 (check the "skills measured" tab in the exam description page). You may need to look up in MSDN each of the entries in the list, and practice on your own. It's not terribly difficult if you are experienced at developing this type of apps, but if you are fairly new to .Net you should set aside a good amount of time for training yourself.

    • Marked as answer by StephieM Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9:30 AM
    Wednesday, January 26, 2011 8:05 AM
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    Thanks so much Alberto! I'm more familiar with WPF than WCF, so I'll try to do 70-511 then. I'll look up MSDN while waiting for the 511 book to come out.

    I'll use 503's book (unless 513's book comes out), and look up and study the changes in version 4.

    Are you able to give an estimation (based on your experience) how long it would take for a newbie like me to prepare for each exam? One month? Three months? I don't know anyone who has done these 2 exams. I'm working fulltime, so it'll be only evenings and weekends.

    Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9:29 AM
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    It's difficult to tell. As a trainer, I typically teach WCF as a three-day course. However, while the students are frequently newbies in regards to WCF, they tend to be experienced developers who are already familiar with wrinting all kinds of applications with Visual Studio. Also, while the three-day course delivers all the fundamentals of WCF, there are always some topics that are required for the exam but not covered in the course, so the students spend at least a week reviewing and looking up the additional information within sources such as MSDN.

    Similarly, the WPF course is also three days long, but the atendees, even if they are completely new to WPF, are usually very experienced in developing conventional Windows Forms applications, and they still need a few additional days for reviewing before they sit the exam.

    • Marked as answer by StephieM Thursday, January 27, 2011 11:04 PM
    Wednesday, January 26, 2011 10:05 AM