Today I passed 70-483 - Programming in C# Exam

Today I passed 70-483 exam :)... To be honest this was 3 months ago but I was too lazy and did not find any time to write this blog post then so I am writing it right now. :)

I started this year with a simple resolution to get MCSD title till the end of the year, I am not sure if I will succeed in that but I will give my best to accomplish that.

First, one exam to that goal is of course 70-483 Programming in C# and I started to prepare for it a couple of days after new years eve.

In this blog post, I will share with you some of my thoughts about the exam, how I was preparing and some tips that can be helpful for you.

Learning process

There is no such as one book that you can read and be ready for the exam. There is a lot of them out there which can be helpful but I was more concentrated on topics which are included in this exam so that I can do a research or practices on those topics alone or using some other resources besides the official book.

Basically, any good book about C# and .NET will be a great resource for you but not enough, you will see why.

Official topics which are included in this exam can be found on the website of exam here.

At the time of writing this post, there is a second edition of Exam Ref 70-483 Programming in C#, this exam ref book is really good and it will give you a basic idea and knowledge about topics you need to know in order to pass the exam.

I thought that it will be very simple and easy to prepare and pass the exam, but as soon as I started reading exam ref book, I realized that there are some topics that I am not used so much, or at all (e.g. cryptography, assembly loading and other advanced stuff)

So my main strategy was to learn for different resources about topics that I was weak at. I strongly recommend you to take a look at Pluralsight courses for all C# topics out there, they are high quality and really helpful. Follow all courses in Visual Studio, watch them first, and then follow then in VS.

I also recommend you to buy a prep test, for example, I am really happy with MeasureUp prep tests. Using prep tests there is no guarantee that you will pass the exam, but they represent a good learning material which you can use to learn and to test yourself about how much knowledge you have about specific topics before you take official one.

There are also two great courses on MVA for a C# that you can take a look at:

First one is C# Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners by great Bob Tabor, even though MCP exams are not for beginners, the content of this video course is really good and you can remind yourself about some things that you are using but you did not learn it in a right way. Also, a quick reminder if you are a beginner in C# (Learning C# for a month or two, writing the first app with C#) don't even try to take the exam if you are not somehow comfortable with C# and .NET already.

The second one is Programming in C# Jump Start from a great duo Jerry Nixon and Daren May, it is a great course with an overview of some C# features that you will need to know if you want to pass the exam.

Also, I will list some of the great websites that you can find a lot of useful stuff about C# and .NET.

One tip that I can give you is to always take notes, digital or paper ones. Later you can take a look at them and track your progress about topics which you are weak at.

Unfortunately, after I passed the exam, I saw that there is a really good and detailed GitHub repo at official Microsoft Learning GitHub page, you can find it here.

All of these resources are very good and useful, combine them to learn and practices as much as you can, but be aware that there will be some questions that are not covered in official exam prep or some other related resources, just be aware that reading all the books and watching all the videos are not guarantee for you to pass the exam.

MCP exams are not easy and you will need to have some experience and knowledge to pass them.

Process of preparing for this exam was very interesting for me, sometimes stressful but at the end it was worth the effort and time. The best part is that I realized even I have good experience with C# there is always some topics that you are not good at, and you will need to learn and take a lot more time to understand them.

My learning time and the schedule was on weekend days. Weekend days are best for me I have enough time because I am no lifer and I don't have any social life.

... anyway, at the sixth of February 2018 in the morning, I took the exam and...

Day of the exam (aka D-Day)

I am fresh out of college so I have my own strategies when the day of the exam comes. A couple of days before the exam I booked it on Pearson VUE website and I took the 11 AM for exam time.

The night before you can take a look at notes that you make through the learning time of different topics just to keep them in your head, but please don't try to learn anything new, you will lose your sleeping time, if there is something you don't know... the night before is too late for learning it. You will feel desperate and tired.

In the morning I tried to act normal as any other day, using this strategy you are not stressing about exams and your brain can be more relaxed and be more prepared for the exam. The very important thing is to have a good meal in the morning, you will need enough energy for the two-hour exam.

I know I know ... it is hard to eat when you are stressed about exams, but just keep in mind that you can retake it any time in the future. Usually morning before the exam you are ready to take it and pass it, you spent a good amount of time learning and practising, you are enough grown person take time and learn for this exam, otherwise, you would not take it. I hope you understand what I am talking about.

My tip is to determine the date of your exam, with that you will be more motivated to pass it on time, and you will have a concrete goal for it. Learn and practice on time, you will avoid any stress before the exam and be more prepared for it.

The morning before the exam just don't worry about the final result, you will pass it or fail there is no third option. :)

Thanks to God, I passed the exam!

I passed the exam from my first attempt, with a score .... I will not tell you that 🤣, but it was a passing score, it could be higher but at the end of the day passing the exam is only important.

I am not a title/certificate hunter but I love exams and certificates because of their learning process. It is not about the destination it is about the journey they said and I agree with that one hundred percent.

The certificate is only the proof that you took some time to learn and practice certain topics and that you have some knowledge in them, nothing else.

You can see my badge on my Acclaim profile page here.

Date of writing this blog post is the end of May, and I am currently preparing my Xamarin Certification exams, after them, I am planning to prepare myself for Exam 70-486: Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications, which I will take hopefully with God's help in Autumn 2018... as I said my mini goal is to have MCSD by the end of the year am I going to succeed we will see. I will inform you about all updates for my certification path.

I hope this blog post was helpful for you in some way if you are preparing for this or any other exam.

This was a blog post with some of my thoughts and experiences that I wanted to share with you.

Best regards!