Product Description

The MCTS 70-431 Exam Cram is a must-have resource in your MCTS 70-431 exam preparation. The Exam Cram focuses on exactly what you need to know to get certified. This includes features like:

• Complete coverage of all 70-431 exam objectives
• Exam alerts, practice questions, notes, tips, sidebars, cautions, test-taking strategies, and time-saving tips
• Access to MeasureUp practice questions and innovative testing software
• The popular Cram Sheet tear card, giving you the key facts you should review before you enter the testing center
• Insight from author Thomas Moore, a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and SQL Server expert who has helped hundreds of students earn their SQL Server certifications

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #450166 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

About the Author

Thomas R. Moore, MCITP, MCTS, MCSE, MCSA, MCSD, MCDBA, MCP, MCT, CSE, CTT+, has been in the computer industry for more than 25 years. Thomas has a wide variety of expertise in all hardware environments and with most Microsoft Server products. “My first and lasting love, besides my wife and family, of course, however, is database programming,” he says. Thomas is comfortable in any programming language environment. He achieved his MCSD and MCDBA certifications from their inception; completed the Microsoft CSE certification as a certified software engineer with Dexterity and Microsoft Business Solutions products; and, most recently, completed the new Microsoft Certifications for MCITP and MCTS on SQL Server 2005. Over the past 20 years, he has been working for a variety of Microsoft partners, and he is currently an intermediate developer/technical consultant with Diamond Municipal Solutions in Paris, Ontario, where he has been for the past four years. Among his myriad IT certifications, Thomas also holds certifications in English and business/technical writing. Thomas enjoys staying up-to-date, although like most of us, he finds it a challenge to keep up with the pace of the industry.

Customer Reviews

Sailing Through SQL 2005
I have six years experience working with earlier versions of SQL Server. SQL 2000 was also the only Microsoft Professional Exam I ever failed (in all honesty I wasn't really ready for the test and still only missed by 2 questions). With the new Vista/Longhorn series coming out I need to update my MCSE and this is the first of the new electives available and a product series I really want to document my competency in.
What makes SQL Server harder than many of the other exams in the MCSE/MCSA track is that you have to deal with a lot of programming issues and on top of that nearly everything can be done from the Command Line (SQL Queries), so you really need to go in knowing a lot of SQL commands. In addition SQL 2005 has packed in a lot of features - CLR (which lets developers interface other programming languages directly to SQL Server), enhanced XML support, a variety of distributed database configurations that can be created, etc.
There was a lot to cover, and there wasn't any test topic area that wasn't covered by this book. After studying the book the next important things are the practice tests at the end. The two practice tests I found to be more difficult than the real test. This is something I consider to be important for a good exam review, because studying the questions I got wrong definitely helped me improve my score. While my poor practice test performance had me anxious on the way in, I ended up scoring .894 vs a passing grade of .700.

A Pretty Good Introduction and Sample Exams
This is a book designed purely to get you a passing grade on the Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist 70-431 test on Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Note that this test is not concerned with the use of a database, there's nothing on areas like programming in T-SQL. Instead it's oriented more to the database administrator.

A lot of exam preperation books are oriented around just the test. This book is written more in a standard text format, and it's a pretty good introduction to setting up the database. Each chapter has a small test to see what you learned, then at the end of the book there are two separate sample tests that are in the same format as in the real examination. Of course here you can then turn to the next chapter and there is the answers to all of the practice questions, something you won't find on the real test.

The book is written in a fairly simple tone so that reading it doesn't put you to sleep quite as fast as a lot of books.

Good for just the test
First of all, I just passed the test with very comfortable score. I did prepare for this test with this book along with MS training guide. It is very difficult to remember exactly where did the questions come from, but here is the overview to those who are starting to prepare.

This book is meant just for this test. It has a very direct focus on the test. Many times, it is much more useful if one has the background information which this book does not necessarily cover. So, in my opinion, starting the preparation with the training guide and finishing with this book is a good strategy to pass the test and also, to become a good DBA ( which is more important).