Preparation materials for MCSD Web Applications certification

I'm happy to announce that today I've become a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) in Web Applications area. To achieve that I needed to pass 3 exams. Here is my short summary of each of them together with some useful preparation materials:

70-480 - Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3

This exam begins your journey to the MCSD certificate. In general it covers exactly what is named in its title: HTML5 & CSS3. You could also use some jQuery knowledge. If you are a web developer with multiple years of experience this should be a piece of cake for you. In case you need to refresh your memory on some topics I recommend watching the free video tutorial at the Microsoft Virtual Academy:

• Developing in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Jump Start

70-486 - Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications

This exam tests your knowledge of the Asp.Net MVC4 framework. To be honest I can't really remember if it includes WebApi questions, but it's worth to learn it anyway, as it's required for the last exam. Again, if you worked on several MVC4 projects there is nothing to be afraid of.

Before I took this exam I browsed the following book to make sure I'm not missing anything:

70-487 - Developing Windows Azure and Web Services

For me this was the hardest exam. It is because it covers a wide range of different topics. All required technologies are somehow related, but at the same time they are independent frameworks:

• Windows Azure
• WCF
• MVC4 WebApi
• Entity Framework
• Other Data Access

Despite the exam`s title I was under impression that there were not that many questions related to Windows Azure. The basic overview of Azure features would suffice to answer most of them. There was a lot of questions related to WCF & Data Access though. Luckily there are excellent study guides available. Here are 2 that I liked most:

• Study Guide #1
  My personal favourite; it relays strongly on pluralsight video trainings, which are usually very good.
• Study Guide #2
  A nice alternative for those of you who don't have access to pluralsight. Most links are referencing free online materials.

If you read/watch all linked materials you will be good to go ;) Good luck future MCSDs!