70-536 was the most demanding Microsoft course I have studied. I passed on the first try (just) but I spent more than a year on and off going through the material. First of all, I read the Microsoft Training book a couple of times before starting on the practice guides. I bought a couple of training kits early – uCertify and TestKing but it took a very long time to get the higher passing scores, and that worried me because if I was struggling on questions I had seen before then would would happen in the real test environment. Obviously I still did not have a good enough grasp of the concepts. I tried taking notes on weak areas, looking at msdn sites and using any forums on the exam I could find. I needed to make the effort to sit this exam or else the motivation would have disappeared and would have been time wasted. I decided to buy Transcender practice exam. It’s a little bit more expensive but what I like is that that explanations are the best of all and for this exam I needed it. I “bit the bullet” and enrolled for the exam and used the practice exams like a madman. I made practice notes on my weak areas but I was not overly confident. I was concerned about the questions that you needed to put in order and the questions where there was not on straight answer. I did find over time in the multiple answer questions that one answer was blatantly obviosuly wrong so that at least narrowed the options. I went for the exam knowing I need to get above 700 and I thought there was 42 questions, which meant that I needed to be positive about 29 questions. One I got in the exam, I was presented with a different format that what I was expecting: we had a case study where there 4 questions, then the 42 questions, then another case study of 4 questions. One thing to note is you cannot go back to the case studies once you have moved on to the main section. You can only review within the section. I breathed slowly and took my time, trying to think that the case studies were just another way of framing the question. So with 50 questions all up, I figured I need to have at least 35 correct if there were all of equal value. I marked the questions I was not sure after reviewed them after I finished the first time through. I tried to add up in my mind how I was going and I knew I was very close to the pass mark with quite a few I was not sure of. After I decided to press the final submit button, I held my breath and hoped and got….700 – right on the pass line. What a relief and what joy! Now I have moved onto my 7-562 and how much deloighting in how much easier the study is. I hope that the hardest exam is behind me.   Good luck to all studying 70-536 and keep going – never give up- pass or fail – you’ll get there in the end. Martin