How I passed 70-480

Over the course of last year and the beginning of this one I went about studying for and completing the 4 SharePoint 2010 certification exams and blogging how I went about it. It’s been half a year or so since I last targeted a certification so I figured it was about time I got back on the wagon and started attempting to gain the SharePoint 2013 certifications. Considering the ‘How to’ posts for 2010 were some of my most popular it would be remiss of me not to document my journey through the 2013 stream in the same way. Kicking things off was the Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 exam.

It was a little different approaching this exam – on the one hand it isn’t really SharePoint per se so it may seem a little out of our collective comfort zones. For me however, it’s what I’ve been doing for a fair while now so I went in to it with confidence. Before going into the resources I used to pass this I thought it worth noting that while I did very well, it was one of the longest exams I feel I’ve sat for – I think it was important to carefully read the questions and work through the answers more than usual, or maybe that was just me. Just a heads up anyway that it probably paid to be a little more careful than usual.

So on to the resources out there to help you pass. To be honest, there is a lot. I was quite impressed with the range of options available – maybe because this was a more generic topic, the range of people completing it (and blogging about it) was greater. Perhaps it’s just because it’s a pretty interesting topic and enjoyable to comprehensively study for.

I took a couple of different angles at it. Firstly I read the articles linked to by Microsoft themselves in the skills measured section of the page I linked to previously. My first impression was that the content was pretty thin, until I got to the CSS section! In hindsight though I think rather than thin it is actually quite targeted – perhaps not comprehensive enough to guarantee a pass, but it covers enough of the topics that you can expect to come up against. I’d suggest they’re worth reading, which is good to know seeing it was the first time I’ve relied on the links provided by Microsoft for a study plan.

The other resource I used was the training videos created by Jeremy Foster and Michael Palermo – Developing HTML5 Apps Jump Start. I couldn’t recommend these highly enough – they were interesting, fun to watch and weren’t ridiculously long (the jump start training series based on these videos can also be completed here). It helped reinforce that the articles linked to above were actually well targeted, and also touched on a wider spread of content, most of it still particularly relevant. Seeing I had a bit of time after I also read Matthew Hughes’ accompanying blog series to which you can find all the links on Michael’s page HTML5 Apps 70-480. I’d suggest it’s particularly wise to read up further on some of the more complex topics you’ll find in the last post – Matthew does a good job linking to extra resources worth reading.

That’s about did it – I found that was a decent amount of study to target my learning to the exam and pass relatively comfortably. I do have a fair bit of experience in these technologies however, so anyone with less may be interested in delving into the topics further using the resources below.

The first type I tracked down were the blogs which broke down the skills measured and targeted links to quality resources to study for them. There was an abundance of these and considering I didn’t use a particular one, I thought I’d list a few for consideration. You could use Chris Myers’ Microsoft Exam 70-480 Study Guide, Becky Bertram’s Exam 70-480 Study Guide, the post Exam 70-480 Study Material: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3, Adnan Masood’s Study Notes for 70-480 Programming HTML5 and CSS 3 Exam, Xtian’s Microsoft Exam 70-480 Certification Tips, Martin Bodocky’s 70-480 Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 – Preparation links or the forum post by Robert Kaucher 70-480 – Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3. The list probably goes on and on, like I said there’s a lot of quality resources out there.

If clicking a million links isn’t your thing then Aidan Ryan created a series starting at Microsoft Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 With JavaScript and CSS3 where you can follow through reading his own study notes in the one place.

Then there’s always the paid options if you find you’re really stuck – the book Exam Ref 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 by Rick Delorme and the nugget series Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 70-480 Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 by Garth Schulte of CBT Nuggets. Unfortunately for these guys, with the amount of free content which is available for this exam i’m not sure how necessary these options would be.

So that about covers it – as you can see there is no shortage of quality resources for this exam, and the content is actually quite interesting and enjoyable to learn so I’d encourage you to dive right into it, play around and complete the exam with a pretty short turn around time. Until next time – good luck!