I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago but unfortunately I didn't get the chance to. Anyway... I was a little bummed out to find that the ASP.NET 3.5 Beta Exams were being offered to MCP holders until late April (I believe it was up until yesterday), but unfortunately NOT A SINGLE EXAM SITE IN PHOENIX can house this Beta Exam.

I spoke to a ProMetric rep who stated that the exam sites such as Interface, ValorIT, and even ProMetric's own testing facility were not a high enough site rating. Apparently they need a level 4 site rating to hold these beta exams, these sites only obtain a level 3 or less rating.

Upon further inspection, the closest testing facility that would allow me to take this Beta exam was at Yavapai College in Prescott, AZ (see map below). Look how far away that is:

<-- Here's where it is in relation to Phoenix.

The part that baffles me is how Phoenix can be in the top 5 largest cities in the USA (I can't find my reference for when we passed Philly, but I heard we did somewhere - If I'm wrong, oh well) and we don't have a testing facility that allows us to take Beta Exams. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that we even have facilities that do this, but I'm amazed that a city of this size does NOT have a level 4 facility in the metro area. Literally, the metro area almost spans nearly ~100 miles in diameter.

Anyway, I'll hit up the exams when they're released. No big deal. :) I was just amazed that we didn't have the capacity to hold these exams.

Here's the links for the .NET 3.5 Study Guides:

ASP.NET Application Development (70-562)

ADO.NET Application Development (70-561)