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Rating: 
Summary: This book should get you the 70-310
Review: I used this book and the examcram book to pass the 70-310. The main drawback is that you get a very light explanation of the topic and then are thrown immediately into the code examples and never feel quite like you understood it. But, I was able to pass the test with this book alone (and sample questions from examcram).
The remoting chapter is pretty good, as well as the XML stuff. Experience with Com and Unmanaged DLLs is helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Text for the Certification Exam
Review: This book is not perfect, but it is the best one you can get in order to prepare for the XML Web Services and Server Components certification exam. That is based on my own experience in using this book and in passing the exam. Mike Gunderloy is a very good writer, and I purchased the book sight-unseen based on the quality of his ADO.NET book that I had previously read. As page one says, "Every objective is covered in this book." Chapter Four covers Basic Web Services, and Chapter Five covers Advanced Web Services. The book also covers .NET Remoting, Windows Services, and Component Services just as much as it does web services which is very important. The "web services" exam, as it is commonly known, actually covers these other topics just as much as it covers web services. It had been a few years since I last purchased a certification book from Que press, and I can say their quality has improved quite significantly. The format of this book is wonderful. There are plenty of sidebar notes, exam tips, frequent review breaks, step-by-step code examples, review notes at the end of every chapter, and sample review questions. There is also a handy Fast Facts review chapter in the back along with a practice exam. My only complaint is that I found the .NET Remoting chapter to go on forever. The remoting chapter in Jeff Prosise's Programming Microsoft .NET really pulled the topic together for me. It had been awhile since I used the various XML classes in .NET. I also read Dino Esposito's Applied XML Programming for Microsoft .NET (look up my review on this book) in order to get in-depth coverage of the .NET XML object model. The remoting and web services chapters in this text also helped reinforce everything. Terry, MCAD and MCSD for Microsoft .NET
Rating:
Summary: Most of what you need for 70-310/70-320
Review: While I was going for the C# track, a friend of mine was going for the VB Track and decided to buy this book. By the time I got to this exam, I just borrowed his book and studied it. Passed the test today (with a score of 898) and I found I was not prepared in four areas. Two of them I read in the book (calling unmanaged code, Deployment) and felt the book's coverage didn't completely cover the test material in these areas, but was close enough to do okay. The other two, I relied on knowledge from previous exams (Security) or past job experience plus skimming (COM+) and I really should have studied those areas harder in the book. Two areas are not covered by the book and they are MUSTS for the exam. ADO.NET is a skill you are expected to have for any of the exams. I would suggest finding a good ADO.NET book and write a lot of examples using WinForms or WebForms (whatever you are comfortable with) and exploring Datasets, Datatables, Dataviews, Filters, etc. The other is ASP.NET, particularly configuration, security, tracing and caching. Take 70-305/70-315 FIRST. And yes, this book + Measureup (which was excellent) were my main resources.
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