.NET Framework 4.0 Certification Beta is Here

The .NET Framework 4.0 Certification beta exams are coming soon. The major points to be noted are as

• Pattern - This will contain 125 to 150 questions and take up to 4 hours and it is different from the non-beta exam by the way that, non-beta will contain only 40 to 45 and you will have a 2 hours to complete the exam.
• When - All but one exam will be available between the dates of March 31, 2010 to April 20, 2010.  Mark your calendars now! They will also be opening registration earlier for these as well.
• Cost - This is the main thing. This exam is free of cost.
• Why is It Free? - They make the actual exams available, at a Prometric testing center, for no charge. This is a step that helps them to increase exam quality by having industry experts evaluate each question, by taking the exam, and providing feedback to Microsoft. They use your feedback to fix, replace, or scrap questions that are technically incorrect, not relevant, etc. You help Microsoft create a better product for your fellow developers that will have to pay for the exam.
• Is this Real? - Even though the questions are not scored at the time you take the exam, they are real questions and the exam is real. If you pass the exam, you earn the certification just the same as if you took it in a non-beta environment. This means you don’t get a pass/fail or score immediately following the exam, but you do get notified 8 to 10 weeks later because we move slow in getting the final scoring in place.
• Who is eligible? – The prep guides will go into more detail about the target audience for the exams, and the links to those will be forthcoming, but, If you use .NET 2.0, 3.5, or 4, and Visual Studio to create software applications using the technologies included in the .NET framework, you are eligible.

But the sad thing is that beta will not run on some countries. They excluded India, China and Pakistan to run beta. So these countries needs to wait until the actual exams get published in 2nd July 2010.