Things you should know about the OCEWSD 6 exam

[a sarkar]

I took the exam today (and passed, here is the result). Things that they do not prepare you for are:

The exam software is pretty bad. Unlike my Sun verification days, it did not alert me about starting the exam. I was given 10 min to read and agree to the privacy policy and usual stuff and when I clicked next, the exam suddenly started. Also, most question statements were missing spaces between words, sometimes making it difficult to read.

Again, unlike before, the exam result is not available immediately after the completion of the exam. Oracle will send you an email with, no, not the result, instructions to retrieve the result from their website. Once you log in, it's not at all intuitive how to retrieve the result. No phone support for certification exams is available and they make you fill a form for help with ETA 3 days! Good use of my $225, I must say.

Some questions are not in any text book and can only be answered with 80% guesswork and 20% experience.

I had fun and gained confidence asking and answering questions here. This is a great place. Thanks for those who helped me here, especially Frits Walraven.

[Frits Walraven]

Also, most question statements were missing spaces between words, sometimes making it difficult to read.

I had similar problems (like non characters inbetween words) and I am sure I saw a couple of bad mistakes.

the exam result is not available immediately after the completion of the exam. Oracle will send you an email

That waiting time is killing.

Some questions are not in any text book and can only be answered with 80% guesswork and 20% experience.

Yes, this certification does cover a lot of things outside of the specs unlike all the other EE6 certifications and that is why it is considered as one of the toughest.

I had fun and gained confidence asking and answering questions here. This is a great place. Thanks for those who helped me here, especially Frits Walraven.

You are welcome and please do stick to the ranch as we can use people like you around here!

Regards,
Frits

[Himai Minh]

Hi, Sarka,

That makes me worry that the exam covers something not in the study materials (Java Web Service Up and Running, MZ's notes, Ivan' notes, ePractice Lab, Enthuware...)
Do you read MZ's version 5 notes ? I heard some version 5 questions may be on the version 6 exam as well.

By the way, if any of you have Java Web Services Up and Running first edition, let me know which chapters or session I can skip. I don't want to distract myself by studying something not on the exam.

[a sarkar]

Himai,
There's no "standard" book for this exam anyway so do expect to be challenged by a few out of the box questions. I read "Java Web Services Up and Running" 1st ed a long time back and didn't use it for this exam. I used the 2nd ed of the book. I didn't skip anything there.
You can read more about my prep material in my exam results post.

[Abhay Agarwal]

Congrats for passing the exam
Thanks for sharing your experience here.
Thanks for letting us know that we use to get exam results after 3 days.

This is really sad that we have some questions in exam from the topics not included in course objectives.
I am not afraid of exam being the toughest .. one can read and gain knowledge and confidence before the exam. .. but having questions (out of course) is bad ....

I think I also agree with you that Javaranch is a good place for Java developers

Thanks
Abhay

[a sarkar]

Abhay Agarwal wrote:
Thanks for letting us know that we use to get exam results after 3 days.

That's not entirely true Abhay. What I meant was that if you'd a problem retrieving your result from Oracle website, like I did, you'd have to create a service request and it may take them up to 3 days to respond. The exam results should otherwise be available within 30 min of completing the exam.

[Jurica Krizanic]

Hi,
were there any questions regarding web service clients?

[Frits Walraven]

Jurica Krizanic wrote:Hi,
were there any questions regarding web service clients?

Yes, there are. This seems logical as web service clients are part of the Oracle objectives:

Create a web service client for a SOAP based web service

Create a web service client for a RESTful web service

Regards,
Frits