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So, how's the exam?

 
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Did anyone take it today itself? We'd like to know how is it.
- Manish
 
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I am also eagerly waiting. But let people pass 4 hours in the exam room.
 
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I have taken up the exam.
One of the question which had a drag and drop option caused mouse and key boards to stop functioning. Tht bug caused system to crash.
The exam had to be stopped several time because of the bug. I was not able to answer the buggy quettion. I was just wondering if I will be awarded marks??
The exam wasn't difficult but my preparation was not sufficient. Keeping my fingers crossed.
[ June 06, 2003: Message edited by: Pradeep Bhat ]
 
Pradeep bhatt
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The drag and drop created problem for all candidates who took up the exam today. Hope Sun will work on this one. Please test the exam software on all OS.
 
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could you share your experience that how many questions asked in the exam and duration.
Could you please give the sample questions
thanks
bala
 
Pradeep bhatt
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The exam had 183 questions in total and was for 4 hours. I finished off the exam in 3 hrs. I was really frustrated because of the drag and drop bug.
I reached the center at 9 am but was able to give the exam only after 12 PM.
All the questions came from the spec. The EJB roles and DD were a bit difficult because I was not able to rememeber everything.
 
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Could you please give the sample questions
I'm pretty sure this is not allowed...
 
Pradeep bhatt
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Yes, sample questions are not to be posted.
 
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Hi Pradeep,

Now after your experiences with exam, which combination you suggest.
Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans by Ed Roman + EJB2.0 Specs
or
Enterprise JavaBeans by Richard Monson-Haefel + EJB2.0 Specs
 
Pradeep bhatt
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Regarding time, 4 hrs was more than sufficient. You will have sufficient time to enter comments.
It would be better to enter comments once you have finished answering all questions.
I would go for the 2nd combination Richard+spec.
For EJB roles, environment details,security and Deployment Descriptor (DD) ejb spec is recommended.
[ June 06, 2003: Message edited by: Pradeep Bhat ]
 
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Pradeep, thanks for sharing your experience
Can you please answer few more queries...
1) How many questions were there and the level of difficulty?
2) Were their only multiple choice questions, or their were filling the blanks or descriptive type?
3) Approximate percent of questions only related to EJB?
Thanks in advance.
 
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What is "DD"?
Thanks,
 
Pradeep bhatt
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Nice to have a guy with so many certifications!
1) How many questions were there and the level of difficulty?
183 questions. They weren't very difficult. If you read the complete spec you will absolutely have no problems. I was not able to read the spec completely. Since I do not know the pass percentage, I cannot tell you whether I will clear or not.

2) Were their only multiple choice questions, or their were filling the blanks or descriptive type?
There were single,multiple and drag n drop questions. Not sure about the fill in the blanks. Maybe Kathy can help you out!
3) Approximate percent of questions only related to EJB?
All of them were realated to EJB.
Rajesh, Can you please lemme you the secret of your success
You have so many certifications!
 
Pradeep bhatt
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Deployment descriptor elements

Originally posted by Frank Xu:
What is "DD"?
Thanks,

 
Rajesh Pathak
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Thanks pradeep for your prompt response.
Regarding secret of my sucess ,JavaRanch forum and the enthusiastic Ranchers kept me motivated to win certifications one after the other.
For further information please get in touch with me. We both work in the same company-same Project group
 
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Hi guys,
I am a proud friend of Rajesh
Rajesh, you need to tell the success story of yours, in a bit more detail !
 
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Pradeep,
Thank you for emailing me in regards to the problem with the Drag and Drop questions in the beta exam.
I have contacted Prometric and they are working promptly in resolving this problem.
Again thank you so much.
Evelyn
 
Pradeep bhatt
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Evelyn,
Thank you very much for your quick response.
One more issue that I faced was- It was not easy to drag an option and put it into the box. The option does seem to drop easily into the box.
 
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I took the exam in Cleveland,OH today with out any glitch. No issues with drag and drop. You have to remember to drop in the center of the box only!
I found it difficult especially with Message Driven Beans, Depoyment roles and transactions. I have only about 10 months of EJB experience.
 
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May be we guys need some training on drag n drop.
 
kapil kumar
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Drag n drop issue was really bad ! Some of my friends who took up the exam in Bangalore, India has to move to different m/c becoz the mouse wasnt working after a particular drag n drop q was opened. So many guys were was not able to answer the particular drag and drop.
 
kapil kumar
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Hope that bug in test software downloaded from Australia will be fixed.
:roll:
 
Evelyn Cartagena-Meyer
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Unfortunately, the boxes on the testing engine are sensitive. The only remedy is to drag slowly to the center of the boxes. Until the testing engine is improved there is not much we can do.
Sorry.
Evelyn
 
Evelyn Cartagena-Meyer
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Please let the specific testing center know there is a problem. The Prometric testing centers are independently owned, so Prometric needs to fix this issue in India. suncert@prometric.com

Originally posted by kapil kumar:
Drag n drop issue was really bad ! Some of my friends who took up the exam in Bangalore, India has to move to different m/c becoz the mouse wasnt working after a particular drag n drop q was opened. So many guys were was not able to answer the particular drag and drop.

 
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I have scheduled my test on 24th. I got the confirmation also from prometric. I don't think they can cancel my exam once confirmed.
Even if they have rights to cancel it, they should give me prior notice.
What do you think guys ?
 
Pradeep bhatt
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My friend had registered for exam a hour after me but he has not yet received a confirmation.
I was able to take up the exam. I was just wondering if SUN has an upper limit for number of candidates who can take up the exam from each country?
 
Pradeep bhatt
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One more improvement that I suggest
It should be possible to review a Drag and drop Question. This is currently not supported in the beta. Hope Sun will work on it.
 
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I has taken the exam and also has the drag and drop problem in the centre. The OS prompt with the not enough resouce error message (something like that, I don't remember the message exactly ). When I kill the Graphic task in OS (using ctl-alt-del), then I can continue taking the exam. But there also has one question I cannot complete which has the complicate drag and drop task (many boxes).
 
Pradeep bhatt
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The testing center is aware of the problem. They had contacted the Australia for the same but looks like the issue is not resolved

Originally posted by Evelyn Cartagena:
Please let the specific testing center know there is a problem. The Prometric testing centers are independently owned, so Prometric needs to fix this issue in India. suncert@prometric.com

 
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It was tough. The test asked very specific questions with regards to "Who" is responsible for adding this or that deployment descriptor fragment related to security, environment, etc. I read over the spec, and feel I understood the roles and responsibilities fairly well - but I know I was guessing on some of the questions.
I don't consider SUNs view of "Bean Providers" throwing coded-complete, partially configured components "over the wall" to an "Application Assembler" (or any of the rest of the roles and responsibilities) to be very real world. It would be nice - but until you get real-world Project Managers to recognize the roles and responsibilities and assign work along those lines - it's nothing more than a pipe dream. Most projects will be composed of many "coders" (ejb, servlet, JSP... its hard to be choosy these days) - and one or two "tech-leads" will offer design tips, proof of concept implementations and "sew everything together".
I also despise having to memorize the the exact spelling of some XML element - I know what the files are and what types of configurations go in them - I could care less about memorizing the exact XML element or property spelling. Technologies like XDoclet wouldn't be gaining in popularity if others didn't also consider XML hacking of configurations a major weak point of the entire J2EE dev process. Unfortunatly, there were a few very specific "spelling" type questions that tested NOTHING other than the ability to memorize. Oh, well - enough of my ranting.
Some of the drag-and-drop questions were tough, as well. Most of the difficulty was owing to the vague descriptions of a particular "responsibility" or "fuctionality" that needed to be "matched" to an answer. Mostly, the D-N-D questions were just too time consuming. Some of the EJB-QL queries could be writtem many ways - and it was only after trying to "fit" the answer block into the incomplete fragement blocks - that you would realize your "answer" was going to be too long or too short (requiring you to start over).
As long as the questions are clearly worded - I diddn't mind the D-N-D format at all.
My 2 cents.
 
Sai Prasad
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I don't understand why a Buiness Component Developer has to know about the EJB roles??? Also there were too many questions on EJB roles.
 
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I strongly agree. The roles are simply too confusing. A lot of overlaps. In the real world, wouldn't have the luxury to have so many well-defined roles.
 
Del Edwards
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Yes. The questions on roles were strewn thoughout the other questions. Questions about security, deployment, configuration, etc.
Also a lot of questions on when a particular method of Session/EntityContext were "available". It helps to really know the tables in the "component contract" chapters of the SPEC (the ones that show which methods, resources and env entries were available after which method in the life of a bean) - which is a lot to remember since you have a different table for each bean type (stateful and stateless session, CMP and BMP entities and message driven beans). Not sure what to tell anybody about studing for those types of questions that will be of any help - except to deffinitly know the tables inside and out. I ended up drawing the lifecycle diagrams for each bean type and drawing little colored dots next to each method call to signify if the bean, at that particular momement, would have access to: identity of the EJB, caller security context, and transactional context. It helped but after having taken the test - I would have spent even more time cross-referencing the information in similar ways.
I tried to follow the entire list of objectives for the beta - by matching it section by section with section(s) of the EJB 2.0 spec. The test deffinitly covered everything (183 questions). I spent over 3 hours (out of 4), so there is enough time to answer the questions (for the beta) - but some of the nitty-gritty questions about spelling of xml elements, who (which role) inserts which xml element into which document (and when they do it), and questions about which methods or resources were available within which ejb-callback methods or business methods - were very difficult, in my opinion.
To be honest - I have used EJBs in real world projects - but I have only ever used a subset of the functionality. All I knew about EJB-QL is what I read in the spec :roll: .
I may not have passed ( and will not find out for several weeks ) - but I'm glad I took the test - I know I will be able to pass the real test having seen the types of questions and remembering what items I was a little sketchy on.
good luck.
 
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Originally posted by Matthew Anderson:
I strongly agree. The roles are simply too confusing. A lot of overlaps. In the real world, wouldn't have the luxury to have so many well-defined roles.



Count me in too :-)
Hope SUN realizes this and avoids such questions from the actual exam. It's a Business Component "Developer" exam after all.
Otherwise the exam content is excellent. Infact I (developer) remember having performed all the roles that they are talking about.
It's a bad economy, I dont think companies are in a position to hire people for such specific roles.
 
Pradeep bhatt
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I remember reading from Kathys book SCJP-Certification exam tests you on areas which one might not use in real life. I hope I have I have quoted her right.
I am sorry if I am wrong.
 
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