Just passed with 92% - great tips!

Hi to all,

I passed today with 92%. It was just like I expected... not too easy nor too hard. I did 75% on head first mock SCWCD exam.

My main tip is, with Head first and some complementary mock exam (the free ones are ok)) and some reading of the specs, you should pass with 80%+ easy. But if you want 90%+ you should consider JWebPlus - I had at least 5 questions that wore 99% equal on the exam, plus a lot more that really helped.

I think that it's possible to do a perfect score on this exam, with some luck and a lot of study. I didn�t bother to revise my questions, if I did maybe I would score like 4% more.

My other scores are 96% SCJP and 90% SCJA (Associate).

Questions:
- 2 questions on dynamic-attributes. (this tutorial is more than enough: link to tutorial)
- 5 or 6 on J2EE patterns
- 1 on http form POST / GET methods mapped to doPost / doGet servlet methods
- 3 questions with doService() overwritten
- 1 or 2 with init() overwritten, including one that throws an especial type of Exception (UnavailableException) that the container can try again to init later.
- 2 or 3 on jsp documents (xml)
- 3 or 4 on <jsp:useBean ...> tag - the main concept they tested wore scope (default page) and the fact that the body does NOT run if a bean with the same name already exists in the declared scope
- 2 on <jsp:import ...> - the concepts they tested wore scope and the fact that this is a run-time import
- 5 or more on other <jsp: ...> tags
- 3 on <c:set ...> two with var and one with target, all of them strait-forward if you have HF.
- 2 on where dtds should go (deployment)
- 3 on what is required when deploying using WAR files (on of them a little confusing, make sure you got it right).
- 3 on <login ...> deployment descriptor and related tags. Main concept tested: that you are doing the authentication part of J2EE security, and types of authentication, it's security strength etc.
- 5 or so on other security J2EE aspects and DD tags.
- 4 or 5 testing if you know what object (request, ServletContext or response) can give you request dispatchers, among other related objects).
- 4 or so on servlet and context init parameters, pretty strait-forward.
- 3 or so on filters, strait-forward.
- 1 or 2 on what happens with sessions after a explicit call on invalidate(), make sure you got it right.
- 5 or so on simple tags, all of them easy, 2 of them big ones (somewhat confusing, still easy, I got 100% on tags). Concepts tested: if you know that the main method is doTag() (instead of doStartTag), if you know how to map attributes from TLD to methods (javabean convention), if you know how to access parent tags and 1 question tested if you know how parent tags can access child tags (remember, there is NO getChildXXX() methods, the child tag must register itself with the parent tag invoking getParent() - the HF book covers this gracefully, as always. Other question tested if you know how to iterate and count how deep the tag is.
- 3 or 4 on listeners, very, very strait-forward.
- 2 or 3 on <%@ taglib...> directive (there's not much to ask about it anyway).
- 1 on exclusive tagfiles directives (make sure you know them, at least their names).
- 8 or so on EL, strait-forward.
- 1 on <el-ignored> DD tag (remember it's not <is-el-ignored>!!, don't confuse with the page directive isELIgnored attribute).
- 3 on el functions, one testing if you know that the method has to be public static, other testing if you know how the signature on the dtd should be, and other on how to call the function using EL
- 2 or 3 on how to encode URLs, and when to use encoding (button line is: always encode all URLs so in case there�s no cookies enabled, jsessionid request attribute gets on all URLs).
- 1 question on <c:url... > tag, pretty easy
- 1 or two questions on how to add a request/session etc parameter using request, request.getSession() etc
- 2 questions testing if you know that request.getParameterValues() returns Enumeration, not a List or an array.
- 2 questions testing if you know paramValues and headerValues EL implicit vars and how to access them (it�s not paramValues.1, it�s paramValues[1], and the first one is zero indexed).

Plus:
- 3 or 4 easy drag and drop questions, one on listeners, other on <@ taglig ...> directive and other ones on DD tags.

That's about what I can remember write now.

Last good tip: this url gives the official objectives of the exam, I felt the exam pretty faithfull to this objectives, so keep them (especially on the last couple of days before the real thing) and make sure you fell confortable with all objectives.

Good luck to all!!

[ October 17, 2005: Message edited by: bengt hammarlund ]
[ October 17, 2005: Message edited by: bengt hammarlund ]

congrats

THANKS!

Congrat

Thanks for the number of questions

Congratulations!!!

Cheers,
Chandra

Congratz !!!

Hello Bengt,

Thx a lot, u r one of the few guys those who r spending this much time in giving brief tips (AFTER TAKING THE EXAM) to the ranchers... I really appreciate you.

Cheers,
Sethu.

Hi Bengt,

Congratulations on your success.

regards.

thanks guys. I wanted to give a really good ideia of what to expect of the real thing, so the ones that did not took the exam yet could have an ideia of what is important (to the exam, not to real life development - but this is another discussion!)

Congratulations on your success and thanks for your tips.

Well done 92% - thats a great score

Mat

Congrats Bengt,

That's an awesome score, and we're glad the book helped!

Bert

hi bengt

congrats.
u had given a wide overview of scwcd exam pattern paper
can u do one more favour for us .
tell something about design pattern .
generally people say design pattern questions comes from
out of course objective, can u put some light on this fact.
and please tell how to study design patterns.

Hi Bengt Hammarlund,
Congratulation

Realy How you have manage these score....
Could you tell me how many days you have taken for the preperation
Are currently working on these technologies

Just for shake of information...
REGARDS
GANESH PUNDE

suncertganesh@rediffmail.com

Hi!

Just how important is reading through the specs? How did you manage to read through 700 pages and keep evrything in mind? Can I skip it and still afford to pass the exam?

Thanks

Hey There SUN CERTIFIED JAVA PROGRAMMER (it's really Ganesh isn't it?)

Please change your display name - we've found it helps keep JavaRanch friendlier!

Thanks

Great Score.Thank you very much for your valuable tips.

cheers,
Krish

Originally posted by rakesh mittal:
hi bengt

congrats.
u had given a wide overview of scwcd exam pattern paper
can u do one more favour for us .
tell something about design pattern .
generally people say design pattern questions comes from
out of course objective, can u put some light on this fact.
and please tell how to study design patterns.

the design patterns questions are a little subtle, I got like 2 or 3 that I had to mark to come back to later. But I think that the HF book cover it gracefully. Don't forget to do as many mock exams as you can, especially on that.

Originally posted by Sumithab Baskaran:
Hi!

Just how important is reading through the specs? How did you manage to read through 700 pages and keep evrything in mind? Can I skip it and still afford to pass the exam?

Thanks

Yes you can skip the specs. But the specs can get you a clearer picture of how some specific stuff works. Nothing that would really matter to the exam itself, but it would make a difference in your knowledge, and knowledge IS power.

I did read the specs especially on specific areas like JSPs and how servlets should be deployed.

[ October 24, 2005: Message edited by: bengt hammarlund ]
[ October 25, 2005: Message edited by: bengt hammarlund ]