OK, I am one of the bad examples out here, so I have more DON'Ts than DO's to say.
I started preparing for SCWCD about 1 year ago. I revised the book (HFSJ) at least 3 times. I planned to take the exam in January this year, but I procrastinated to February. I joined in a new company at that time so I thought I would resume this pursuit for my certification once I get settled in my new job. I got settled, but I never took it in March or April.
After a while I felt I had the time to take the exam (somewhere in June) but I didn't have the momentum I had before so I thought I would start everything all over again and do a couple of revisions and then take the exam. But when I was re-reading I felt boring.
You guys get the point by now. I procrastinated many times... And I finally thought I would give the exam. I did my final Mock exam in HFSJ and I scored 61%. I didn't bother to look at the questions I did wrong. I went to the exam hall and I finished it in about 1:00 time. I didn't bother to go for a second pass because I was so fed up with myself and I just wanted to end this (for a moment I thought of doing a second pass and I had a slight little fear of failing, but then I wanted to fail cause I thought it would teach me a good lesson). But luckily I passed, thanks to Head First and the authors... They made the book so good that you can't fail, yes, YOU CAN'T FAIL. In fact, I think my score is decent considering that I have no experience in
Servlets &
JSP. I was just too confident. Or may be I was just stupid.
Let me go to hell, but here are the DON'Ts I have for all the guys who are preparing any certification:
1. DON'T PROCRASTINATE: It's a bad bad habit. The sooner you take the
test (after you completed your first thorough learning), the better.
2. DON'T LOOK FOR PERFECTION: Yes, if you think you want a score of 95%+ and you don't feel like you will get it, then just don't go for a another thorough pass of the entire book because you will lose interest.
3. DON'T LOSE YOUR MOMENTUM: Don't ever let your momentum or your examination studying flow go, if you do, get back as soon as possible. Believe me, I faced this. Once you are not in that mood, you will be desperate to complete but you may not have the same enthusiasm and confidence with which you were going through.
I have one complaint. The exam had 80 questions of which they said 20 of them are experimental and the worst part is, they didn't tell which 20 of them are experimental. Before the exam also, they had about 11 questions like: Are you an expert or intermediate or novice in Servlets? Are you an expert or intermediate or novice in JSP? Are you an expert or intermediate or novice in EL? You get the point... The examination was way too long. This was rubbing more salt on my wound.
Next up, I am planning to do a certification in databases, probably
this one. Please let me know your suggestions on the database certification for a developer. Whatever the next certification I may plan to take, I decided to just nail it down. Hope you guys will nail your current one...
-- Srikanth