Dear All - Like many others, I too have been one of the silent listener / follower of this forum. Achieving SCEA has been my dream from at least last 2 years, but life is busy, and you can never decide when is the good time to prepare and go for the test.
Guess what, we are so much involved into our worklife that only 'deadlines' work for us ! After rescheduling the exam for couple of time, 3 weeks back system refused to reschedule it again as my voucher was due to expire on May 29th. So that was the trigger.
I appeared for the exam (310-052) yesterday, and scored 73%. I feel I would have scored quite better if I would have prepared a bit longer ! The exam was by far the toughest that I have appeared for so far ! This forum has really been helpful in pointing out the right resources for preparing for SCEA - Part 1.
I used the following resources for my preparation -
> Core J2EE Patterns ( Book as well as online for quick reference -
http://www.corej2eepatterns.com/Patterns2ndEd/index.htm )
> Cade's SCEA ( for 310-051 ) study guide ( Really good book and keeps you on track )
> Mikalai Zaikin SCEA 5 study guide ( Quite good. Thanks MZ for putting this together. )
> Java EE 5 Tutorial from SUN ( Browsed through complete tutorial, but did not go in-depth, just restricted myself to concept level. )
> Whizlab Simulator ( Good for practice. The actual exam questions are not so straight forward ).
> Moelholm's SCEA Mock Tests (
http://www.moelholm.com/moelholmweb/ ). [ For 310-051, but good for practice ]
> Exforsys Exam Simulator (
http://www.exforsys.com/certification/sun-certification/download-scea-310-051-free-exam-simulator.html ) [ For 310-051, but good for practice ]
> Notes for all objectives from
http://www.sweber.be/SCEA/
I personally felt the Java EE 5 Tutorial is the best to learn all about JEE.
Questions in actual exam were quite lengthy with atleast 50-60% of questions having 2 or more than 2 correct choices. Even though I was completing all Whizlab exams with-in 60-70 minutes, but in the exam I was struggling to finish it under 90-100 minutes so that I can keep the remaining 20-30 minutes for complete review. I felt exam had quite a lot of questions around Web Services, Patterns and Web Tier Technologies.
I feel 5 - 6 weeks would be the ideal time for preparation. Since I had limited time ( around 3 weeks ), thus, I spent around 3 hrs / day on weekdays, and 5 - 6 hrs / day on weekends for this preparation.
Hope this information will help fellow Ranchers in some way or other !!
Well, it's not over yet, so gearing up myself for Part 2 and 3 now !!