Passed SCWCD today with 91 percent . . .

[Shashank Tanksali]

Hi Guys,
Took the SCWCD exam today in Santa Clara, CA and passed with 91 percent.
As is customary on Javaranch,I have put my observations / tips below.
The exam is quite easy than I thought. I knew that I would pass, but was not expecting a score in the nineties.
I have about 2 years experience working with JSP stuff. However since I have work experience mainly on custom tag libraries, I put in about 20 days of effort at an hour a day familiarising myself with the other stuff like developing secure web applications, J2EE design patterns, java beans etc.
I did not use any book meant for SCWCD preparation, nor did I buy jwebplus or whiz etc. I relied entirely on the specs,tutorials and the sample chapters from various books that you can get from the SCWCD links page on this forum.
Among the SCWCD tutorials, I think Alex Dark's and Ken Zrobok's tutorials are the best.
I also took all the mock exams available on Javaranch.
However the best mock exams for SCWCD are not listed on the SCWCD links page. The best mock exams for SCWCD (4 of them) are available at
the jdiscuss site
IMHO, these questions closely mimic the actual exam questions. It would be great if the moderators add a link to this mock exam in the SCWCD links page.
Also there are a couple of annoying mistakes on Sun's part in the actual exam. Sun has not bothered to actually compile the classes on which questions are asked in the exam.
For example, there were two questions where the throws part of the service/doGet method signature was missing and a question was asked about the output generated. Obviously the class would not have even compiled, but "will not compile" was not an option listed.
Also there is an annoying survey of 9 questions at the beginning of the test asking you about your competency levels about the web application development process.
In case, anybody has any questions about the test (except of course the actual questions ), please let me know and I will be glad to be of help.
Good luck to everybody.
-Shashank

[Valentin Crettaz]

Great job Shashank
Took the SCWCD exam today in Santa Clara, CA
I'm pretty sure you went to Chin Chin's, right?

[Shashank Tanksali]

Thank you very much Valentin !!!
Actually, I took the exam in "Tech Data Education" near Applied materials on the Lawrence Expwy and Scott Blvd intersection.
Thanks once again.
-Shashank

[Hema Menon]

Congratulations Shashank!
What's next?
Hema

[Kevin Thompson]

Shashank: Congratulations!
I see you have passed the IBM XML Certification(141 exam). In my opinion, that is the certification that has the least amount of source material(study books, mock exams, study notes) available.
Could you answer these questions for me about the IBM XML Certification(141 Exam)?
What did you use for study materials?
What did you use for mock exams?
Did you use any commercial mock exams?
Could you compare the IBM XML (141 exam) to the SCWCD Exam(Is it much more difficult? Did it take longer to study for?)
And since I have found ZERO study notes available from anybody anywhere, I am going to start asking this for anybody I see who passed the exam ==>
Can you make your study notes available to me?
thanks!
Kevin Thompson
my e-mail address is: [e-mail]

[Shashank Tanksali]

Congratulations Shashank!
What's next?

Thank you very much Hema !!!
I am planning to take up UML certification (if my wife allows it ) . I wanted to take the Rational UML certification, but apparently to take that, my company needs to be a Rational preferred partner or some such thing, which it is not. So I am thinking of taking IBM 486 (OOAD with UML).
Thanks once again.
-Shashank

[Shashank Tanksali]

Thanks Kevin !!!

What did you use for study materials?

I mainly relied on Professional XML 2nd edition and the W3C site for my prepartion. I agree that there are no exam oriented books for IBM 141. I also found the W3 schools site to be useful for getting started.
I played around with Xerces and Xalan, which helped me immensely in understanding the concepts in depth. I did not prepare any study materials of my own mainly due to the fact that I am lazy .

What did you use for mock exams?

I did not use any commercial mock exams. I did take the mock exam at Witscale and the mocks on Javaranch and of course IBM's sample test for 141.
After passing IBM 141, I even created a little mock exam of my own. You can see it here. I will try to add more questions to the mock if ranchers find it useful.
I used the trial version of the Whiz simulator, but it found it had several mistakes and had more code oriented questions than the actual exam. However some people have found it useful in their preparation of the exam.

Could you compare the IBM XML (141 exam) to the SCWCD Exam(Is it much more difficult? Did it take longer to study for?)

I would consider the SCWCD to be much easier than the IBM 141 test. Besides time is a non issue in SCWCD, whearas in 141, you might have a little less time than you would wish. I studied for about 2 months for 141 with about 1 1/2 hours a day on average with very little XML experience before I started.
Several ranchers have posted their experiences and their study notes in the XML certification forum. I think those notes along with the Professional XML 2nd edition will be more than enough to get you through the exam.
You can also see my old post immediately after passing.
Thanks once again and good luck with your exam.
-Shashank

[Kevin Thompson]

Thanks Shashank!
The information you provided is incredibly valuable to me. Thanks for the mock exam too!
Kevin Thompson

[Hema Menon]

Originally posted by Shashank Tanksali:

I am planning to take up UML certification (if my wife allows it )
-Shashank

Shashank,
You're an inspiration! I remember you from the SCJD group, I believe you went back home and got married after SCJD! Well, I still need to work on my SCJD. Then here I meet you again and you already got your xml & SCWCD within a short period. Well, I've been thinking of SCWCD for sometime now Now that I see people like you who had set their mind on getting something done, and did it, me too is inspired to do the same.
Good luck with you UML Exam!
Later,
Hema