Passed IBM 141 today . . .

[Shashank Tanksali]

Like most others who have cleared IBM 141, I cleared IBM 141 today in my first attempt with a not so impressive score of 68 %. But since my main aim was to get certified, I am happy with the score
I did very well in XML Processing section (84 %) and reasonably well in Architecture (72 %) and I did terrible in XML rendering (fortunately this carries only 11% weightage).
As has been pointed out by other guys, it is very important to read XML Schema,DOM,SAX,XSLT.
I found that the time was a bit less, even though I managed to rush through the questions and do one very quick review of my answers.
For my study, I used Professional XML 2nd edition and XML in a nutshell (O'reilly) apart from a bunch of internet literature.
I found that the W3C specifications were surprisingly readable and frankly I think anybody can pass the test without any books, if they go through the W3C site in full.
Thanks to all the ranchers for your wonderful suggestions and help, without which I would have had no idea what I was dealing with.
In case you have any questions, please do let me know and I will be glad to be of help in anyway I can and I will answer all questions on the forum.
Good luck to everybody on the exam.
Shashank
SCJP2,SCJD2
IBM Certified Developer - XML and Related Technologies

[Hussain]

Congracts to You Shashank Tanksali ,
Plz let me know that are U a male or female . I m
consedering you Male right now.
Well i m giving Paper on This Firday . I m still preparing . I have a couple of Question...
1. How Much Coding U Think is Important ?
2. Can i just give paper by reading ?
and lastly just a query , IS their any need of Whiz ?

Bye.
reagards,

[John Wetherbie]

Congrats!

[Ajith Kallambella]

Congratulations Shashank!

[Shashank Tanksali]

Thank you guys !!!
Muhammed,
Since this exam is meant to be programming language neutral, there will not be much emphasis on programming.
However you will find questions, like asking you to choose all the schema/DTD content models which would successfully validate a given XML document, or you might get a question asking you to pick all the XML documents, which would get successfully validated against a given schema or DTD.
In my opinion, even though there will be few code oriented questions on the exam, I would recommend that you play around with Xerces and Xalan (which you can get from http://xml.apache.org) at least for a couple of days. This will help you get a better understanding of XML validation using DTD,Schema and XML processing using DOM and SAX.
Also the parser distribution contains example programs which demonstrate DOM and SAX functionality. Going through these programs will help you enormously.
I personally did not use Whiz for my test preparation as I found quite a few errors in the sample part of the simulator. Besides Whiz is more programming oriented, while the real exam is not. Also some of the questions in Whiz are very long (the XML document runs into around 20 lines and each of the options runs into around 10 lines each). You will not have questions like that on the real exam. Any DTD, Schema or XML document which is provided is usually not more than five lines.

BTW, you can find another XML test simulator at http://www.witscale.com
There are 40 questions on XML.You need to register to take a test. The test is taken online (nothing to download) and it is free.

Good luck to everybody on the exam !!!
Shashank
SCJP2,SCJD2
IBM Certified Developer - XML and Related Technologies

[Hussain]

Thankx
and Congract's and Mubarak again

[Syed AliRaza Zaidi]

Congrats Shashank,
Can u tell me how much time you gave to preparation of XML can i just do it in one month? or one and half?
Thank you and best of luck what is your next certification?

[Shashank Tanksali]

Thanks Syed !!!
Since I was not studying XML full time and was studying only on the weekends, I took about 3 months to study for 141. I did not have any XML work experience before starting my preparation.
I am planning to take up IBM 486 and SCWCD next.
Good luck on your certification.
-Shashank
SCJP2,SCJD2
IBM Certified Developer - XML and Related Technologies

[Hema Menon]

Congratulations Shashank!

[Jim Baker]

Did you use any Mock tests before taking the
real one? If yes, how close are they to the
real one? Thanks.

[Shashank Tanksali]

Thanks Hema !!!
Jim,
Unfortunately, there are not many test simulators out there for 141.
I did not really use any mocks (except of course those from IBM for 141 and 140).
I tried using Whiz (only the free part), but did not find it too good. Some of those who have passed have found it useful to some extent.
I did take the mock at http://www.witscale.com
The problem with this mock is that it has some questions, which are almost same as IBM's mock.
Also some of the questions are of true/false type, which you will not have on the real exam.
I would think that the IBM's sample test is the closest that any mock out there can come to the real test.
Good luck with your certification.
Shashank
SCJP2,SCJD2
IBM Certified Developer - XML and Related Technologies