Passed the exam

[Jeni Jay]

Hi Guys ,
I just cleared the exam .I got 68% not a good score though .

Here is the split up :

Architecture : 70%
Information Modeling : 66%
XML Processing : 61%
XML Rendering : 100%
Testing And Tuning : 66%


This forum helped me a lot to prepare for the exam and clear it. What a big sigh of relief after completing and passing it.

I had just about time to complete the exam and no time to review ,'cos I spent more time in the intial questions .I would advice future exam takers to plan and do proper time management ,so you have enough time in the end to review (unfortunately I din't)

Preparation Time: 2 months

Resources: mostly the resources as mentioned by other IBM-141 certified professionals and I also bought the IBM sample test for $ 10 .

Books that I bought

1) Professional XML (2nd edition ) By WROX publication (read ... read..... read... )
2) Professional XML schema ( Good book for thoroughly understanding the Schema concepts)
3) XML - how to program by DEITEL & DEITEL (This book does not cover all the chapters required for the exam . some chapters are good like DTD .you do not have to buy the book the sample chapter is avaialable in the link
http://www.javaranch.com/gramps/XMLLinks.jsp under subtopic "OTHERS" -->
"XML How to Program " .


Links that I used for preparation:

1) Processing XML with JAVA

2) ZVON ( VERY good site for XSLT and others . Go through this examples once you have read the Professional XML 2nd edition book )

3) XLINK ( Good to start with this link and then read the chapter in Professional XML 2nd edition)

All the mock-up tests in the forum were very useful .

Below I have pasted some links and information based on the topics related to exam

1) Well Formed XML / Valid XML ---> Read Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 1 .

2) XML SYNTAX ---> ( Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 2 , chapter 3 also read about Infosets (chapter 4) . I got some questions regarding infoset )

3)DTD ---> Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 5 , DTDlink,
ZVON - DTD Tutorial

4)XML SCHEMA ---> Professional XML Schemas by WROX publication chapters 1,2,3,4 and also read the APPENDIX A in this book which is very useful (gives a broad view of the different functions and elements used without getting confused)

5)Namespace ---> Professional XML Schemas by WROX publication chapter 6, URL=http://www.zvon.org/xxl/NamespaceTutorial/Output/index.html]ZVON-NS-Tutorial[/URL], Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 6

6)DOM ---> Professional XML 2nd edition chapter11,URL that I had pasted earlier for Processing XML with JAVA chapters 9, 10, 11, 12

7)SAX --> Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 12

8)XPATH --> Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 8, ZVON-XPATH Tutorial

9)XSLT --> Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 9,
ZVON-XSLT Tutorial (very very useful study this link for sure )

10)XLINK,XPOINTER --> Professional XML 2nd edition chapter 10,
XMLBible- Xpointer,ZVON- Xpointer Tutorial

11)SOAP ,UDDI, WSDL -->Professional XML 2nd edt chapter 24, 27

12)XML Signature ( You can use this gist from the notes ,that I used for learning , but I did not get any questions on it ) Please someone correct me if I'm wrong .

For Signature:

 <Signature>
           <SignedInfo>
              <CanonicalizationMethod/> 
              <SignatureMethod/>
              <Reference >
                  <DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.something.com"/>
                  <DigestValue>XXGYUGKKJ</DigestValue>
               </Reference>
           </SignedInfo>
           <SignatureValue/>
           <Object/>
           <KeyInfo/>
       </Signature>
 

For Encryption :

 <EncryptedData >
          <EncryptionMethod/>?
          <KeyInfo>
             <EncryptedKey/>?
             <AgreementMethod/>?
             <KeyName/>?
             <RetrievalMethod/>?
          </KeyInfo>?
          <CipherData> <!-- This is the only mandatory child -->
             <CipherValue/>?
             <CipherReference/>?
          </CipherData>
          <EncryptionProperties/>?
       </EncryptedData>
 
 

Please also use the resources mentioned in the other postings and definetly go through all the mock-up tests in the Java ranch link and all the FAQ's etc..,

Guys excuse me If I have missed something . I could have done it much better if not for a proper time management . There were some Q's from the mock-up tests too.
All the best future exam takers !!

Thanks,
Jeni

[ June 11, 2004: Message edited by: Jeni Jay ]

[ June 11, 2004: Message edited by: Jeni Jay ]
[ June 11, 2004: Message edited by: Jeni Jay ]

[Marcelo Sousa Ancelmo]

Congrats Jeni

Regards,

[Tong Chen]

Big congratulations!

[Lasse Koskela]

Congratulations!

And a big "wow" on the preparation stuff

[Hari Vignesh Padmanaban]

Congrats Jeni
Pass is a pass !!!

And thankx for posting teh preparation stuff !!

whats next ?

[Ko Ko Naing]

Congratulations!!! And Thanks a lot for the preparation tips...

[Dhiren Joshi]

Congratulations!!! Jeni,
Can you clarify some question I have.
Where did u study for XSL-FO and how much depth do you think is required

Thanks
Dhiren

[Jeni Jay]

Thank you Everyone
Sorry for my late reply ,I was out of town. Well Dhiren about your questions on XSL-FO .The best book to read is Profesional XML 2nd edition wrox . I would suggest that as you read this XSL-FO chapter take a white paper and draw outlines ,when they describe about page-height, page-width, margin etc.., and as always pictorial views are easy to remember than theory . Spend 2-3 hours for once reading that chapter patiently and draft a picture and you should be able to remember them very very well for exams and afterwards too . Also you can go through this link as well
XSL-FO

Let me know if you need any more help.
Thanks,
Jeni

[Dhiren Joshi]

Hi Jeni,
Thanks for the valuable resources on XSL-FO
How is XML Bible for the XSL-FO? It has too...... much detail do I need to know all the 64 odd tags and 254 odd properties .
I just can't remember all of them

Thanks
Dhiren

[Jeni Jay]

Hi Dhiren,
Well XML bible is also a good book for XSL-FO .You do not have to memorize the list of 65 tags. Read the example and it is very very simple and you can understand them easily. Some tips like the XSL-FO has the first tag as "root" after xml declaration. XSL-FO is similar to CSS for formatting the page . so basically it talks about all the nitty gritty details of a page . Here we do not just talk about a single page but a document consisting of multiple pages.So they would have a layout and hence starts with the tag "layout-master-page" which in turn has a "simple-page-master" having "master-name" as its attribute.

Start drafting every tag in a clean white paper as you read through the chapter 18 of XML-bible in a broad view and you should be able to follow it . It is very simple . XML-bible even describes about page-layout in the figure 18-2 chapter 18 . It would be sufficient to read all the important tags rather than bogging on the whole tag list without understanding.
Once you understand the general concepts of the page-sequence and some other important tags . quickly go through the list of tags.

Hope this helps .
Thank you
Jeni

[Dhiren Joshi]

Thanks Jeni.
I have got some more questions.
Which resource would you recommend for reading about ID/IDREF/IDREFS key/keyref and how they relate with using database access for XML. My concepts in these issues is badly confused like XSL-FO was :-) .

Thanks
Dhiren

[Dhiren Joshi]

Hi Jeni ,
Can you suggest which Mock test /mock test sites you used . I didnt find many XML mock test site freely available.
Thanks
Dhiren

[Jeni Jay]

Hi Dhiren,
These MOCK-UPtests in the JAVARANCH -->XMLcertification-->IMPORTANTlinks are more than sufficient to prepare for the exam. Also go through Rosseanne's FAQ's page. He has drafted a valuable amount of information. Do not forget ZVON as I had mentioned earlier. These mock-up's and FAQ's and Professional XML 2nd edition ,Professional Schemas -wrox publication are sufficient to rock in the exam. Opps ...Most importantly the valuable suggestions given by other java ranchers and big applause to this site and the moderators.

Thanks,
Jeni

[Vidya Ravi]

http://www.mulberrytech.com/quickref/

This might be a good quick ref for memory jogging. It covers XSLT & XPath.

Actually I am planning to take my exam by August. So Dhiren's Questions make me think

HTH,
Vidya

[Jay Blanton]

http://www.perfectxml.com

This is also a really good reference link.

It has a collection of all the XML sample chapters out there. You don't even need a book if you put all these together. Great resource.