Passed scea part1 with 91%, my comments...

[Vaithiya Sundaram]

I passed SCEA part 1 exam with 91%.

I followed javaranch and yahoo(scea_j2ee) groups almost everyday for the past two months. They helped me a lot to find out study materials,clarify doubts and get the inspiration from successful candidates.

First I started studying to understand and get involved into different technologies of this exam. I read lot of materials from internet here and there. I am also familiar with many topics as I have j2ee design and development work experience. Once I thought I am familiar with all the topics, then I booked for the exam giving one month of time to read again from exam point of view. In this one month I read lots of study notes from the group, taken available mock exams and I prepared brief notes for myself.

As everyone mentioned, the real exam is different from mock exams. But mock exams really helped to understand the questions types.
This exam requires your good understanding on the technologies especially on j2ee,common architecture,legacy connectivity and security.

The easiest part of the exam is UML(4) and Internationalization(2).
They were very easy and straight forward.
Design patterns: few straight forward questions, few ejb related questions and one benefits question.
Many questions from ejb and legacy connectivity.
Atleast two questions from B2B business architecture.

I thought the timing is not well enough. I could not find time to review my answers.


Some of the materials I studied:
EJB:
Head First EJB, ejb spec, best practices from http://www.precisejava.com, etc.

Design Patterns:
Head First DP,
http://www.netobjectives.com/download/dpmatrix.pdf
http://home.earthlink.net/~huston2/dp/patterns_quiz.html
GOF(just for reference)

UML:
UML Distilled(For your understanding)
For the exam:
http://info.borland.com/techpubs/together/together_guides/umlonlinecourse/
http://www.holub.com/goodies/uml/

Internationalization:
Tutorial from java.sun.com

Security:
Cade's book
http://www.3com.com/other/pdfs/infra/corpinfo/en_US/50309001.pdf
http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/security/pkin/contents.htm
http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/security/sslin/contents.htm
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-04-2000/jw-0428-security.html
http://java.sun.com/sfaq/

load balancing:
http://www.onjava.com/lpt/a/1228

legacy system connectivity:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-tip-leg.html
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/00.reports/00tn003.html

Study Notes:
Cade's book.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scea_j2ee/files/SCEA-Nutshell/
Ramu notes from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scea_j2ee/files/
SCEA Quick referecnce.doc from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scea_j2ee/files/
http://www.leocrawford.org.uk/work/jcea/part1/index.html

mock exams:
288 questions and answers from yahoo group, it is also available in http://www.javaqueries.com as a mock exam.
http://www.moelholm.com/
http://javacoding.net/certification/scea/index.html

Thank you all for your valuable help and wish you all the best to test takers.

Thanks
Vaithiya

[Harsha Yadalam]

Congratulations

I have been following your postings for some time. They have been very helpful.

[Yong How, Lim]

Congrats Vaithiya

Now for the Part 2 and Part 3

[VP Jain]

Hi,

Congradulations



and thank you for sharing your experience.

All the best for SCEA PART II & PART III


.VP Jain.

[Bharat Bhosale]

Awesome performance buddy. Many Congratulations !

Thanks for inputs.

Bharat

[Raju Sri]

Hi Sundaram

My heartly congratulations on achieving such an excellent score.Best of luck for Part II and III.

Regards
Raju

[Marcelo Sousa Ancelmo]

Congrats, great score!



Regards,

[Harsha Yadalam]

I know this is a very repeated question but anyway I would like to ask you as you had taken the exam most recently. Are the questions more specific about technology like method definitions and locations or was it more at a higher layer ?

I would like to know if I am ready for the test and I thought the mock tests were a good indicator. If the questions are not similar to them then do you suggest some ways of how I could determine if I am done with my preparation ?

[Vaithiya Sundaram]

Hi All,
Thanks a lot for your wishes.

Harsha,
The questions mostly at higher level. There were No syntax or method signature or deployment descriptor level questions.
But in UML, you should be able to recognize given diagrams, methods, associations, mulitiplicity and access modifiers.
In Internationalization you are required to know class/package level knowledge. for ex. which class or package does formatting?which class is responsible for the given problem?

Though mock exams are not very similar to real exam, still if you are able to get 80% and above you should be ready for the exam. Actually I also struggled like you that how to determine myself ready for the exam but I could not get the answer. What I did is I read atleast two new study notes in the last week before exam to review as well as to check whether I missed any topic.

Hope it helps...feel free to ask me if you have any more doubts.
All the best!

[Harsha Yadalam]

Vaithiyanathan,

Thanks for the inputs. I would surely bug u with more of my questions.

Thanks,
Harsha

[Tong Chen]

congratulations!

[Meenakshi Iyer]

Hi Vaithiyanathan,
Congrats. fantastic score.I have a lot of questions for this statement of yours.

As everyone mentioned, the real exam is different from mock exams.
But mock exams really helped to understand the questions types.

How is the real exam different from Mock Exams. What exactly do you mean by this. Can you elaborate a little bit on this statement.


1. I have been working only on Whizlab's Mock Exams and not following
any other links in detail. I am just doing cursory reading from all
the links.Because i practised the same mock exams again and again
from Whiz labs i am getting good scores more than 80%.

I haven't tried out any other Mock Exams.

I just tried a Mock Exam from this site

http://javacoding.net/certification/scea/index.html

and it makes me feel i don't anything at all.

Is the real exam going to be this tough. The reason why i am asking you this
question is i am doing good at all Whiz Labs Mock Exams and i thought i am
almost ready for the test.

But after seeing your email i attempted a Mock Exam from this site
http://javacoding.net/certification/scea/index.html and my confidence level
has almost come down by 70%.

As some one else wrote how do i know i am ready.

Also is Mark Cade's Book Sufficient to read topics on j2ee,common architecture,
legacy connectivity and security.

How Complex are the EJB Questions.

Thanks,
Meenakshi

[Vaithiya Sundaram]

Hi Meenakshi,
Thanks for your wishes.
I would not suggest working on only mock exams. Mock exams generally don't cover entire subject. You should be taking Mock exams only to validate yourself where you stand. You should not be taking mock exams as a study material.

I haven't used whizlabs so I do not know how whizlab mock exam is!
moelholm.com 2nd mock test was good.
You can also expect some questions at javacoding.net level.
Anyway, whatever mock exam you take if you can take 80% and above at first attempt itself you should be ready for the exam.

Mark Cade's book alone is not sufficient. For common architecture, legacy connectivity, Internationalizatin Ramu's notes is also good. For security, Mark Cade's book is good start as well as read the links I shown. I think Security is the one the toughest topic in this exam and there is no single material to point out which covers all security related info.

EJB: You can expect questions from life cycle,passivation,pooling,container management,transactions,services, and also ejb related with legacy connectivity,security and design patterns.

Feel free to ask any doubt you have.

Thanks
Vaithiya

[Meenakshi Iyer]

Hi Vaithiyanathan,
Thanks so much for taking so much time to patiently answer all my questions.

I am pretty much stuck at a point where i dind't know what to do and
i was looking for comprehensive information of this kind for a long
time which answers all my questions in one shot.

This should keep me moving at a much better pace.

Hope i can clear Part 1 with a decent score sometime soon.

Thanks Again for the detailed reply.

Thanks,
Meenakshi Iyer