How tough is SCMAD ?

[Reghu Ram Thanumalayan]

Hello Authors,
I have a background of Java and J2EE. I am interested in learning J2ME and Mobile Technologies. I use certification as a tool for learning new technologies.

As far i have seen in this forum, there are no certification study guides for J2ME.

So how hard is it to pass the exam with a good score ? How long would it take for a person new to J2Me to complete the exam ( say i can put in 2 hrs daily for this) ?
[ August 23, 2005: Message edited by: Reghu Ram T ]

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Reghu Ram T:
So how hard is it to pass the exam with a good score ? How long would it take for a person new to J2Me to complete the exam ( say i can put in 2 hrs daily for this) ?

It is not that hard or that easy, IMO. Hard working will overcome the difficulty of the exam easily.

As for the preparation time for the exam, if you have 2 hours daily for this, I guess it might take about three months or higher... Well it depends on your learning rate as well. If you can absorb things faster than others, then it will take less time. And background experiences on UI, Game experience, DB experience matter as well.

[Reghu Ram Thanumalayan]

Thanks for the reply Ko Ko. Is it necessary to go through the specs. I found them very boring when i learnt for SCBCD.

From one of your posts, i could see that, a book is due to be released by Dec 05. It is Head First or any other certification book ?

[Reghu Ram Thanumalayan]

Originally posted by Ko Ko Naing:

And background experiences on UI, Game experience, DB experience matter as well.

And regarding the UI, Game and DB experience, i have worked with Java Swing and normal DB stuff. But i dont think they will be applicable to J2ME.

And do you have any good tutorials regarding the game programming stuff ?

[Mala Gupta]

> Is it necessary to go through the specs

It is advisable to go through the specs (You must have noticed this when you prepared for the SCBCD exam)

[Reghu Ram Thanumalayan]

Originally posted by Mala Gupta :

(You must have noticed this when you prepared for the SCBCD exam)

I did not go through the specs for SCBCD since i found them very boring and too dull to learn and i did get a good score without going thru them.

Yes, it is advisable to go through them but is it necessary?

Since enough material is not available, i think it might be helpful though.
[ August 23, 2005: Message edited by: Reghu Ram T ]

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Reghu Ram T:
From one of your posts, i could see that, a book is due to be released by Dec 05. It is Head First or any other certification book ?

Well, I have heard from someone inside. But it is better not to mention things more than this. But just to let exam aspirants know that there will defintely be one book coming up soon so that they might wait for that, if they want.

So please don't ask more than that. Cos I just don't want to be in trouble, because of my tongue(well, my fingers that type the messages)

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Reghu Ram T:


And regarding the UI, Game and DB experience, i have worked with Java Swing and normal DB stuff. But i dont think they will be applicable to J2ME.

Well, it is good to have Swing or any UI experience, if you are reading MIDP UI stuff. In the same way, it is good to have DB or record-based data storage experience, if you are reading RMS stuff.

Of course, developers with those background will understand things faster than those with no background on those technologies...

[Rudy Harianto]

Originally posted by Ko Ko Naing:


It is not that hard or that easy, IMO. Hard working will overcome the difficulty of the exam easily.

one of the difficulty on this exam is: there isn't any certification book available yet. and that should makes us work extra hard

[Sathya Srinivasan]

The exam in itself is not too hard. Since most of the API is similar to core Java, it is very easy to find your way around.

The specs related to the exam, unlike other specs (like EJB) are very readable. I took the beta version of the exam and had to solely rely on specs and found them quite useful. In some cases (like MIDP and WMA), the specs are really the API documentation itself.

There are also quite a few notes on the exam nowadays (including one by me ). They should also help you get a footing.

Of course, you can always get the simulator for a great practice run!

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Sathya Srinivasan:
Of course, you can always get the simulator for a great practice run!

In addition to Sathya's suggestion, I would like to remind exam aspirants just to use the simulation software to measure up the readiness for the exam. Sometimes too much practice on a simulation software might make you memorize the questions and answers from the simulation software.

After practicing for several times, I even know the correct answers of a question just by looking a few words contained in the question. It should not be like that basically. Simulation softwares are just to test your readiness and measure up your weakness in certain objectives of an exam.

[Rudy Harianto]

and sometimes from the mock exam, we can get which topics or sections should we concentrated and memorized to be succeed in the exam.

[Reghu Ram Thanumalayan]

Originally posted by Ko Ko Naing:


Sometimes too much practice on a simulation software might make you memorize the questions and answers from the simulation software.

After practicing for several times, I even know the correct answers of a question just by looking a few words contained in the question.

Yes, I too had this experience when i was preparing for SCJP. Since it was my first certification exam, i wanted to be very very clear with the concepts before taking the exam. So i was taking the same mocks repeatedly and at one point of time, i could click the answer immediately on seeing the question.

But i corrected this when i was learning for the BCD exam.