Passed exam with 86%

[Caroline Iux]

I'd like to thank all the participants to make the forum such a wonderful place, especially to those who helped me and answered my posts.
The exam is only a little bit tougher than the pre-assessment exam and more detailed. I got questions on requirement-risk, subclass and subtype, interface etc. Some of them required careful reading of Craig Larman's book. My suggestions would be reading the two recommended books at least twice. The first time before you do the preassessment exam and after you got a good feeling of what the exam is like and what topics are important, read those books again.
Before I took the exam, my average score of the preassessment exam is between 90%-93%. My experience is if you can constantly get above 80% of the preassessment exam(that is based on understanding the questions, but just memorizing the answers cause you will get duplicate questions once you do it repeatly), you should have no problem. I have a friend who got 80% of preassessment exam and passed with 76%. So my guess is your real exam score might be a little bit lower than how you do on the preassessment exam, probably around 5%.
Once again, thanks for all the helps. My next goal would be a ICSD.

[Junilu Lacar]

Way to go, Caroline! Congratulations! Hope you still hang around and join the discussions once in a while.
Junilu

[This message has been edited by JUNILU LACAR (edited June 02, 2001).]

[Desai Sandeep]

Caroline,
Congratulations!
Glad to know that you have scored more than 80% in this test.Which test are you planning to take for ICSD - VA4J or WAS?
I am planning to take Test 486 in about 10 days from now.
- Sandeep
[This message has been edited by Desai Sandeep (edited June 03, 2001).]

[shailesh sonavadekar]

congratulations . Great score. All the very best for the future.
Your Friendly Bartender
Shailesh.

[Caroline Iux]

Originally posted by Desai Sandeep:
Which test are you planning to take for ICSD - VA4J or WAS?

I think I will take WAS. I am using both VA4J and WAS at work. VA4J is just a development tool(perfomance sucks in my opinion) and I think maybe WAS is more valuable though it is painful to use too.

[Desai Sandeep]

Hi,
May be we can think in terms of BEA Weblogic Application Server.It is the best Application Server in the market so far.
However, I am planning to switch to the IBM Jcert track after completing the Oracle Jcert track.Just Test 486 left - should be over within next 10 days.
Looking forward to share experiences (both good and bad ) of IBM products in the JavaRanch forum.
Thanks,
Sandeep

[Caroline Iux]

Originally posted by Desai Sandeep:

However, I am planning to switch to the IBM Jcert track after completing the Oracle Jcert track.Just Test 486 left - should be over within next 10 days.

I gathered that you have passed Enterprise Connectivity with J2EE. How was it? How long did you prepare for it?
Also, just out of curiosity, why do you take Oracle track, are you actually using it at work? How do you feel about its product?
I thought about BEA Weblogic too. I actually used 5.0 for a very short period(the most recent version is 6.0, I think). The reason I choose WAS is simply because I am using it almost every day and it may save me some time to get ready for the exam.

[Desai Sandeep]

Hi Caroline,
Any of the Level 3 tests is quite challenging.It is not only because the questions demand lot of practical application (maybe more than the UML test) but also because time is not available in plenty.From what I gathered about UML test, time has never a constraint.I also found the same when I took the JDeveloper IDE (Level 2 Vendor dependent Jcert test) Test.
For both the Level 3 tests, I had about 5 minutes left for revising my answers.It is as good as saying you have to get it right the first time.However, my scores at Level 3 might reflect that the tests are extremely difficult.I should say it is not exactly so.I had prepared for this test alone; without help from any discussion forum (hardly people were aware of these tests!!) and also when Java Enterprise Technologies for me was just 2-3 month old.Now, I can confidently say that you can score more than 80% in both the tests, if you do proper brainstorming like what we had done for the UML test.
As regards why I chose Oracle track was because, this was the only Certification Track for which coaching was available in India.I decided to take the Oracle track, because I liked some of the features that Oracle offers.Techonologies like "Business Components for Java(BC4J)" - A Java and XML solution (probably the first!), is infact better than EJB's.Their IDE is quite decent.Also their Application Server (OAS4.0.8.2, now it is iAS9i) is OK.The only problem is that documentation for any of the Oracle products are poor.So to incorporate any of the "good" Oracle specific features takes hell of time.To give you an example, to deploy an EJB in OAS and then finally run it took almost a month's time for me - Ofcourse, this was me doing research all the time without assistance from anyone!!
I also feel that it is better to go the IBM way.I have been working with IBM products from the very beginning of my career.I started with Mainframes.I still feel that it is difficult for any vendor to come up with a robust thing such as Mainframes.
I think the future of Java is with IBM (unlike what most people believe it is with Sun).There are still about 70% applications running on Mainframes.Since,IBM is preaching to integrate their legacy applications (Mainframe,AS/400,etc.) with Java Technologies,it is IBM who is going to decide whether Java is going to stay for more than a decade like COBOL.This is a market area where I would like to focus on in the near future.Still not been able to find a break on this.If you are aware do let me know.
BTW, I am still unemployed - The immediate task after I am Jcert Certified is to look out for a good opportunity on Java.Would like to know your views on how I should go about this.
Thanks,
Sandeep
[This message has been edited by Desai Sandeep (edited June 04, 2001).]

[Avijeet Dash]

Congrats!!! Caroline,
great score. Good Luck.

[Panagiotis Varlagas]

Congrats Caroline! Great score!
Good luck with the rest of the JCert too.
Panagiotis.

[Ram Kondawar]

Congrats!!! Caroline for your wonderful performance.
Keep it up.

[shahzad sheriff]

Congratulation!
I am planning to give my UML Certification, therefore I want your help will you please reply me at the following email address:
[e-mail]
I am waiting for your e-mail.
Thanks,
Shahzad S. Sheriff
SCJP2 with 98%