Hi everyone,
This is really embarrassing, and I wouldn't have wanted to ask for this here, but I have no idea where else to turn to.
I've taken the multiple choice exam a couple of months ago and failed miserably with 55%.
I admit I wasn't fully prepared for it during that time, as I didn't review much.
I have several years of design and development experience, and it got to my head. I got overconfident.
A few months after, I decided to review using the OCM
Java EE 6 Enterprise Architect Exam Guide by Paul Allen and Joseph Bambara.
I was able to finish and understand most of the book. I was also able to do several practice tests, and was able to pass each one.
I retook the exam, and bam, I failed again with 70% (71% is the passing).
A few weeks after that, I decided to skip part 1 and went ahead and registered for part 2; the master assignment.
After about 3 months of working on the assignment, I went ahead and submitted it, and registered for the essay (part 3).
Funny enough, a few days later, I got the results, and I passed (145/160).
Fast forward to about a month ago, I decided I'd finish the certification process by beating my arch-nemesis; ;1Z0-807.
So I reviewed my book again, only this time, I added a couple more, like Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java EE Study Guide by Mark Cade and Humphrey Sheil.
I also read the Java EE 6 Tutorial, along with articles about GoF Design
patterns, as well as
J2EE (<1.5) and JavaEE design patterns.
Even read through some review materials of some of the passers who were generous enough to share them online.
But when I retook the exam, I got the same score I got before, 70%, still a fail.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong and I feel like I really hit a wall this time.
I compared the feedback from my last two attempts, and noticed something funny; I remember one question asking about the advantage of 2-tier over 3-tier.
In everywhere I've read, the only advantages of 2-tier are performance and security.
Based on the feedback I got, it seems the exam is expecting availability as the answer (due to lesser single point of failure).
I find this odd, and am now double guessing if I should trust what I've learned so far, or just try and figure out what answers the exam is expecting.
I hope someone out there can give me some advice on this.
Thank you,
Abdhul