I passed the Sun Certified Web Component Developer exam this morning.
A couple of observations:
The Manning book (SCWCD Exam Study Kit:
Java Web Component Developer Certification by Hanumant Deshmukh and Jignesh Malavia) may be the best computer book that I own. It isn't perfect, but the explanations are very clear.
The Sybex book (Java 2 Web Developer Certification Study Guide with CD-ROM by Natalie Levi) is bad. Real bad. I had hoped that the second edition would be better than the first, but it is not.
Some of the questions on the exam start with the text "Click the Exhibit Button." For those questions, an "Exhibit" button appears with the other buttons at the bottom of the screen. Clicking the button creates a pop-up window that has information that you'll need in order to answer the question. I didn't realize that at first, so it took me a minute to get oriented.
There are 9 questions that are asked before the
test starts. They are designed to get an idea about your background. I found the wording of the questions strange. They are multiple-choice questions, but on some of them I found that I didn't fit into any of their categories cleanly. Does anybody know what those questions are for? Do your answers impact the exam questions that they give you?
I have seen postings here that say that the exam is easy. It is not. I have seen several posts from people who claim that they got 98%. I am skeptical. People have a funny way of exaggerating their successes and downplaying their failures.
The sheer volume of information that must be retained for the exam is staggering. All you have to do is to take a look at the number of pages in the exam guide to be convinced of that. No matter how much experience you have, to do really well on the exam you need a good memory.
The mock exams on the CD that come with the Manning book are a good predictor of your actual score.
Good luck everybody!