Hi,
I've just finished my ICED - took me 4 weeks to do all 3 exams, here's a run down on my schedule. Note: this wont work for everyone, some people prefer to immerse themselves in detailed study for months, if thats you - great you'll probably get a deeper understanding than me, but if like me you want quick results heres a few pointers:
Bit of background - I work with WSAD all day everyday and already had SCWCD and SCBCD, so had a good understanding of most of what was being covered, I just needed to get through the IBM exams!
1) I started with 287, read Kushners book and made sure I knew the ICE
test backwards and really *understood* all the answers (including the WHY wrong ones were wrong) - Thanks to Javaranch for really helping out here!!. This took me 2 weeks and got a scraped pass 67%. If I wanted to do better should probably have read "Head First EJB" again for what is THE BEST giude to EJB stuff you'll ever find.
2) 484 I did in 1 week - theres a lot of overlap with 287, so its not too much of a leap. If you know you're EJBs and
JSP stuff theres really not too much else (DAO and MVC patterns need to be understood though). Make sure you REALLY have the ins and outs of transactional behaviour of EJBs and what happens when various types of exceptions are thrown. I found this exam really easy and got 78% - it only took me 30 minutes!
3) 486 - I was worried about this 'cos I'd heard of a few people struggling with this test and the infamous exhibits woried me. However, I read the Fowler book and found a complete set of ICE test questions and answers in a different forum and made sure I understood what all those questions were after (1 weeks prep). Almost 70% of the test refered to exhibits - but most questions refered to the same exhibits, so after a while I didnt bother looking at them 'cos I knew what the question was referring to.
Alot of these question seemed to me to have LOTS of correct answers, so I felt it was a bit hit and miss - but I got 83% so cant complain!
Again a couple of questions on MVC patterns and multi-tiers applications (make sure you understand WHY and HOW)[4 questions perhaps?], and if you really understand that generally objects should perform operations to themselves not to each other, then you'll be fine (this was the basis for at least 6 questions).
(Oh.. and dont bother trying to use any of the cheat-test stuff, apart from the lack of achievment and de-valuing of certs, my experience is that they are a COMPLETE con and waste of money! see other post for details!!! )
Good Luck!
OK - I feel like swanning off on holiday somewhere now!...
