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Cleared Exam

 
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Hi,
I cleared the exam on Sunday morning with 70% marks . I am a silent member of this forum for last 1 month. Thanks to all the members for their excellent tips. Special thanks to Jayadev Pulaparty and Greg Merrill for their excellent postings. Even though I was not actively participating don�t want to leave without sharing my experiences.
Background in XML:
Working on web based projects since last 4 years. Learned XML from www.w3schools.com last year to have a knowledge. Not using right now in any of my projects.
Motivation:
Update myself with the latest upcoming Technologies.
Got a free voucher from IBM.
Target: My target was 80%.
Preparation tools:
100% web based preparation + XML@whizlab
https://coderanch.com/forums
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xml-cert/
Preparation time: 4 Weeks on and off.
Review:
I can�t say the exam was easy or tough as it varies from person to person. It wasn�t that easy as mentioned by some people as well as not that difficult as mentioned by others. I was able to complete all 55 questions in 90 minutes. Could revise only first 19 question. I used mainly the elimination process for answering the questions. The questions that were taking more than 2 minutes I marked then and jumped to the next question.
The scenario questions were not that long. Some schema questions and identify valid XML were long and tricky. DOM was unto API level and I lost some marks there. One question was about �Coercion� in Namespace and one from Schema Extention. About 2 questions were including XQuery.
Tips for preparation:
In one of the earlier postings someone mentioned that there is no need to buy any books so I decided to make it 100% web based.
Here is the Topic wise list that I used for preparation. (Use this list at your own risk based on your Motivation, Target and background).
Exam Info
http://www-1.ibm.com/certify/tests/obj141.shtml
http://www.perfectxml.com/IBMXMLCertification.asp#ref
1. XML/DTD basics:
www.w3schools.com
I started with w3schools and covered XHTML, XML, XSL, DTD, Schema, SOAP and WSDL in the first pass.
The next wonderful complete and concise link is http://www.xml.com/pub/a/98/10/guide0.html
Test will cover a significant amount of XML/DTD syntax, so carefully study this article, following the links to the W3C recommendations when appropriate. This link is really good to start with if you are new to XML. Though some topics doesn�t make any sense in the first read.
2. XSL and XMLSchema:
Get Roger Costello's tutorial for XSLT and Schema from http://www.xfront.com. It is the best available on the web. Do them completely you will get a good confidence of these topics. Go through readme file to get the
XSL Processors
XALAN from Apache (http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/)
XT from James Clark (http://www.jclark.com) or
SAXON from Michael Kay (http://users.iclway.co.uk/mhkay/saxon/instant.html)
Schema validators
xerces from Apache
xsv from Henry Thompson (ftp://ftp.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/pub/XSV/XSV12.EXE)
If you download XML project from this site it gives you all the processors and validators.
3. DOM - Very Important. Dom core is a collection of Interface specification
A must read for DOM are
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/dw/xml-onlinecourse-bynewest?OpenDocument&Count=500
Search for DOM tutorial at this link. Actually you will get DOM, SAX and XSL-FO tutorials here. The XSL-FO tutorial is a wonderful and is more than enough to go through.
This stuff doesn�t cover some of the stuff like NodeFilters, TreeWalker, DOM Event Listener model etc.
A posting by �Jayadev Pulaparty� is a must read for DOM
https://coderanch.com/t/146641/po/certification/over-DOM
Link to the DOM API lies here:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/guide/plugin/dom/org/w3c/dom/package-summary.html
4. SAX
A must read for SAX are
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/dw/xml-onlinecourse-bynewest?OpenDocument&Count=500
Search for SAX tutorial at this link. It�s more than enough.
SAX API:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/api/org/xml/sax/package-summary.html
5. NAMESPACE
When you will do the Schema tutorial from http://www.xfront.com you will have a good knowledge of NAMESPACE.
The other must to resource is http://www.zvon.org/xxl/NamespaceTutorial/Output/index.html
You can have a look at http://www.brics.dk/~amoeller/XML/namespaces.html also.
6. Xpath, XLink, Xpointer, CSS and CSS2
The best place to look for the is:
http://www.zvon.org/index.php?nav_id=tutorials&mime=html_gr
7. Xquery
Check this link for Xquery http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/10/16/xquery.html this should be more than enough to have a feel of it.
8. XML Security (Just an Idea) http://www.perfectxml.com/Syngress/XMLDigitalSignature/default.asp . No need to read the entire article.

If you are still hungry look at http://www.perfectxml.com/FreeLibrary.asp to get a list of free chapters available.
Sorry can�t give reviews about any books as haven�t used any.
Free Mock Exams �
I will recommend only
1.IBM website has a sample mock exam given here http://certify.torolab.ibm.com/icetest.jsp
2. http://www.witscale.com/index.html
3.XML and XSLT Quiz from http://www.perfectxml.com/TestQuiz.asp
4.http://www.skillometer.com
5.Personally will not recommend http://www.javaranch.com/xml/XMLexamList.jsp as some of questions have wrong answers.
XML@whizlabs was helpful in understanding scenario-based questions. For concepts it�s really at tougher level.
Last minute tips links:
http://www.certificationguru.com/xmltutorial/index.html (Doesn�t seem to work right now)
http://www.javaprepare.com/xml/notes/intro.html (Good One)
Other excellent links
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xml-cert/message/181
https://coderanch.com/t/146840/po/certification/Passed
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/spetrova4/xmlcert_ibmexam.html
http://viktor99.virtualave.net/IBM141a.html
http://viktor99.virtualave.net/IBM140a.html
If you still have any other questions do let me know �
Vijay Singh Rathore�
SCJP, SCJD, IBM UML, IBM XML.
Pessimism Sometimes helps me to prepare for the worst.
 
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Congrats on passing!
As for targets and whatnot... in the end, whether you get a 70% or a 100%, all that matters is passing and your ability to use the technology when you need it!
 
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Congrats, Vijay!
Thanks for the info on how you passed the test.
Could you post here or send me an email regarding the questions on the JavaRanch mock exams that were incorrect? Want to compare notes with you because I am currently working on revising the SAX & DOM test. If the other tests have problems I'd like to know.
 
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Congrats.
Thanks for the ton of info.
- madhav
 
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Congrats Vijay
Sri
 
Vijay S. Rathore
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Hi All,
Thanks to all of you for your appreciation.
Hi John Wetherbie, will try to be in touch with you soon.

Vijay
 
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Nice shot Vijay
 
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WOW, that was a detailed list of resources for the exam. I appreciate your effort in putting down the details.
One question, does the XML WIZ questions come near the reall exam questions ? I mean do they at least give you some idea about what sort of prepration is required for the reall exam ?
-Sharma
 
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Congrats Vijay ! You are no longer an inactive member of this forum !
[ February 11, 2003: Message edited by: Rajan Thiyagarajan ]
 
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Congrats vijay...& thanks for your post.
 
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Congratulations!
 
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Congradulation Vijay..! Thanks for the details you have provided.. it looks great..!
Hari.
 
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congrats
thanks for info.
 
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Good Job!
 
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Vijay,
Good job, thanks for the infor.
Mary
 
Vijay S. Rathore
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Hi All,

Thanks again for all your appreciation and support.
Here is the answer for hanshyam's Question
One question, does the XML WIZ questions come near the reall exam questions ? I mean do they at least give you some idea about what sort of prepration is required for the reall exam ?
-Sharma
Well to be very frank I have already got a feedback from someonw from the previous post that it is really at a tougher level that the real exam, so I used it only understand scenario based and basic concepts questions and skipped the XPointer and XPath questions that were really tough and needed much more time and understanding to answer them. I observed some bugs in the answer explanations (just one or two) where they are mentioning to different choice and writing a different explanation.
Their support is wondeful as my machine crashed day before the exam and they immediately helped me to get my XML@whiz working.
But I think it has more +++ than -.

Well Good Luck to all of you who are in the process of preparing the exam.
 
ghanshyam sharma
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Thanks a lot for your answer vijay. This really helps.
best wishes for your next ventures...
-Sharma
 
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Congratulations VIjay
 
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Hi, Vijay,
First of all, congratulations!
Can you please shed a light on: to what detailed level the exam will be testing you regarding the DOM and SAX?
Thanks a lot!
 
Vijay S. Rathore
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Hi Tong Chen

For DOM you should have a good working knowledge as I lost lot of marks in that as I was also under the same impression that just the API knowledge should be sufficient. But it was detailed. SAX was fine. Means not too many complex questions.
Vijay
 
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What a comprehensive guideline!!
Congrats and many thanks to Vijay.
 
Hariharan Raman
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Congrats Vijay..! Thanks for the information you had posted..It looks really Great..!
Hari.
 
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Nice shot!
Great info... Thanks.
 
Vijay S. Rathore
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Thanks everyone.
Wish me luck for my next exam, IBM 483 (Enterprise Connectivity)
 
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Congratulations!
 
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Good Luck Mr. Rathor!!!
Amit Jain
IBM websphere, xml
SCJP
"bannu tera hua ab mera kya hoga...!"
 
Vijay S. Rathore
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Thanks Amit Jain
 
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hey vijay
that was a detailed info which definetly must have helped a lot of people..
thanks for ur effort and time....
cheers man !!!
anand
 
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Congrats man....,
Thanks for all the links....
 
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