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Passed with 90%

 
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I just wanted to convey my thanks to javaranch for providing such informative discussion forums and certification resources.
Today I passed the IBM XML certification with a score of 90%. Javaranch has been very helpful thru out.
Thanks
Murali
 
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Congratulations
 
Greenhorn
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Great Yar ,
So now can u share u r experince ?
 
Murali Kashaboina
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Thanks for ur wishes.
I started preparing for the exam a month ago. To start with I took couple of sample exams to assess my skill level. I found that I was shaky in some of the areas such as DTD, XSL (T & FO), advanced XML Schema, advanced SAX/DOM, APIs of SAX/DOM and XLinks and there was a serious need for improvement. So I started on a reading path by browsing thru the following books:
- XML Bible by Elliotte Rusty Harold (IDG)
- XML Schema by Eric Van Der Vlist (O'Reilly)
- XSLT by Doug Tidwell (O'Reilly)
- Java and XML (2nd Edition) by Brett McLaughlin (O'Reilly)
- Java Web Services by David A.Chappel and Tyler Jewell
Apart from these books I relied on online tutorials such as the following:
- Tutorials at www.w3schools.com
- XLink tutorial at http://www.javacommerce.com/tutorial/xml/linking.html
- Good article on XLinks at http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/2000/09/xlink/index.html
- Another good article on XLinks at http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/XML/XLinkBasics/print_html
- XSL FO tutorial at http://www.renderx.com/Tests/doc/html/tutorial.html
- Another XSL FO tutorial at http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/2001/01/17/xsl-fo/index.html
After every preparatory milestone, I took mock exams to diagnose my understanding and skill level. I probably repeated some of the mock exams more than once to assess my understanding of the subjects.
After taking the exam, I am of the opinion that the exam was quite tricky than anticipated. If one really wants to score more, one must really dig down each subject in detail particularly paying more attention to the following areas:
- XML Schema in the areas of ID/IDREF, derivations of simple types, derivations of complex types, exact possibilities with each derivation, pattern facet and regular expressions, scenarios where Schema is a better choice than DTD
- Good understanding of structuring data in a modular fashion
- XSL in the areas of evaluation of XPath expressions
- DTD in the areas of both general Entities and Parameter Entities, Internal sub set vs external sub set, scenarios of using internal sub set
- SAX and DOM APIs
- SOAP structure, scenarios of using UDDI
- Good understanding of XLinks, XPath, XPointers, XSL-FO
- Overall understanding of how to fit these technologies together to provide an efficient solution from design and architecture point of view
I really did not finalize the date of exam until I started scoring more than 85% in all the mock exams consistently. I also took the IBM sample test provided by Prometric by paying 10 bucs and my score was 93.5%. I got a free voucher but unfortunately by that time I already payed for the exam. I am not sure if I can get my money back. (Hey I can use $150 for some other cool stuff, u know!!)
I can share more info but it will too much for this post I guess, but I am willing to answer any other queries!!
Wish you best of luck!!
Thanks
Murali
 
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Is 1 month of preparation enough for this exam? I do have much experience in this field.
 
Naina Si
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Sorry Typo error, do NOT have much experience.
 
Ranch Hand
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So if you take sample test on prometric by paying $10 then do you get a free voucher for the exam(even if fail on this test)? How long is the voucher valid? I am an XML beginner...
SCJP,SCWCD
 
Shreyas Reddy
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Another question:
Did you read allthe chapters from all the books you mentioned?
Thx
 
Murali Kashaboina
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Hi,
1 month is a very confusing time frame. For some, it may be too much but for some it may be too less. What I feel is if you set a fixed time frame of 1 month and start preparing for the exam, at the end of the day what counts is how many hours you spend every day in preparation. Because Oct and Nov are relatively calm periods job wise, I was able to take some time off from work and focus on preparation. On an average I might have spent 4 hours per day of serious preparation during the last 1 month. If you consider preparing in just 1 month and do not spend more than 3-4 hours on preparation, my suggestion would be to extend the time period to what you think is appropriate. Certainly my suggestion would be not to rush taking the exam without proper preparation because you may end up facing tough time answering the questions. Also when you prepare, while you give importance to practical usage of the subject, you should also give importance to conceptual understanding from a design and architecture point of view. That will help you a lot while answering the questions in the real exam.
I have been referring to the above books for my work purposes even before I started preparing for the exam. So as part of my preparation, I read all the chapters that cover topics tested in the exam. Some of the other chapters provided some good reference but in some cases I skipped those chapters. Also as I was finding my weaknesses after taking the mock exams, I used these books as quick references to dive right into the subject of my weakness.
In regards to the IBM free voucher, I was unaware of this free voucher concept before taking the sample test probably because I did not pay much attention to all the information. However after the test I received an email with an offer of free exam voucher. Anyways, I am not exactly sure about the policy behind this free voucher stuff.
Regards,
Murali
 
Abdul Basit
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Thanks
For your detail explanation and it really help us in passing 141(!$!) paper.
thanks
 
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Congrats
 
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